Watching the news this week reminded me of the 2001 terrorist attacks. My daughter was just 4 years old at the time, and based on common sense and the guidance of her school, the TV stayed off in our house.

Watching George Bush lay out the need for immediate government intervention, I grasped for the right words the other night to explain the rapidly-unfolding economic crisis to my daughter, now 11, who isn't getting any instruction on the topic from her sixth-grade teachers.

One particularly bright and articulate classmate, whose father is a still-employed financial analyst, is talking about it and trying to explain it to people, she told me. But that’s the extent of the topic’s reach at school so far.

I boiled it down to simplistic terms that I can understand and thought she might as well: People bought houses and things they couldn’t really afford by borrowing money they couldn’t pay back. Their inability pay back the money affected other companies. Now those companies are in trouble. Some people are going to lose their jobs.

We’re okay, I assured her, and I do believe that. We’ve got our health, our family and each other. But listening to talk about FDIC-insured bank accounts being at risk if too many banks go under, I wonder how I’d explain the point of saving her money in a bank if it should happen to vanish.

When financial stress hits home, I know there’s no point in keeping kids in the dark about it. A few years back, when I was between jobs, my daughter’s initial question was whether we would become homeless. (She’s had some direct experience in that department through work she’s done with a homeless shelter and soup kitchen in our Mile-Square City.)

When she understood things would never get that far (there will always be friends and family), she became quite a partner in devising ways to do things for less and counseling me if I was splurging on something we really didn’t need.

The thing she now remembers most about that time was having me around more. She didn’t realize I was often somewhere else mentally, calculating how long I had to figure out my next move.

Sue Shellenbarger offered a good primer this week in the Wall Street Journal about how to talk to your kids about financial stress by age and stage.

Here’s what my colleague Scott Reeves recommends when talking about job loss with your children. Minyanville professor Neale Godfrey offers more guidance here.

How are you addressing these extraordinary times with the kids in your life? Share your stories on The Exchange.