To not explain death of Queen to 4 year old?

[Schooldaysagain]

I've managed to avoid explaining death to my 4 year old so far. We lost FIL during the pandemic and he believes his beloved grandfather moved far away and still sends him presents and emails (which I read out from my phone)
😔

Four year olds often become a bit obsessed with death as they get their head around it. Its age appropriate development. I doubt your son hasn't already heard about the Queen if he is at school.

What better death to explain than a very old lady who died of natural causes?

Do not conflate death with 'sleeping' or going yo sleep and not waking up. And do not conflate it with moving away (as you have his GF) because anytime someone goes away for work etc he may not think they are coming back.

I don’t believe this is true. However, I made sure my DD knew about death before school where she would be told by someone else. I just told her about heaven and she’s happy enough with that for now.

Wow! I don't think you can shy away from these conversations. The thing with his granddad is just mind blowing.

With my 4 year old we talked about how the Queen/ cat/ her preschool teacher passed away (not religious, not doing the heaven thing!) That means that although the person isn't here anymore and we can't see them they are always in our hearts because we loved them (maybe not so much with the queen but you get the jist) and how we remember them and the happy times, and the love we all shared. On her own she has come up with that we will see them again when we pass away, and I haven't said more than how that would be nice, because if it helps her, then fair enough, we can go into philosophy when she's a bit older

It’s fine to use heaven/angels/stars whatever at this age even if you’re not particularly religious. The hardest element is them understanding that the person has gone and if they need to believe in a place that they’ve gone to then that’s okay. I was always very honest with dd and told her no one really knows where we go when we die but people believe lots of different things then gave a few examples and she picked the one that made the most sense to her.

please put an end to pretending his grandfather is alive. It’s weird, harmful and he’s going to put two and two together when he’s older.

He was just 2 when his GF died, so it wasn't appropriate to explain it fully then. He understands that he won't see his GF again and that he has gone somewhere very far away where he won't be able to visit us again.

I'm just asking for advice on how to broach the subject since I'm sure the school will mention it.

News about the Queen now and then Grandad next in a few weeks.

If you are actually real, you are cruel. So I'm going to assume you aren't because noone could be that wrong about a situation.

It would have been easier to explain the death of your FIL when your DS was 2 (guessing as you said it was during the pandemic) than now when he will likely ask more questions

Irresponsible parenting to say they had moved away. What happens when someone genuinely moves away but you see them again. Will he not ask why he can’t see his grandpa?

God I hope this is not true.

It's the letters and presents that is cruel and deceptive.

He was 2? That's even more ridiculous that you didn't tell him, then as they get older and ask questions you explain more about it in an age appropriate way

My DD was 2 when my GF died. We absolutely did talk about it at the time and in the 8 years since. Perhaps you can find some books about death of a grandparent to help trigger the conversation.

Of course you tell him. Be factual, at a level he understands. Also you really need to tell him about his grandfather. Poor child 😢

@LampLighter414 Is that an order? Who died and made you queen?

exactly. I agree you wouldn’t (couldn’t) get into it with a 2 yr old but to offer up communications is just strange when it could have just been a fact that his GF was dead.

Yab absolutely batshit.
Kids see dead flies maybe a dead bird. A dead cat.
Children respond better to facts

Of course it was appropriate, it was life! My partner lost his aunt when my son was 2. He saw her every weekend and she was a close relative. He was sad of course, but he understood perfectly well that she was gone and not coming back, because she was dead. Death is part of life, there is no avoiding it.

My only sibling died when I wasn't much older than your son. Just imagining what it would have been like if my parents had told me they'd gone on holiday to the farm. 🙄

The grandfather thing is actually sick, you read your son fake emails from his dead relative? You absolute weirdo!

So if your DS will know about the Queen’s funeral, how are you going to explain the lack of funeral for GF when you eventually get round to telling your son he has died.

Your son will know about the Queen dying as school will have mentioned it

How has he accepted he won’t see GF again but still gets presents from him?

If you'd told your child about your FIL, at that age, he'd have gone "ok" and carried on playing.
When he's older, he'll now know his parents have a "thing" about death and he'll probably find it far more traumatising than if you'd told him at the time.
However close very young children are to relatives, the truth is that until they are old enough to really grasp the finality of it (and 2-3 isn't it) they will process of quickly, and care little.
You have done far more damage by lying. If the story is true.

Also have the conversation about grandad.

Death is part of life and kids will experience it pretty early on, whether that's the death of a pet or a family member. When our mum died, we told our family little ones that Granny had gone to heaven (which we believe to be true) and it actually opened up all sorts of fascinating conversations with them. The littlest (who was 4) worried that she would lose others (we reassured her) and she then started to draw lots of lovely pictures of granny surrounded by flowers in heaven.

It was age appropriate and though she was very sad, at that age, they're quite resilient. She now has an age appropriate understanding of death. You do no one any favours by lying to them.

If you're struggling to find the words, there are a number of kids' books which you can read along with them. I think you need to explain the truth about her grandad very soon.

My 3 year old understands because we told her. It looked likely so I said the queen is going to die, she’s very old and is ill and her body isn’t working well anymore. When it stops working she’ll die. She’s been queen a very long time, she’s even older than grandma and it’s difficult for some people when things change and people die, some people will feel sad.

A couple of hours later I said the queen has now died, rehashed the above bit about bodies not working and people being sad and asked if she had any questions. Yesterday we discussed funerals.

We haven’t had a death in the family since we had her but she knows of grandparents who’ve died, pets we used to have being dead. It’s a normal natural part of life. Give your son some credit.

You can get books for children from amazon. We have tell me about heaven grandpa rabbit and another one, can't remember what it's called