Reply to At what age did your kids understand death?

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[quote=Anonymous]This is around the right age to explain op. It takes time and multiple conversations and most kids will go through a phase where they ask the questions a lot. Totally normal.

It is best to be clear and honest when teaching your kids about topics like this. Other approaches that may make us feel better can actually leave kids with more questions and anxieties. I can understand this might be hard since it is your mom but I would say something like this: “grandma x died. When people die their body stops working. We don’t get to see them anymore, which sometimes makes us sad. I miss grandma x, She would have loved you so much. Grandma x LOVED to xxx insert detail that your daughter can connect with (If you can add detail like “grandma x was sick. Usually drs can make you better when you are sick but sometimes your body is too sick, and it stops working. This usually happens once your body gets very old.)

If she asks further - 
Different people believe different things about what happens after someone dies, our family believes people go to heaven which for me I picture it that grandma z is somewhere high in the sky xxxxx add your beliefs.

She will obviously not understand death from this one conversation you’ll keep having convos. All of the above likely won’t be in one convo but over a few or answering her questions.

The best book I’ve found for this is called Lifetimes. Once you read that book some, then you have a helpful language to use. So with my son who is now 5 (but understood this by 4) I could say “yes xx died. His lifetime ended, remember we all have a lifetime” and he gets that. It is a really beautiful book.

I also teach him about “likely” and “rare”  which helps answer questions. “Can kids die?” “Yes, but it’s very rare. Remember when we talked about rare? It’s very unlikely. Remember your great grandma and great grandpa and how they are still alive at 95 years old? And your grandparents x y and z? They are still alive too! That is much more likely. It’s not common for x to happen.

Once he understood common, likely, rare it helps answer these hard questions much more. [/quote]

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