S/O--Talking to 3-Year-Old about Dying/Death...

[redpajama]

The "alarming language" thread reminded me of something we've been experiencing lately. My 3.25-year-old has started asking us about death/dying--specifically, whether she will die, whether we will die, whether _____ will die, et cetera. We've tried to be honest-but-gentle with her, as it is obviously causing her some distress. We've told her that everyone dies, that "everything that lives, dies." When she got upset and said that she didn't *want* to die, we empathized and told her *we* didn't want to die, either, but that everyone dies, eventually. For now, we've told her that while no one knows when, exactly, they will die, most people live to be very old, and then they die. (At this point, I don't feel it would be best to try to explain to my 3-year-old that some people die very young, et cetera.)

I'm not sure what sparked this--we haven't lost anyone, and she doesn't watch much television, and none of it has involved death/dying, to my recollection.

How do you talk to your very young children about death--especially about their own deaths, or those of their parents/siblings/et cetera? I don't want to be dishonest with her--and have to "take it back" later, but she brings this up often and with a lot of distress, and I don't want to further worry her unnecessarily.

[starlein26]

I think what you've told her is great. It's a process...she is coming to terms with a stark and important realization: all living things eventually die. There's no easy way to shelter our children from this truth. It's so hard to watch them hurt, .

[fritz]

Here's a link to another thread that discussed this a little while ago; it offers several different perspectives: http://www.mothering.com/discussions...ighlight=death

[meemee]

worrying, freaking out is a part of childhood. you cannot really 'avoid' that completely.

the best thing i have realised about those questions that works for me is to take 'me' out of the picture. whenever dd asked me i remembered i freaked out because i was thinking about everything about death.

the best way i have found is to honestly answer only the question she asked. nothing else. i never volunteered information until she was much older. they still dont permanence yet, just that one is 'gone' and honestly who wants to be gone.

the other most important part is for you to admit i dont know. i have said that to dd so many times. plus i have given her other perspectives too. so when she asks what happens i tell her i am not sure, but many believe this and this and this.

the beauty is awareness. sometimes they say or do things that come up without any outside happenings. for many 3 is the age they start asking.

[OceansEve]

If you are spiritual in anyway what seemed to help DD1 is (this started after her favorite cat died) we told her that the cat's body stopped working and that her spirit left her body. She had asked us about death a little bit before due to shows, but we had never explained the spiritual side of it at all. Just that the character had died and she was very upset, but when we explained that the cat's spirit left her body and that we had to bury her body, she seemed to cope pretty well with that.