More problems with toddler's questions about death

[FrannyandZooey]

I posted before about ds (2.11) asking a lot about death after our neighbour died. We have tried to be honest and tell him yes, Mummy and Daddy will die one day, and so will he, it is part of nature etc. etc. Also stumbled across a fab book about the death of a pet, "Goodbye Mousie" which is very good on the emotions and rituals surrounding a death.

However in 'Goodbye Mousie' it shows them burying the mouse, which had not come up before. Today ds said "I hope they didn't put XX (neighbour) into the ground." I explained that we do this with bodies when the person no longer needs them. Later on he said "When I'm older and I die I'll be happy because I'll be with you again." I asked him where he thought we would be, and he said "In the ground."

This bothers me because 1) I have obviously not explained very well about being buried, and don't want him to worry about going under the ground, and

2) I am not sure if I actually believe we will be together again, and don't want to feed him a story (tempting though it is) about us living happily ever after in heaven. I used to believe in reincarnation or a sort of life force that lasts after death, but now am concluding we do probably just die and that's it.

I didn't really need to have this soul-searching about my beliefs at the moment right now to be honest, but children do have a habit of making you actually think about awkward things, don't they?

Any thoughts / suggestions? I am out of my depth here.

[Pruni]

My first thought (without too much pondering) is that right now he probably doesn't need all that much information - can it be delayed at all?

Or could you explain a bit about the life cycle, death and decay making opportunities for new life?? (obv you can put it a bit better than that...)

[FrannyandZooey]

Bit too serious for this time of night?

[FrannyandZooey]

Oops sorry Pruni cross-post.

No he will not be deflected. If only. I didn't want the subject to come up but this neighbour died and he will keep asking questions...

Yes I don't seem to be very good on the 'life cycle' 'spiritual' bit. He just wants facts about the body in the ground and all that

[starlover]

let him watch the lion king! circle of life n all that!

i started replying and then decided it was a crap reply... but part of what I was going to say was as Pruni says, he reall doesn't need that much info. tell him what he asks for.

it's tough, because yuo want to tell him what you believe is true... but on the other hand that isn't a very nice thing for a 2.11yr old to hear.
so maybe for the time being yu have to tell him that we go onto something else

[WideWebWitch]

Lion King, circle of life? Easy way out, I know. actually, may be a bit too scary that. He's not bothered by it, I think I'd just carry on being matter of fact and honest without scaring him. My ds was 3 when my dad died and I said stuff like 'grandad thinks he can still see us because he believes your soul goes on but I'm not sure, it's a nice thought isn't it? And I'm his daughter so a bit of him is in me really' that sort of trite shite. It's hard isn't it?

[WideWebWitch]

Oooh, spooky x post starlover!

[gothicmama]

perhaps explain that teh bit that is us our souls go on to somewhere else cos we don't nee our bodies any more

[morningpaper]

I am getting a lot of questiona from my 3 year old like this

We are church-going christians but even so it is VERY difficult and confusing

Yesterday she said "Do we go to Scotland when we die, to be with Jesus?"

so I don't think I explained it very well

it's hard innit

[morningpaper]

(A friend of ours is buried in Scotland, and she must have heard us discussing this a few days ago)

[FrannyandZooey]

Yes please don't think I am pushing this information on him when he is not ready. I am reluctant to discuss it at all but want to be matter of fact and he is a very enquiring person and just thinks of these questions by himself. I think if I was more settled in what I believed, I could give more straight forward and reassuring answers.

Think Lion King much too scary for this age group, but good idea!

[FrannyandZooey]

Ah you see gothicmama I am not sure if I believe that. I think I am coming round to pure atheism (living with dp for 6 years had to have some effect I guess)

[WideWebWitch]

Lion King Mufasa dies, the baby is all alone and nearly dies, there's a stampede, an evil uncle, oh there's SO much that could go wrong with a viewing of it at that age, I totally agree and withdraw my earlier thought about it!

[Pruni]

I'm an atheist too and have tried to write a few posts giving ideas but tbh I am quite unprepared for this and can see that when the time comes I will be stuck for words.

The trouble is, the idea of anything dead rotting down and fertilising the earth, enabling other things to grow in its place, is simple but gruesome.

[GeorginaA]

I strongly suspect my 4 year old thinks we get put in the bin when we die.... :o

(to clarify, all broken toys go in the bin ... our goldfish died, that went in the bin... we've had a chat about death and it being when the body no longer works properly any more...)

Still, he doesn't seem bothered about it yet, so cross that bridge and all that...

[FrannyandZooey]

Well WWW, we don't even watch tv as it happens, but your idea was definitely along the right lines anyway, the circle of life bit is what we want to convey to him, isn't it?

Now how to do that without a cast of all-singing, all-dancing giraffes and an Elton John soundtrack??

[FrannyandZooey]

Yes Pruni, I feel quite depressed by my lack of resources to deal with this. I feel a bit spiritually bereft :(

Georgina, I like a nice down to earth view of death.

[Mercy]

It's a hard one to deal with, I agree. Admittedly, dd was probably a year older than your ds when she started asking about death/dying so I was able to be a bit more factual in my responses. eg, when you are very old or very ill your body just stops working etc

dd now asks if Nanny will die soon because she is old and what/where is heaven. i just tell her that some people believe there is a place called heaven etc. But the questions go on and on and on.....

A couple of weeks ago she asked me 'what does rape mean?'

[FrannyandZooey]

Oh Mercy! I am getting off lightly I think. How did you manage to answer that one?

[Twiglett]

I did a bloody good post on this .. even though I say so myself .. I shall seek it out and repost here

[foxinsocks]

I think it's very hard

I can't remember when the man on our street died (burned to death, we came home from school and saw the burning house) but the kids saw the fire (think they may have been 4 and 3).

We endured months of questions - 'why didn't his mummy and daddy save him' 'why did he go back into the fire' etc. etc. but in the end, they accepted that he died and was no longer with us. This really freaked them out for a while - I think it's the unpredictability they can't handle.

Everything is so certain in their lives that they can't really handle a variable that's uncontrollable by them or their mum and dad!!

At that age, I wouldn't volunteer any information unless he asks and then make it purely factual. It seems like he's almost got the basics right so I probably wouldn't go back and correct the 'I'll be with you' bit because he's still very young to be told that that may not be true!

[Twiglett]

I don't know what a humanist is but I told DS this

I put my hand in a glove (well actually a sock cos I couldn't find a glove) and wiggled my fingers

I said "this is you, the glove is your body. When you die you leave your body behind" I kept wiggling my fingers as I took them out of the glove to keep his attention on my hand and laid the glove down. "so the bit that is you I call your spirit and that keeps going on" mad swoops with hand to make him laugh "but you have left your body behind because you don't need it anymore"

HTH

PS .. to this he said 'oh'

[Twiglett]

that's pasted and copied from another thread btw .. hope it helps

[fisil]

Ds1 has asked about this a lot recently too (he was 3 in Jan). He went to a funeral a few weeks ago and we explained about it very much like you have. His confusion is that the great aunt whose funeral it was was very very old, so we explain this when he asks if he or we will die. And we add that people do die at any age, but a lot of people live to be very old and that we hope we all will. However, this is having a conflict in his mind with the whole "can I use this kitchen knife/pour the water out of the kettle?" "No, it's danger, it needs to be a grown up or some who is older." So he is trying very hard to understand the difference - he seems to think that if someone can use a sharp knife it is because they are old and old people die.

I brought this up with an excellent carer at nursery, and she said that we were right to tell him the truth and to answer his questions, and right to be concerned about how these things might get misinterpreted or questioned by him. She said that while it is hard for him to get all these things straight in his head, it is important for us to help him to discover difficult things by being honest and open to questions rather than have him think them all through and work out his own conclusions.

I don't think I'm making sense.

[DominiConnor]

We don't use death as the consequence of dangerous behaviour simply because it's too abstract.

We emphasise pain, and where possible point out that similar behaviour before had led to being hurt.
Easy to understand.

My sister piloted the hedgehog school of road safety. Her local roads have sufficient roadkill for her to point them out as examples of the danger of roads.

[FrannyandZooey]

We've never used death as the consequence of dangerous behaviour, Domini. Ds started asking about death after our neighbour died. Not quite sure what point you were making with your post.

Twiglett, I love that analogy but I am not sure I believe that your spirit does go on. So hesitate to tell ds that it does.