SVTP Parents and Grandparents come on in!

[xXGadfly09Xx]

Hey SVTPer's!

I am a 22 yearold single guy. I dont have kids. I would like to someday in the future but not now.


How do you tell your kids about events like the bombings in Boston, Sandy Hook, Aurora, or 9/11?

I couldn't imagine having a kid who is between 7-12 years old and trying to tell them about terrorism or school shootings without them living in fear.

I give you guys and gals who are parents props because I wouldnt know what to tell them or how to tell them.

So if you dont mind please post up how you told your kids, grandkids or even younger siblings.

Thanks in advance,

~Keith

 

[hoamskilet]

Interested to hear the responses. Ours is only 3, so not much explaining to do for me yet

 

[lobra97]

Noah is 5, I actually spoke to my mom about this the other day coincidentally and my 15 year old brother was there and was listening. I remember being in history class watching it on the TV, we usually did 10 mins of news coverage the beginning of class i just remember it being quiet throughout the entire day. Ghostland, was surreal.

 

[WireEater]

I talked to my daughter about it yesterday since it was on the news. My son will be 5 in June so he doesn't have any concept of the event. Not a whole lot of explaining. She asked what happened. I told her lots of people got hurt and a few people died. She asked how and I told her someone put bombs by the finish line and made them explode on innocent people and that sometimes people have different feelings than other people and when they don't agree with things you believe in they will try and hurt you and they can be sick which makes them want to do things like this. She asked me if they were drunk, LOL. I told her being drunk makes you do dumb things, not bad things.

I told her that kids were hurt and she said she was very sorry and sad. She then asked how far away Boston was and I told her hundred of miles and she said, good she has nothing to worry about and I left it at that.

I'm not trying to hide the outside world from my kids. I think some people shelter their kids WAY overboard and when issues arise later in life they don't know how to mentally react to it.

 

[NJ03SVTCobra]

I was pretty young when 9/11 happened. I knew a lot of people killed and my father had a meeting there 9/10/01 and 9/12/01 obviously the second one never happened. To be honest, it never really hit me how insanely ****ed up 9/11 was until I was about 14-15 years old. My parents kind of let me sort through it. I think they didn't really know how to deal with it either, as they were equally as shocked. I watched all the footage real time as it was happening and I remember just feeling this empty, weird feeling. I knew something horrible occurred but I definitely didn't know the depth of it right away.

 

[Devious_Snake]

My daughter is only 8 months, however I will treat these events the same way I learned about events that were before my time such as the world wars,civil rights movements, etc

I was in NYC for 9/11, I have been around to see plenty of things so I will not hold back the same way my Father did not ever hold back with me. The truth is the best way without sugar coating anything. I do not want her to afraid, but rather aware of what exists out there in the world.

I would be lying if I said I am not fearful for the type of world she will be growing up in.

 

[oldmodman]

During the Cuban Missile crisis, it was expected that atomic bombs would rain down on every America City at any time. Both my parents were in the defense industries and told me exactly what was going on. And that the odds were extremely slight that atomic war would actually break out.
The press, was of course, beating the drums of disaster and predicting hundreds of millions would die. My dad explained it to me this way. "Son, the TV stations have to keep you glued to the set if they want you to spend your money on their advertisers, so naturally they are going to make things sound as horrible as they can".

Just keep your kids away from a cell phone, computer, or the TV and they will be fine. Just explain that there are terrible people in the world that want to harm America. And it is only going at ever affect a tiny percentage of the population. To put it in perspective you could always say that they are more likely to be hurt by a falling tree than they are to be hurt in a terrorist bomb attack. But then they might become afraid of trees.

And during the Cuban Missile crisis I was only nine years old. I was having a great time telling all my friend's at school not to worry. But they could have a lot of fun tormenting their parents by popping a paper bag while they are watching the news. And scream "the bombs are falling" While running like hell so they don't catch you and beat you to a pulp.

 

[charba951]

Kids are only 6 and 4, but they understand the concept of bad guys and good guys.

 

[1o1proof]

I don't always agree with WireEater, but on this I agree with him and the discussion with my daughter went almost exactly like his.

 

[Mr. Mach-ete]

My 16 year old daughter knows that what happened was perpetrated by evil people and that we need to hunt them down and destroy them. My daughter has a clear understanding of what the authorities need to do.

Funny though, she couldn't tell you much about 9-11, when Binladen was killed she wasn't 100% sure what or who he was, she was only 4 when 9-11 went down.

I've met young teen age kids that couldn't tell the difference between WW1-2 or who we fought against in the revolutionary war! I knew a young girl that didn't know what country the eifel tower was located in.

 

[Coiled03]

Fortunately, my daughter is only 2, so I didn't have to explain the events of yesterday.

But given the way the world is going, I'm afraid of the things I WILL have to explain to her in the future.

My plan - which no doubt will not survive first contact - is to try to explain why the event happened, and then try to explain the astronomically small odds of it happening to her.