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[quote=Anonymous]Mine started being introduced to death early, unfortunately. I would say we started conversations around 2, but always age appropriate. At that age I would speak more generally about the life cycle and how a tree grows and brings us joy when it’s alive, and then when it dies it disintegrates and becomes rich soil that continues to benefit new plants and bugs and flowers. And we would parallel how every living thing dies at some time, but we keep the memories and the good parts live on.  And then we would talk about memories of my parent and make a recipe they loved, or tell a happy story about them.  Those conversations were harder on me than them, but as time goes on they have actual “memories” of her, even though they didn’t really know her.

We are religious but didn’t introduce the concept of Heaven until later. It’s too abstract. For young kids relate it to the world they know and understand.  We would tell them it’s normal and okay to be sad but remember the good parts too.

For older kids we talked about grief and how it can hit in waves and sometimes the wave is really powerful and sometimes they are frequent. But over time the waves will become smaller and less intense and to realize that all of this is normal and even if it feels like that awful feeling will never go away, it will.

I’m sorry for your loss, OP. [/quote]

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