Should i tell my children the truth about my sisters death?

[karyncake]

I have lots of family photos around the house of me and my siblings and my daughter, now 2.8 has started pointing out my younger sister asking who she is. She was murdered by her boyfriend just before her 21st birthday nearly 7 years ago. I dont have a problem with telling her she passed away but am wondering how i can let her know how without upsetting her or going into too much detail.

personally I would go down the she is my sister and sadly she died before you were born.

I am sorry for your loss, there is time and eventually when she is older she will know but just not yet,

I agree with Greyskull. At her age, your dd just needs to know that she has died, but not how.

I am so sorry for your loss. I dont know how you can explain to a small person anything like that.
At 2.8 I think that you could perhaps put it too your DD that your sister isnt with us any more because she is with the angels.
You dont need to give the details until she is older and can comprehend the loss.

A very difficult situation for your family

I agree. It's such a difficult situation, but I don't think you need to feel that you are making light of what happened to your sister, you are just making it understandable for your very young daughter. There will come a time when you will realise it is the right time to explain, but a tt eh moment she is too young.

So sorry for your loss. We had a similar situation in our family - aunt's mother murdered by her (mother's) boyfriend. Other than knowing that she had died I didn't learn the truth of how until I was in my teenage years and even then it was truly shocking.

Sorry for your loss.

I would say that she has died. I don't think your dd will ask too many details about why just yet but as and when she does just answer her honestly.

I have no idea what is best re telling your daughter.
I would however like to say that I am sure this is really difficult to cope with at the moment due to the amount of media coverage some very tragic and high profile cases are getting......must raise some very painful memories to the surface for you.
I hope you are able to access some support for you should you need it x

Thanks everyone for your replies.
DD is at the stage where every answer is met with a "why?"
so I just wasnt sure whether to be honest (without going into detail with her) or just make something up for now.
I will just keep it basic as suggested. Not looking forward to explaining things when she is older though.
I am suprisingly accepting of the situation although sometimes a thousand questions run through my mind and every now and then out of nowhere I start thinking of her and how she must have felt.
It may sound odd but in a way I think myself and my family have all come out of this better people, especially my mum who is a much stronger person than she was before.
Thanks again everyone xx

Hi Karnyncake.
My sister killed herself when dd was two and a half. We turned to Winston's Wish for advice and I highly recommend them.

As a general guide, the advice is to give accurate, but not necessarily detailed, information as and when your child asks questions.

eg when dd asked why sis died I said because she was ill in her brain and the doctors weren't able to fix her. When asked how she died we talked about breathing and how if something stops you breathing you can't live anymore. Small children are able to accomodate these things into their world view without being shocked by them.

There are trust issues that can become problematic if one with-holds major information for years and years, so they don't recommend keeping significant facts back. It's actually a lot easier to tell and to hear these things with little children than with teenagers.

I'm so sorry that you have to find your way through this, and I totally get what you mean about strangely becoming stronger people.

Please do contact Winston's Wish - their helpline ataff are amazing and they have books that are specific to help with particular types of bereavement and ages of children.