When and how your children learned about death

[AllOutofEverything]

Just wondering what age your children were when they learned about death and how they learned?
For my children they first learned about the idea of death (although they obviosity did not really understand it) when one of the rabbits dies when they were 5 and 3 years old.

Our old cat was pts when the dc were 3 & 5, they chose to come with us to the vets to say goodbye but then chose to wait in the waiting room with me while the injection was given (dh was with the cat)

They recently lost a granddparent, at 6 & 9, that was the first experience of a human dying. They chose to be very involved, helping choose flowers, and attending the funeral.

4 and because of the Queen

When DC1 was in Reception a family friend died that she had met a couple of times a year and a member of staff at the school that she didn’t know well.
DC2 was 6 when DH died.

Always, from the start they have known my mum died when I was a child.

We’ve always talked about her and death and how and why she died (cancer).

When a close relative died when she was about 3. I had to explain to her that they was not coming back and that was hard but she seemed to get it. We allowed her to come to the funeral and she cried a little bit at the church. It was a very sad time but I think it helped her understand death. She's now 6 and she still talks about the relative, she remembers a lot about them and the funeral. Sometimes she will talk about them being in heaven. She knows they are not coming back.