It strikes me on the eleventh anniversary of the attacks on the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and the crash of United Airlines Flight 93 in Shanksville, PA, how similar today is to that very day. Again, it’s Tuesday. Again, the weather is impeccable — bright, sunny, and gorgeous. Even though most of us will never forget, today many of us seem far enough removed from the tragedy that the remembrance of it doesn’t quite sting as much. The Pentagon’s damage has been completely rebuilt. The Freedom Tower is well on its way to completion and is already making its mark on the New York skyline. A beautiful memorial now stands where Flight 93 crashed. As a nation and as a world community, we’re getting there.

However, having lived here in the DC area on the day of the attacks and remembering the horror of that day (losing track of my mother in the city and not being able to reach anyone), I want to impress upon my child how significant that day was and how in many ways it has affected the way she will have to live her life.

How do we as parents keep the memory and lessons of 9/11 alive for children who have no frame of reference for what life was like before the attacks? As my daughter gets older and more cognizant of the world around her (she will regularly correct you if you say “Obama” instead of “President Obama”), I want her to understand some things. I want these things to be important to her, as they are to me.

Here, Dr. Robin Goodman discusses how parents can talk to their kids about 9/11.

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