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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To think 6 is too young to watch 3 hours of the world trade center being bombed and collapsing?

63 replies

InkedGreen · 15/09/2019 08:50

Ex DH played the live news coverage (god knows where he picked up a recording of this) of the planes bombing the wtc to DD aged 6. She now doesn't want to go away for Christmas.

Dimwit ex says it's important to know, but she's way too young right?

OP posts:
SpotlessMind · 15/09/2019 08:56

Yeah, it’s a bit much. I’m all for being honest with children about the unpleasant sides of life, but it has to be done in an age appropriate way and three hours of it at age 6 is too much. Hopefully you can temper your daughter’s concerns by talking to her

FlashAHHHH · 15/09/2019 08:56

Of course it's important to know. But at 6? No that was a stupid thing to do.

I find it incredibly distressing and terrifying to watch even now and I'm 40!

Thehop · 15/09/2019 08:57

At 6, I’d have only explained the basics rather than shown the footage, but if you’re telling her they were bombed you’re wrong.

Kittykat93 · 15/09/2019 08:57

What the fuck was he thinking??? I find it extremely distressing in my late twenties, it is ridiculously inappropriate to be showing that footage to a 6 year old

Original poster
InkedGreen · 15/09/2019 08:59

Thanks 💐

I'm fuming and he's acting as if I'm being crazy. I wouldn't even want to watch hours of it happening as it would upset me too much

OP posts:
Fairylea · 15/09/2019 09:00

Well he probably found it easily on You Tube. It’s all on there. .

Anyway, I think it depends on the child really. My ds aged 7 has autism and is really interested in the news and current affairs. We talk about stuff like this a lot, he knows all about the towers and even stuff like Boris Johnson / Donald Trump and why people don’t like them etc etc all kinds of stuff. He sees clips on the news and asks about stuff and we explain. He wouldn’t sit through 3 hours of it though! He’d be bored after 20 mins.

My eldest child who doesn’t have autism wouldn’t have been interested or coped with it at that age.

Monty27 · 15/09/2019 09:01

Your dh sounds unhinged

SuchAToDo · 15/09/2019 09:07

Why did he have to show her the footage, and three whole hours of it?..why did he seek out the footage ? Why does he feel his six year old needs to be exposed to it, is he American and lost someone in 9/11?...,if he wanted to tell her about 9/11 why couldn't he tell her in an age appropriate way and maybe show her a picture rather than the actual live footage...?

The footage is distressing enough as an adult to watch as those in the planes must have been terrified, God only knows what those in the towers were thinking as they saw a plane heading towards them with no time for them to get away, ..I can't understand why your 6 year old needs to see three hours of it

Witchend · 15/09/2019 09:08

It does depend on the child. Ds was fascinated by news and information at that age.
His favourite video was a documentary about the Concorde crash and explanation of why it happened. He would have told you at that age his ambition was to get Concorde flying again-with him as the pilot.

Dd2 would probably have retreated into a tearful ball within the first five minutes of watching, but she did this with almost any film.
DD1 would have watched briefly, asked a couple of questions and wandered off, bored.

Original poster
InkedGreen · 15/09/2019 09:18

He is unhinged, American but from Chicago not NYC.

He's saying he just put it on and she wanted to keep on watching it, but honestly I don't believe him

OP posts:
jennymanara · 15/09/2019 09:21

I'm not sure. I would not have done it. But I also know as an adult this footage is upsetting in a way that it would not have been to my children. If the footage is simply the plan going into the building and then the buildings collapsing, then 6 year olds can not understand the enormity of that.

katienana · 15/09/2019 09:23

Yanbu it's fine to explain that this happened (maybe in the context of all the extra security we have at airports now) but a 6 year old does not need to see the footage. My ds would get really upset by it. He has been dwelling for months on the Brian Cox doc that talks about the Sun eventually destroying life on earth. We've learnt the hard way that he cant handle "real" stuff like that.

Icantthinkofanynewnames · 15/09/2019 09:25

She can know what happened without having to watch the extremely frightening and upsetting footage. To be honest I'd feel awful if I watched that too and I'm an adult!

EvilPostbox · 15/09/2019 09:29

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

greenlavender · 15/09/2019 09:32

My DS was 5 when it happened & we'd been to the WTC & he watched it at the time.

Juells · 15/09/2019 09:33

God, the poor child. I remember some series about child-raising I watched years ago (on Ch4 probably) and one Jewish 6-year-old was sat on her father's lap while he explained about the Holocaust and went through a book about it 😨 I thought the little girl would be traumatised for life, made to feel unsafe in the world at a time when she should be having a happy safe confident childhood.

Things can really prey on children's minds, they obsess over them. I don't know what you can do, OP, but if anything like that happens again I think I'd be threatening him with SS.

Ludways · 15/09/2019 09:37

I never hide anything from my children and always tell them about current events. It must be done in an age appropriate manner, I like to push what I think is age appropriate though, so what I think is age appropriate is more than what others think is age appropriate, iyswim
Even I think 3 hours of the live coverage at age 6 is far too much. Children need time to process their thoughts and to place their new thoughts into their normal life, so you have to introduce facts slowly, over years sometimes. There's no reason she needs to have all the facts at once, it's not current events, it's 18 years ago and it's actually history to her, no different to WW2 to me as I was born 22 years after that, I've learnt a lot about it over time but it never scared me. He's an idiot!

BogglesGoggles · 15/09/2019 09:38

I was around that age and saw it over and over again on the news. The image of the second airplane crashing into the tower is burned into my mind forever (haven’t seen the footage since then though). I watched the press coverage of subsequent attacks as well, there were quite a few. I can’t say that it hasn’t affected me but it is the reality of the world that I grew up in. In some ways it’s less upsetting when you are first exposed to it when you are too young to understand so you just accept. Tbh I think that shielding children from the world is a fairly new thing which started post 9/11 and I’m not sure it’s a good thing.

BogglesGoggles · 15/09/2019 09:39

But 3 hours is weird for anyone to watch no matter age. That’s longer than most films.

Moonmelodies · 15/09/2019 09:40

Wait a minute, it was bombed?

WitsEnding · 15/09/2019 09:42

My DC were 6 and 8 when it happened and it was on TV for days. By no means the only traumatic footage on the news (as shown in various public spaces as well as at home).
They also knew about Princess Di's death before I did as the networks chose to screen it in place of children's TV in the early morning.

starlingsintheslipstream · 15/09/2019 09:43

Was it the documentary footage on More4 last night? It was camera footage from the day put together in real time. It was fascinating and upsetting in equal measure. I'm guessing he stumbled across that rather than seeking out YouTube videos.

Breathlessness · 15/09/2019 09:43

No one needs to watch that.

BogglesGoggles · 15/09/2019 09:44

@Juells it’s different when it’s your cultural heritage. The trauma of those lives of events last generations. I belong to a race that was subjected to an authoritarian government and acts of genocide (not on the same scale) and not talking about it doesn’t hide the fact that it happened. At least when parents tell their children, their children can understand why their parents aren’t like other parents. It’s also much easier to understand these things when you are raised knowing about them. A happy safe confident childhood is very much a white privilege (and probably explains why white people tend to be so naive).

Pennyjane89 · 15/09/2019 09:45

YANBU. It’s disturbing