nearly 4yo asking about death

[CountessDracula]

This morning on the way to nursery

Mummy is that man dead? (man resting on park bench)
No he's asleep
Why isn't he dead?
Because he's asleep
I'm alive aren't I
yes
When do you die
Oh when you are very very old
Like Grandpa
No no grandpa isn't old enough to die yet
So when will he be?
Oh not for ages
What will happen when he is dead?

etc

She understands that when you die you go to sleep and don't wake up but she is always interrogating me about it. Not being religious I don't really want to go down the angel/heaven route

What do you tell your lot?

i have same problem at the moment as ds (4). our neighbour died about six months ago but he still doesn't really understand he isn't going to come back .

and the girl next door left her hubby and my son thinks she has died, which is very embarassing when he shouts out to him, 'has she died'

I had to tell dd about death when she was 3 afer my mum's dog died. She asked whether it happened to people as well, and I decided that I would tell her the truth, as far as I felt she could understand it. I said that that sometimes, when an animal or a person is really, really old or really, really poorly, their bodies can't work any more, and so they die. It means we can never see them again, and that makes us sad, but we can still think about them all the time and remember all the happy things about them. I said that it usually only happens when someone is very old. She's now 5 and the question has come up a few times, and we simply deal with her questions as honestly as we can without going into detail that would upset or frighten her.

We didn't go down the heaven route because I don't believe it, and because children are very literal; I know that if I had told my dd that people who die go somewhere else, she would want to know why she couldn't go and visit them and when they were going to be coming back. For me it didn't feel as if it communicated the finality of death enough and I felt that telling her about angels sitting on clouds would confuse her with concepts that are even harder to understand than death is.

Yes I like the "bodies won't work any more" bit though I do worry that she might get worried that hers won't!

southeastastra how embarassing!

When I told her that bodies didn't work anymore it was in the context of them having worn out rather than just stopping working. I can't remember the exact example I used now, but it was something she had seen that had worn out completely - an old car or something - and I said that bodies wear out in the same way, but it takes much, much longer so people are usually very old when it happens because it takes such a long time for their bodies to wear out.

my DS (4) asked why we put dead people in boxes

I tried to explain it but I think I ended up more confuised than him

A hearse passed slowly by our house a couple of months ago as I was getting into my car with ds, and ds, who was also almost 4, said - as I was trying to look solemnly respectful - 'did that man get runned over, or did he have a frog in his throat?' It wasn't easy to keep a straight face.