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)
😔

Wow...
Read her some stories such as Badger's Parting Gifts and Goodbye Mog, pronto.
The former was in a nice children's anthology we had when DD was small, so she'd heard that story before the first family death (a great uncle she was fond of when she was three.) I read it to her again then, and she asked for it specifically a few more times.

She also knew that when goldfish die, they get buried in the garden and their atoms end up as part of the honeysuckle and roses.

I am hoping that you have got the message now and that my input is superfluous.

You have done a very wrong thing lying to your son about his grandfather - that is beyond immoral and defies belief. Sort it out now.

My OH died a couple of years ago and all my GC, even the smallest, were involved in all that went on - they saw him gradually getting more ill, they helped in his care - and marvelled at his catheter! And they saw him when he was dying - and wanted a photo taken with him - which we did. They were involved in the funeral and the wake. One of them makes little gifts to put on his grave - "Just going to take this down to Grandpa". They are far from being traumatised by it - they have experienced their own grief, and seen mine and been able to comfort me and their mums (his DDs). They have seen real life and death and know that people get through it.

My DGC now ask me when I am going to die! - they understand that it is nearer for me than them and take this in their stride.

It's really important that children are taught in age appropriate ways how to cope with and understand death as a natural part of life. It helps build their resilience when it happens. I think you've got a good opportunity here to have a natural opener that doesn't directly impact your close family so I'd take it. Get some books from the library to read together and allow time for questions. At 4 don't use ambiguous or vague terms like passed away or gone be honest about being dead meaning you aren't alive anymore. If they ask questions you aren't sure how to answer say that's a really good question why don't we try to find out together. Coco is a really lovely movie to watch together because it's all about losing relatives but them staying close by in our memories and from our love for them. It sounds a little like you find the topic daunting to broach (which most people do you're not alone in that) but it really is best not avoided. Having pets also helps young ones understand loss, grief and resilience

Are you being serious here, you are pretending someone is still alive? That's bizarre and slightly disturbing. My children go to a Catholic school so even though we don't really believe ourselves we just use heaven as part of the explanation. When someone dies they know they are gone forever at least from earth, they've known this from a very young age. We told them you mainly die when you are very old (so they aren't worried they will any moment) but my husband has a gran alive in her 90s and they can be quite blunt saying "is she going to die soon" my 4 year old asked if she'd died yet yesterday, I said no (hoping he wasn't a weird psychic). Being mostly honest is the best thing, not to the point you frighten them, but death is as much a part of life as birth, happens to everyone one day.

I don't believe in heaven or any sort of afterlife. When my MIL died we told our young DC that she was turning into special compost and would be helping the trees to grow (woodland burial). They were happy with that.

You need to tell your DS. It's not a kindness to hide natural life events from children because they often imagine much worse.

Your poor DS! He's 4, not stupid. He's going to find out about grandad, and will feel so bad and confused. And he'll also get the message that you are untrustworthy about important, serious things.
School WILL talk about the Queen if they haven't already. And WILL use words like "dead" and "died". It's very unfair to your son for him to not have a bit of prior knowledge of what this means.
You need to start unpacking the grandad lie, pretty pronto.

My daughter was in bits when she found out Santa wasn’t real and accused me of lying to her. I can’t imagine how messed up she would be if I really lied about a grandparent. This is just irresponsible parenting, poor child.

On a scale of 1 to 10 for 'I've seriously fucked up my parenting!'...this is right up there!! 10/10 for you OP!

Bonkers!! Absolutely bloody bonkers! 😫

Winston's Wish, the child bereavement charity, has advice about talking to children about the queen's death, and other advice about talking to them about family bereavements

www.winstonswish.org/talk-to-children-about-death-of-queen/

Wow what a lot of religious people - do you really believe in heaven or have you just swapped one lie for another?

wow, that’s judgey AF.

I don’t particularly subscribe to any religion but that doesn’t mean I haven’t got any respect for others beliefs. I also won’t be indoctrinating my dd with my beliefs, spiritual or not.

if my dd finds inspiration or spirituality in any religion or science that’s her journey to make, I’m just here to facilitate her ability to know about all the options and be able to evaluate what’s best for her free from the judgement and influence of others who seem to think they have the right to ‘tell’ her what she should think/feel/believe.

My grandaughter was 8 and grandson was 4 when my husband died, they were very sad, but together, told my son the best memories they had of him, which my son read out on their behalf, at the funeral. After school, they came to 'grandads party' to celebrate his life with all his friends and relatives. Even the 4 year old understood that grandad was no longer with us and that they would not see him again. I told them that I had seen him die and that it was obvious that his body was just like old clothes left behind, and his spirit had merged with the spirit of creation, like a river merges with the sea.

Oh course 2 isn't too young, I don't believe this would cross most people's mind. Surely you explain in an age appropriate way.

Kids are easy to talk to quite often about these things, my nan and my MIL both died when youngest was 2, also my grandad when my eldest was 2 and youngest about 8 months. We took them to visit them when they were dying and explained what was happening, they took it in their stride, all very matter of fact. You cannot lie to them about people dying.

Google books on death for kids

My daughter is four and has told us this morning “that you stay dead forever and everyone goes to heaven. Heaven is in the stars and it’s nice because there’s places to lie down”

seems she has it figured out in her head without any input from us.

we explained what a coffin and a hearse was this morning and explained that you leave your body when you die.

Why on earth do you “have to tell yourself” a complete load of rubbish

You told your child granda went to live on a farm...

The younger, the better it is to tell children about death, imo. It's normal and not something scary then. It's worse when they learn about it for the first time when they're older because they make the connection that their parents will die one day and that's a terrifying realisation.

he believes his beloved grandfather moved far away and still sends him presents and emails (which I read out from my phone)

That's enormously unhealthy. You need to tell him his grandfather has died.

I haven't RTFT but my five year old handles death much better than an adult- to her it's simple- you die and you go to heaven which is a lovely place. She knows it's sad and that we will miss the person but ultimately she believes they are having a whale of a time with ponies, swimming pools and dogs.

We're not churchgoing/actively religious but she has her whole life to decide whether she believes that as an adult.

Also there's a difference between "lying" about heaven and sending gifts from a deceased grandad that they wouldn't remember anyway

My father died when I was two and a half. I obviously remember little about it, but I vividly remember being on the loo, maybe sixth months later and asking 'where is my daddy'. My mum just said 'he's gone to Jesus now' and he was never really mentioned again.
The way in which children were treated around death then (later 1960's) is dreadful. I know it has caused part of my adulthood mental health struggles. I'm just so pleased there are so many outlets and charities now to help children.

When my mum died a few years gback, her great grandchildren were 2 and 3 and we managed to explain that she had died, wasn't going to be here anymore but had loved them very much etc. This means we can talk and laugh about her easily. They also saw her in the nursing home a few times so knew that something was wrong.

OP I've always found the best approach is the truth, with an age appropriate level of detail, this applies to,

Deaths
Pregnancy/Births
Questions about sex
Relationship Breakups/Divorces
Financial matters (changing circumstances)
Questions are crime and punishment

etc. etc.

Essentially all the difficult,but important, stuff around human lives and relationships. There's no need to lie about any of it.

I remember my exMIL telling toddler DD an absolute load of nonsense about something important, even DD questioned whether MIL had got it right, explaining it properly was then harder because I also had to explain why MIL had effectively made up a fairy story.

My almost four year old recently came across the concept of death when a family members pet died.

Before this death wasn't a permanent state in his head because his dinosaurs die when they fight and then they come back , obviously ha. So I explained that the pet was dead, and that in real life you can't come back from death, and that the pet was very old and very sick. Accepted immediately and will randomly mention the pet that died and say ' but he's dead now'

As for the queen, I didn't even mention it to my 8 year old never mind him. The queens death has zero impact on their lives. Obviously the 8 year old was bombarded with it in school on Friday, but she had a very healthy 'not bothered' attitude, because, well, why should she care about the death of someone she doesn't know who was clearly very old.

YABU - you don't have to go into enormous detail about death with such a young child, but you are putting yourself and him into a web of lies about his grandfather, and when he finds out, he is likely to be baffled and lose some trust in you and in others. He may end up thinking that anyone whom he doesn't see for a while is likely to be dead. And you can't shelter him from all knowledge about the Queen, unless you completely avoid TV, radio and the Internet; and isolate him from conversations with friends and neighbours. He can be told that she died because she was very very old.

I'm sorry but death is part of life and lying to your child about your father in law is terrible. When will you tell him the truth? Young children accept things easier than adults. Has he ever watched any Disney cartoons? The Lion King, Bambi? There is also a wonderful book by Raymond Briggs called Grandpa that deals with death and a very good book called Badgers parting gift for young children. You really should tell him the truth.