What do you tell your lo's about family members how have died?

[Medowflowers]

I dont mean how they died, I mean -

DS - Where is your daddy, mummy?
Me - Erm errerm
Oh

Erm

well.

My daddy is an angel

ds - an angel?
Me - Yes, am angel.( Thinking ffs, ????not the best answer - but didnt want to do the die/dead thing just yet.)

What does everyone else do?

[Medowflowers]

Oh have to take ds to nursery. Back soon.

[madamez]

Depends on how old your DS is and whether you have, or wish to teach him, a particular mythology about death and dying (be it heaven or reincarnation). You need to be reasonably clear in your own mind about what you think, though.
My DS is 3 and his great auntie recently died, but I didn't do more than mention it to him as he is too little to understand.

[NotABanana]

When our children's Great Nanny we told them she was in hospital as she was poorly and Daddy was going to visit her. This was at 12 o'clock. At 6pm we had to tell them she had died. I had the two older ones either side of me with their favourite comfort teddies. We reminded them that GN had been poorly and Daddy had been to see her. Daddy then told them she had died and we all cried.

[Medowflowers]

Ds is also 3, but has many questions. I thought that the heaven explanation was enough for now but he did look a little confused I have to say.

[Tommy]

agree with madamz - you can't explain it to him unless you are pretty sure of what you think yourself!

I say "They are in Heaven with Jesus" but we talk about heaven and Jesus quite a lot and go to church and stuff so that is fine for them

[hellsbells76]

i'm an atheist so when my DS asks me what happened to family members who have died i usually tell him that we don't know what happens after people die and that people believe different things, but as long as we remember them and talk about them, their memory lives on and so do they in a way. both my DC's middle names are in memory of close friends/family who are no longer with us, so i use that as an example of how we can remember people too.

[ButterflyBessie]

I say the following

"My daddy is dead, it was very sad but everyone dies sometime and he died because he was very ill.

He is always in my heart and I have photos of him that you can see."

The younger you explain to them the easier it is - well that works in our family anyway.

my dcs range from 2 to 7 years old

[Medowflowers]

Good idea - Ds middle name is my grandma's maiden name, but I think he wouldn't get that explanation just yet. I will remember it though. Thanks

[hellsbells76]

of course this all causes confusion in his little head because his grandparents are christian and give them the whole 'heaven' line, and his loony stepmother apparently recently told him he should tread on ants because they are reincarnated murderers - how she squares this with her militant vegan principles i have no idea

[Nemoandthefishes]

last year my nan died and we had to explain it to ds. We told him that she had died which means we wouldnt be abl to see her or hear her anymore but if he wanted to talk to her then he could as she would be listening. He spent about 6mths talking about her lots and how she was listening to him and he would visit her in the clouds then he stopped. He knows dying means you dont come back. He is 4 and a half now.

[Medowflowers]

LOL hells! Reincarnated murderers though

[Upwind]

My PIL think the appropriate way is to say "X has gone to the sky"

Me, I will be honest and say that they have died and I hope they are in heaven. I also, personally, think that dc should be included in funeral ceremonys.

[SoupKitchen]

I think children just accept it and It is adults who have more dealing with, the how to break it gently/ explain it.

DD 3 is fully aware that my mum has died and therefore not around to be her Nana.

When my mother died my sister age 9, who had been told the news an hour before , was overheard speaking on the phone to a friend of hers. She said I don't think I can can come and play tomorrow, because mum has died and there is noone to drive the car, and I have to stay in and be sad for a bit. Discussing this with her later I tried to clarify her comments, as was concerned she had not grasped the magnitude of the situation. She said when you are dead, you never come back and people who are alive can never ever see you again. But I will always love her so I don't need to be sad.

[hellsbells76]

you have to be really careful - i know a brother and sister (now adults) who were told their father had gone to heaven and that heaven was in the sky. when they went on holiday in a plane a few months later they managed to convince themselves they were going to see him and were really, really upset

[Ilovebunting]

My mum died 3 months ago, and dd (sadly) saw her go through 9 months of cancer, get worse, and suddenly Nana wasn't there any more. I don't think I handled it v well, as she now thinks every old ill person will die, but couldn't stop her seeing my mum as they loved each other so much, so she had to see it really. We sat down and had a little talk (she was 3 at the time) and I told her that Nana had gone to heaven, and could now see dd and hear her from heaven, but we could not see or hear her. Dd promptly responded with "no she's not, the weatherman lives in heaven (meaning God!), Nana is on that cloud there (pointing to one directly above her). She can follow me to nursery every day now!" She seemed to totally have her own ideas of what Nana was up to, and as long as you stay upbeat about it, even if it is hard for you at the time, they seem to come away with their own ideas, and seeing death as a good thing and part of the circle of life etc xx

[hellsbells76]

that's another one - how do you break it to kids that someone is dying? i remember my mum telling me that my grandma 'wasn't going to get better' and then being upset when she didn't get much of a reaction from me. problem was i didn't realise she meant that she would die soon - i just thought that she'd stay ill indefinitely. so always best to be clear and direct i suppose.

[Ilovebunting]

I don't think we did tell dd. There were so many tubes etc round mum that I think she knew, despite being so young, but even if she didn't know she dealt with it beautifully. I think it may be best to be direct, they are a lot more understanding and resilient than you think. I think the not getting better could be worrying, as if they have a chest infection or something that isn't getting better then they might think they will die.

[madamez]

It's important to be careful about euphemisms around DC - don't FFS refer to dying as 'falling asleep' or you will have a terrified insomniac child for months.

[Slouchy]

My mum died some years before I had kids.
Dd1 is very interested in death - I think in her head she is processing that sometimes mummies do die and children are left without them (she is 5).
So.
Our usual answer to general questions is that everyone will die, usually not till they are very old and tired and that is what happens cos their body needs a rest. (My grannie died a year or so ago, so this makes sense to her).
If she asks specifically about my mum we tell her the truth: that my mum was very ill for a long time, that she got iller and iller and that one day she was too ill to carry on and she died. BUT that this doesn't happen very often, and that most people die when they are old and tired yadada.

Twiglet's sock thing is useful here if you want to introduce concept of a soul.

[littleshebear]

I would just say it in a way they can understand and that fits in with your beliefs.

My dd2 is 5 and we are RC - she has just started school and got more religious! She asked me about my dad, who died when I was 19,(22 years ago) and I said, "Oh, he was very poorly and the doctors couldn't make him better,so he died, but he has gone to heaven to be with Jesus now." She then said, "He's an angel, mummy, isn't he?" I'm afraid I replied, almost without thinking, "A pretty substantial angel!" because he was a big, plump man, but I knew he would have found it really funny and it was a lovely link between my little girl and my dad, who didn't know any of my children.

[Slouchy]

the sock puppet - helpful for most but not for atheists

[ByTheSea]

I am not religious and don't believe in an afterlife. I talk about my dad and my stepdad and let the DC know what they were like and also that when people die, they live on in our memories and in our genes, if applicable, and that is so special.

[SummatAndNowt]

I would say no-one actually knows what happens afterwards, but some people believe these things: nothing, reincarnation, heaven, whatever else. But that they are always with us in our memories.

[lilyfire]

Our dog died and I gave my 3 1/2 yo the talk about,n0-one knows for certain what happens, but a lot of people like to think you go to heaven and maybe dogs have dog heaven. Explaining that the dog wouldn't be able to come back as she'd died. Shortly after this came Easter and the Jesus dying and coming back to life thing did really confuse him for a while and he was pretty sure the dog would come back too.

[Upwind]

I had to break it to my DH that the dogs his family had as a child probably did not go to live on a farm

I think pets dying is a reasonably good way of introducing the concept to a child.