Pure Parents

Question:

> My not quite five year old son is trying to understand death and it is > very hard for him. (snip)

The first thing you need to know about kids is that sometimes the answer they are looking for is small and simply. Not the complex, in-depth answer adults look for. Depending on your religious stand-point, sometimes the answer to a child’s question about death is answered with, "This person who died has gone to heaven to live with God". This answer worked for my oldest child when he was your son’s age. I can imagine that the complete burying underground information would scare a young child and the thought of a spirit be over his head. I’d see if you could go back to the beginning (depending how comfortable you are with the concept of God) and start with the basics. Good Luck, — Sandy Gookin author, Parenting For Dummies http://www.iea.com/~dgookin

Response:

This is even harder to do when you are an atheist, i.e., not using such nice theories as heaven, "she’s in heaven and that’s a better place", "she’s watching over us" etc. etc.  My grandmother died in July, (my kids’ great-grammy).  She lived with my parents, so she was like a 2nd mom to me.  I miss her terribly and often cry.  My daughter is very sympathetic.  She understands to a point. I told her that Nana’s lungs just wouldn’t work any more, and that made her die, etc. etc.  I tried to explain the best way I could. Although at times she tells me that "nana is sleeping at the hospital". It’s a very tough subject.  I try to explain it very realistically. My daughter kept asking why she died, she wanted a concrete explanation of the cause of her death, which was her lungs stopped working. My daughter is also 3.5 yrs old.   My mother-in-law died while I was pregnant with my daughter, first child.  We’ve always talked about her, and showed her photos, and tried to explain that she died and what that meant, so I think the concept was familiar to her already. As another poster mentioned, I too have seen children in hysterics when a parent got a cold and they thought that their parent was sick, therefore, the parent will die.  Thus, you have to carefully explain sickness and death so they don’t think sickness = death.  In my case, it helps to explain the exact cause of death, how the lungs work, how you need your lungs to breath, etc etc etc.  Also, as a side note, taught my daughter to never ever smoke! Although our beloved nana quit smoking 15 YEARS ago, it was the damage caused by so many years of heavy smoking that killed her.  Sorry for that bit of editorial. Christine M. Dakes       Mom to:                             "Big Kah-hoon-ah"                          Zakary Joseph 3/5/95  – "Moon Doggie" …And we’re livin’ here in Allentown, PA                  

Response:

My not quite five year old son is trying to understand death and it is very hard for him. Recently I told him that dead people get burried – after which he became terrified that people might burry him some day (alive, of course).  When discussing life before and after death, I try to explain the concept of soul to him – of not having a body. Now he thinks that they cut off your arms and legs.  There has not been any death in our family which makes the understanding of death extremely hard.  However, he has a severely disabled, cronically ill brother – which is a little bit like death and the reason why he asks all these questions.  He also has a dead brother that he doesn’t know about (burried in a different state) and I worry about the terrifying associations he will get if I tell him about this brother. Anke Anke Brandst