can you explain death to a 2 year old ?

[throckenholt]

My son is 2 years 8 months. Our neighbour has been a quite big presence in his life - DS likes to sit on the fence and talk to him and watch him work. When our dog recently had to have an emergancy operation DS said "Donny (his name for our neighbour) will make her better".

Now sadly our neighbour is dying. DS knows he is ill and knows we are upset.

My question is do we attempt to explain what that Donny will/has died or do we just say he has gone away ? I don't think we will be able to hide it from him - personally it is too upsetting.

I think it is good for him to learn about this - obviously this situation is going to arise again i n the future. Is it better to introduce him to the concept now, when it relates to someone close to him, but not very close (as compared to say grandparents for example). He has very good language skills.

But is he too young to understand ?

This is something I've wondered about too. DS was 2.1 when my Grandma died. And too young/lacking in language skills for us to explain. Although he missed her and when we went to see my Grandad was looking around for her I just said "she's not here anymore". But not sure you'd get away with that with a more articulate child. Now that he's 3.1 that would be immediately followed by "why?" He's still got no concept of death and when we were watching Lion King and Mufassa died he decided that he was asleep.

Sorry hope somebody can help you with this. I would be very interested in the answers too. Sorry to hear about your neighbour also.

My FIL died from lung cancer when DS1 was 2.10 and DS2 6 mths. I found it very difficult to know how to explain it. In the end I just told him that Papou had been very sick, and sometimes when people are old (he was 65) and sick they die and go to a better place, where they aren't sick any more. I don't know how much he understood then, we visit my FILs grave quite often and at about 3.5 he started asking questions about Papou, and told me he was sleeping under the ground. All I've tried to is reinforce the fact that he was very sick (not like a cold) and a lot older than Mummy and Daddy, so he doesn't have to worry about us!

Now they are 3.5 and 6, they seem very matter of fact about it. They recognise him from photos and will tell people he is dead, but whether they really understand, I don't know.

Best wishes to you and your neighbour, I'm so sorry that you are having to deal with this at all, but I hope this helps.

{hugs{}}
LL

Update - our neighbour died yesterday.

DH spoke to DS1 about it a few days ago - said Donny had been very ill, and no-one could make him better, and that he had gone away, was going to die soon, and that we wouldn't see him any more. He also explained that after he died he would be buried in the churchyard and we could go and see where he was. DS1 thought about it and then asked if Donny's wife was also going to die - and DH said, no she was fine, but was very sad. DS1 said he was very sad too. DH told him Donny had died this morning. So far he seems to accept it - we will have to wait to see what happens when he realises what it means.

Luckily he has an interest in churches (we live in the country and churches are dominant local buildings), and knows that "dead people live under the grave stones" (he told me that recently when we were parked outside a churchyard)- so that makes sense to him. He also knows what dead is because he has seen dead animals.

Thanks for your comments.

How sad. I do think that you both handled it very well and I hope that your DS is not too upset.

I'm really sorry throckenholt, commiserations to and your family and to your neighbours too.

{big hug{}}