Death - what do we say to our 3yo ds?

[NQWWW]

His grandma's dog recently died, and he wants to know "where did he die to?" We're not religious, but my dp has told him that the dog went to heaven, and now he's asking if there are people there. What do we tell him if he starts asking whether people die and whether we will die?

I think I'd go for the truth. Kids do become a little obsessed with death because it's not something they understand properly. ds1 still asks me questions now when we walk through grave yards and he's five.

You may get lucky, he may not think to ask. We had a lot of guinea pigs die in last year. 4yo DS was involved with body disposal in most cases, but he has yet to ask about me or DH dying... I think it's just too beyond him to grasp the possibility.
If he did ask, I had it in my head that I would merely say, "Yes, I will die one day, but not for a very very very long time. It's not something to worry about right now"

hi there - my ds is 3 too we have just been through the same thing with grandads dog dying, and were very honest but I do agree with flip, because the dont quite grasp it it becomes a favourite topic of conversation. We passed by a graveyard today and went through the whole thing again but did end up struggling with the subject of human death. i found a really good childrens book in the library by Shirley Hughes, part of the Alfie series called 'Alfie & The Birthday suprise' which deals with the death of a cat and might help.

When dd was in nursery, dh was suddenly and very seriously taken ill. At one point we thought he could die. He didn't, but dd was aware of this. We talked very openly about it, explained that some people believe we go to heaven. We agreed that wherever it was it would be a nice place. There was also a girl in her class whose mum had recently died suddenly of a brain haemorrhage, so the subject did crop up at school, often in a typically unemotional way that children have. For instance a close friend of my dd's said in class while they were drawing (someone was doing a picture of angels) "oh 's daddy died but he came back to life and is alright now"
For quite a long time dd became quite preoccupied with the subject, understandably, but we were able to say that most chidren are lucky enough to have their parents til they're grown up. Now at the age of 6 she likes to know who she'd live with if we both died, but again is quite unemotional about it. She just wants the facts that we can give her and prefers us to say we don't know the answer (eg is there really a heaven) than skirt around the subject.
HTH