Telling A Child About Death

Grumpyrocker

Emp_Fab said:

I’m so sorry to hear that @Grumpyrocker - my heart goes out to you.  However, it’s a credit to you that you kept it together to make it as a responsible and caring dad.

Cheers. We do what we do with what life throws at us. 

tone1

Grumpyrocker said:

Simple and truthful always the best course.

I've been talking to my twins all about death since the month they were born, as we lost their mother the day after they came into the world.

Death has always been part of their lives. And so something we've always spoken of. And I've always tried to answer their questions honestly.

Single most sobering post I’ve seen on here in 5 years of being a member....Stopped me in my tracks....

Teetonetal

Will echo a lot of the above. My daughter is younger and last year when she turned 5, one of her friends died.

we explained it quite matter of fact and that enabled our daughter to grasp what had happend and to understand. Obviously its a bit different when a close family member dies, but kids are resilliant and will cope with these things.

couple of things though, it obviously played on her mind for a few months after as she kept talking about what will hapoen when mummy or daddy die and asking a lot of questions about how people can die and when.

Finally dont forget to tell your ex what has happened and how you broke the news and what you explained.

gubble

All went very well - thank you for the advice people.

Sat her down, explained that he had died and also explained why - she seemed to appreciate the grown up way we did this with her. She was obviously very sad but had was herself by the morning. 

She did ask a few questions but these centered around what's going to happen to other people or possessions.

The really strange thing was as soon as we walked into the house she knew something was wrong - she asked straight away what had happened.

Octafish

monquixote said:

My 6 year old is really interested in death and quite worried about it for reasons that I don't understand given that we haven't had any family members die since she's been born.

She hasn't done it for a while but I used to have to go up to see her in the night because she'd had nightmares about death.

Mostly important things aren't to go on about people "smiling down from heaven" unless that's actually what you believe. A well meaning woman told her that about her grandmother ( who died before she was born ) and caused a lot of upset and confusion.

Mostly she seems to be afraid that I and my wife will die and leave her on her own and also that she will get old and die. The main issue she has is that she can't get her head around the concept of not existing so she thinks that she will be a skeleton buried under the ground for ever.  Its quite hard to explain around this without refering to going to heaven or going to sleep which I don't want to do as "you will just stop existing" is too conceptual for her.

Wisdom - as a three year old, my brother's oldest was told by her well meaning, but slightly looney Grandmother that her Great Grandmother had gone to live on the moon when she died. Gave her a bit of a messed up idea about death for a while.

Think I'm going to have to go through this with my currently 4.5 year old daughter in the near future as my Dad's got cancer. Personally I'm going to approach it by being straight up and honest about it and explain to her death and that Grandad has died (personally can't abide all those passed/passing/gone to sleep issue-dodging euphemisms).

Death's a shit thing, but all children have to learn about it sooner or later - it's a rite of passage etc. I've already told about the cat I had as a child and that it died and what that means, she seemed pretty unphased. She seems to struggle more with the idea that there was a time when she didn't exist and the concept of being born.

Grumpyrocker

Glad it went well OP.

Honesty is always the best policy. It doesn't mean you have to explain every single detail. That detail comes with age. I've I've never shied away from answering any questions my twins might have - though depending on their age I tried to explain it best how they'd understand it - but with no "looking down from heaven" and stuff like that - simple facts. 

thomasross20

Well done, OP. 
I didn't chime in as the advice given was good.