It's common for children to worry that their parents might die. You can help to reassure Ciaran by explaining that most people live into old age, and give him examples of older people he knows who are still active and well. Reassure him that you are fit, and very unlikely to die. You can also remind him of all the people in his life who love him, so that in any event he would never be alone. Point out, too, that when he becomes an adult he will have a life of his own, separate from you, and perhaps a partner and children too, and he won't need you nearly as much as he does now.

If Ciaran asks about his own death, again you can reassure him that it is very rare for children to die, that he is in good health and highly likely to live until he has grown up, had a family of his own and become an old man. How you answer questions about where people go when they die does depend on your own religious and spiritual beliefs. Children maybe comforted by the thought of heaven, or some other place, where a person is no longer ill or in pain. If you have no belief in an after-life, you can emphasise the happy memories of a person who has died, and explain that it is through being remembered that people continue on into the future.

If you continue to treat Ciaran's questions calmly and openly, as you are already doing, you'll be helping him to think constructively about subjects that all of us have to come to terms with, in our own ways.

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