Five year old obsessing about death

[FuckingFabulous]

I understand that the idea of mortality is a hard thing to digest. I remember being terrified when I learnt about death, thinking it was imminent and I'd be left without parents and probably in some kind of Victorian orphanage. I was probably about the same age.

But my littlest one talks about it a lot. Cries and says "I don't want you to die ever" or I just suddenly see him with tears in his eyes and when I ask what's wrong, he says "I will miss everyone when they die." Or he says that he is afraid to die. He talks a lot about souls and whether there is a heaven etc. I think this was all prompted by the death of a pet and the realisation that they weren't coming back, the Pixar film 'Soul' and a lad in his class who plays by saying "I'll squeeze you to death and then you'll be gone!!" Plus the coronavirus- the little ones know that people were dying in overwhelming numbers thanks to a really poorly thought out assembly that the headteacher even included the infant school kids in.

This morning though, he said "I've made a plan. When you die and Daddy dies and my brother and sister die, I will go out to the busy road and lay down for a car to run me over so I can be with you all again. I will never be happy without you."

Is that extreme? Is that a regular thought process and typical of a problem-solution with five year old understanding? My older two never said things like this. They went through the usual sadness when they developed understanding of mortality, but it didn't linger so long or have such sad statements

My DS was like this at about 5. It did pass. I always thought I would just be up front about death with him, like I was with my DD, but it wasn't right for him at the time. He needed something else. As he was so little I eventually resorted to talking about reincarnation as a 'and other people believe this' conversation. It worked and he stopped mentioning it. When his Granddad died a year later, he dealt with it amazingly. He did ask very direct questions like "where is Grampy now" and we have visited the grave a lot. We just talk about him all the time and about how lucky we are to have all the lovely memories we have.

Just my experience, but it sounds like you have a deep thinker like my son!

Both my kids were similar. I like ‘the paper dolls’ by julia Donaldson. On the face of it it’s a great story but it does address loss too. Also they liked the fact that our older relatives are with us in some way in our genes

I was a bit like this but about the end of the universe- must have watched a bit of science documentary or something that my parents were watching where it said something about the sun will explode or the universe will collapse and it completely freaked me out. My mum just explained that it probably wouldn't happen in my life time or my grandchildren's lifetimes and that I shouldn't worry about it.
I'd try to be honest but positive, eg most people live till their eighties and nineties, like great granny did for example. Most people live long and happy lives, it's very sad when they don't but we can't spend our lives worrying. Thoughtful little boy you have!

Paper Dolls is lovely. I also liked the Alfie book where his neighbour's cat dies. It's written in a very straightforward way.