Talking to kids about death

[vanillacourage]

Yesterday DS1 came up to me and asked me if my grandmother was dying. Totally out of the blue (and she's not - she's old and occasionally sick, but nothing emergent recently). He then followed up by asking about what it meant to die. :-| This was on Sunday morning before coffee, I was not prepared.

Then today his goldfish, which we've kept alive for over a year (!) was dead when we got up in the morning. DS1 has not noticed. My first instinct was to call DH and tell him to buy another goldfish on his way home from work and swap them out, but maybe this is an opportunity to talk to DS about death in a real way? On the other hand, you obviously cannot buy another grandmother at the store so I don't want his first lesson about death to be a muddled one.

Thoughts?

[GailGoldie]

my older son is 5 and we've had lots of discussion about death. Dh's dad and brother passed away (10yrs ago) so we talk about them often, as living "in heaven with God". that is what we believe- so we just tell him about that.

he knows that when you get very sick or very old you die. He also knows that other things can make you die - drowning, getting hit by a car, etc. As things have come up with danger issues- he will ask if he could die - and i'm honest with him and let him know "yes, that is why I get so upset when you run in a parking lot" etc.

[nonsenseabound]

Same as GailGoldie, we discuss about when you die that you go to God. I explain it very simply to my daughter, who will be 4 in November, that when you die that you go to God and stay with him. That people here on earth miss you lots. I had to explain that mommy and daddy would not be able to rescue those people and bring them back to earth (that is what she thought). I say that if she ever died that I would cry and cry and cry and miss her so much. So I am able to explain why she cannot do something or why I cannot get into the backseat when I am driving.

[LauraMoser]

DD1 doesn't know a whole lot about death yet. She has had her great great grandma die, IL's cat, GMIL's cat, and GMIL's second H die in the past two-ish years. She knows that she won't see them again, and that they are in heaven. She knows that dying means you're no longer here on earth, but so far that's the extent of things. She's four.