'Mama, how many sleeps until you die?' (btw I'm 38 and quite healthy)

[MrsBigD]

this question my dd 5.2 asked me the other day when we were in the car. She got quite upset as she 'wants sombody to cuddle her' when I'm gone. I was not sure how to respond to that so just said I'll be around for quite some time. To which she said but you're so many numbers older than me (cheers darling you just called me old ).

I am aware that one of the kids in the parallel class just lost his father (not sure about the circumstances) so the topic death is being covered by the teachers to explain why that boy is so sad and under the weather. All the kids are being really sweet to him, however now we're left to explain to dd what might happen to us and I'm at a loss.

Any advice on how to approach that would be gratefully received.

[sunnywong]

I told ds1, 5.8 that people go to be starts in the sky/aka die when they are 100 years old

Shut him right up

[SmileysPeople]

My DS is very blase about death. He wants to be soldier when he grows up, I told him I would never let him, and he replied 'oh well you may be dead then so you can't stop me.'
At least your DD was upset at the thouhgt!!

Actually though my MIL has just died, and that has shaken him alot. We're tackling it through talking about her being with Jesus and her Mummy and in a lovely place where she can still be close to us. Obviously this leads to more difficult questions like..how long does it take to get there... and what's it like? To which we answer we don't know. I think it must be harder to talk about if you have no faith.

[MrsBigD]

thanks for the replies. dd is familiar with the concept of death as we've had a hamster die we told her he was very very old and so tired he's gone to sleep for ever And also explained why she only has one granddad as dh's father died after long illness. It was just such a surprise that she was thinking about me dying

[Sossy]

My little girl asks quite a lot of questions about death, strangly...as we've had no deaths in the family she's been aware of. Personally I have no faith, but I tell a little porky and say that I believe when we "die", this is just our bodies that stop working. Our soul, which is our feelings and thoughts that we can sense inside of us, in our hearts and minds, keeps on living but within a new body. Like a cat or a bird, for instance. Oddly, the more I've explained this to her and the more we've talked about it, I actually start to believe it myself.

I've also told her that not everyone will agree with my belief, that there are big groups of people who might think something entirely different, and that is perfectly fine.

We walk through a grave yard everyday to school, recently a friend told her that under the tombstones are "dead bodies". I simply told her that they are sleeping angels and she felt much more comfortable with this. Sometimes we whisper as we walk through, so we don't wake them!

Having read this back I realise that it doesn't really help the very real fear of suddenly being left. Sorry.

[Goodasgold]

I agree with Sossy.
No surprise there, but you can make it worse with too much information that your lo aren't ready for.
Sorry didn't read rest of thread... too scared