My dd just turned five. For the past few months she has been asking me about death and dying, we have had many conversations about it, not too many but it comes up. In the past month or so her play has become more and more taken with dying and death, and today she was playing with her cousin and they started killing each other's stuffed toys. My sister became quite upset about it and asked them to stop playing those kind of games and to play something else. Usually when she is playing by herself these games come up, something dies, is resurrected and dies again...there isn't usually killing involved but it is starting to occur a bit. And today I think they freaked themselves out a bit because they were both upset about the *killing* incident and became a little too involved. My dd was actually pounding one stuffed dog with another. It was a little shocking to see and it really bothered me. It was very bazaar because this kind of behaviour only comes out when she is doing this pretend play, otherwise she is the farthest thing from violent and her normal is to break down sobbing because she stepped on a snail or a bug. She is very gentle and kind and considerate and this *play* is really throwing me off and making me wonder if something else is going on that I'm not catching somewhere...? Or is this normal play for this age? I know she is working through her thoughts on the matter, testing it out, playing with it, and to ME it may be violent but to her it may not be...but I can't help but process it as her being violent and dark and be concerned about it.
Thoughts?
Thoughts?
) was overreacting. It is exactly this type of reaction that furthers anxiety in the child. They are only doing what comes naturally, and the parent sees something "wrong" with what they NEED to do to work through what is for most children (and many adults), a scary issue. It leaves them without a VERY important outlet for processing difficult feelings. For most children, the ONLY outlet that truly helps. Play.
One book that helped us so very much with this was Lawrence Cohen's Playful Parenting. It has really helped me relax and understand just why this kind of play (and many others) is so very important. And as a parent, allowing my child to lead the play, and then joining in can really help children put all these more difficult things about life into perspective. Highly recommend.
Just the other day the three of us (me, dd and my niece) were in the car and my dd was talking about death and how we will all die and how her mom will die and I will die etc etc.. and I just let them talk about it, listening, knowing that my niece probably hasn't voiced such things before, and at first she was saying no no, no they won't, but then they talked about it some more and my dd reassured her that they will indeed die, but then they will be babies again and on and on...(she has taken to the philosophy of reincarnation 
And I agree, shunning it isn't the answer. I like your idea Embee about playing with it and making light of it, even though this seems taboo on some level, I know that is MY hangup. It is so hard sometimes to realize how I am affecting something with my own issues of it.
