How to Talk to Your Kids About Old Scars: Practical Parenting Tips
I was pulling dry leggings over my wet swimsuit on the community pool bench last month, my 6-year-old Lila sucking a dripping blue popsicle at my side, when she pointed to the four-inch pale scar snaking across my left thigh. “What’s that squiggle?” she asked. I froze. I’ve had this scar for 25 years, from a bike crash I had when I was 12, and I barely think about it most days. But suddenly I was fumbling for words, my 9-year-old Jax looking up from his Switch to add, “Is that from the crash you mentioned? Did you have to get stitches?” I yanked my leggings all the way up faster than I needed to, mumbled “yeah, just an old accident” and steered the conversation toward getting vanilla cones on the way home.
That night, I texted my sister, who works as a pediatric nurse, to ask what I’d done wrong, and what I should do next time. I’d never thought much about how to talk about scars with the kids, and it hit me that if I was awkward about my own, I’d probably mess up when they asked about someone else’s, or when they got a scar of their own. She didn’t send me a long essay or any fancy advice, just a few plain points that I’ve tested out over the past few weeks, and they’ve worked far better than I expected.
The chance to try it came a week later, when Lila leaned too far over the cookie sheet to smell the chocolate chips and burned her wrist on the edge. She was sniffling into a bag of frozen peas while I slathered aloe on the pink mark, when she looked up and asked, “Am I gonna get a squiggle like yours?” This time I didn’t rush to change the subject. I sat down next to her on the floor, and said exactly what my sister suggested I say: as much as she asked for, no more. “Maybe you will, maybe you won’t,” I told her. “If you do, that’s okay. My squiggle is from when I crashed my bike really bad when I was 12. The doctors fixed me up, and that mark is just what’s left after it healed. It doesn’t hurt anymore, and it doesn’t bother me.” That was all she wanted to know. She nodded, wiped her nose on her sleeve, and asked when the cookies would be cool enough to eat.
A couple weeks after that, we had another test at the neighborhood playground. There was a new 8-year-old kid playing four square, with a thin scar running from the corner of his mouth up his cheek. Jax pointed, loud enough for everyone to hear, and yelled “What’s that mark on his face?!” I wanted to sink into the wood chips. Instead of yanking him away and scolding him for being rude, I did what my sister suggested: I walked over, put a hand on his shoulder, and spoke quietly so only he could hear. I told him curiosity wasn’t rude, but when we talk about someone else’s body, we ask politely instead of pointing and yelling. “If you want to know, you can go over and say ‘can I ask what your scar is from?’” I said. “If he doesn’t want to talk about it, we just drop it and play, okay?”
He nodded, walked over, and said exactly that. The kid told him he was born with a cleft lip, and doctors fixed it when he was a baby. Jax said “cool, want to play?” and that was that. No staring, no awkwardness, no big scene. That’s when I realized how much of the stress around this topic comes from us as adults, not from kids. Kids don’t carry the same baggage about scars that we do. They don’t see them as ugly or embarrassing or a reminder of hard things unless we teach them to. Most of the time, they’re just curious about a mark they haven’t seen before.
The biggest concrete rule I’ve taken away from this is to always match the level of detail to the kid’s age, and only answer what they ask. If your 5-year-old asks about your scar from a past car crash, you don’t need to describe the ambulance ride or the months you spent in physical therapy. You can just say “I got hurt really bad a long time ago, doctors fixed me, that’s the mark it left. It’s all better now.” If your 13-year-old asks, they can handle more detail if you want to share it, but you still don’t owe them any part of the story you’re not comfortable telling. That goes for scars from harder things too—cancer surgery, past injury, anything that brings up hard feelings. You get to decide how much to share.
If you’re comfortable leaving your scar uncovered in daily life, that’s a small easy thing that makes a big difference. I used to always wear long board shorts to the pool because I didn’t like people looking at my scar, but now I wear my regular two piece, and no one cares except me, sometimes. It normalizes the idea that bodies have all kinds of marks, and that’s just how it is.
Last week, Lila drew a picture of our family, and she added a little brown squiggle on the leg of my stick figure. When I asked her what it was, she said “That’s your scar, mom.” That was it. I still catch myself shifting my leg or pulling my shirt down when I meet new people, it’s just an old habit I can’t seem to break. But the kids have never once said my scar is ugly or weird. It’s just part of me, like my curly hair or the way I burn toast half the time. I don’t have all the answers for when they get older and ask harder questions about harder scars, ones that come from harder things than a bike crash. But for now, keeping it simple and calm works. Most days, that’s enough.
Please indicate: Thinking In Educating » How to Talk to Your Kids About Old Scars: Practical Parenting Tips