How do I deal with my morbid 4-yr old DD?

[Cocodrillo]

My DD1, age 4.3yrs has been asking lots of questions about death and dying over the past few months.

She often cries, saying she doesn't want me and her dad to die, and says she will miss us, and how even when she's a very old lady herself she will still want cuddles from us (when I try to reassure her that most people are old when they die).

I told her some people think you go to heaven, and she started talking about what she would pack in her "dying bag".

We were walking home from the library a couple of days ago, it was a lovely autumn afternoon, children coming out of school, etc., and she suddenly said, "Will all the young people in this beautiful world die mummy?". It made me feel like crying myself! How to explain something to her that is so difficult to comprehend even as an adult? And do I have a mini Sylvia Plath on my hands?

I'm really worried about her.

I think it's normal for this age. My ds 3.10 is the same at the moment. He keeps descending into a gloom because he "doesn't want to die". Seem to remember my dd came out with similar stuff around the same time.

I think it is natural for little ones to get worried when the concept of death starts to sink in.
DS1 is very sensitive, and I found the best way to deal with his more maudlin moments when he was tiny was to be quite brisk; I'd answer his questions in a pretty broad way, and distract him with something else.

Normal!

Search some old threads on it... loads there

Yes, very normal...dd1 went through a few weeks of intense death-worry/interest at just over 4. It started with her noticing my grandfather wasn't around, and asking questions...then she applied that to everyone around her.

I did a bit of research at the time, including on MN, and it seems its totally normal and that kids' main preoccupations are really to do with separation anxiety rather than death itself - they just want to know there will always be someone there to look after them, that nothing bad is going to happen, etc. I found dd much less anxious after I took to just answering questions as honestly and simply as possible, then moving straight onto reassuring the fears beneath them by focussing on the present: I am here, Daddy is here, you are ok, I will always love you etc.

Nothing Plath-like, honest

Coco - I feel for you my ds (exactly the same age as your dd) is similarly morbid though not as poetic about it as your daughter.

Sadly his Great grandmother died at the beginning of the year - he remembers her and has got very upset about her dying recently - to the point of inconsolable tears. He asks many questions too - I have trouble with them on occasion - as a confirmed atheist I do not say she is in heaven/ looking down on him etc. (while my dh does - we need to coordinate our responses there!!).

He also has a imaginary friend who has 'died' a few times recently - but he gets resurrected soon after. It is just part of the growing up process - making sense of the world etc. death is such a huge scary concept. I remember being terrified of going to sleep when I was a child as I thought I might forget to breathe and die in my sleep! I did get over it though.

I don't know if this helps but your dd is not alone in her sensitivity - just keep reassuring her and she will be fine I am sure.

Thanks! Maybe it's me whose got the problem by worrying about it too much? It's just, personally I don't remember thinking about death as a young child, only when I got all angsty teenage.

it's totally normal ...and heart rending.

I remember my dd doing this at around 5.

She cried and cried and said she didn't want me to die and didn't want to die etc...

As Humphrey says, be brisk, say everybody dies usually when they're very old. then move on quickly.

Dd1 is 5; perhaps she has come to this stage a little late, but it is certainly in full flow.

Not only is she preoccupied with the idea of dying, and never leaving home etc. but anything that is transient seems to upset her at the moment.

The other day she got hysterical in the Asda car park because a receipt she had (with a smiley face stamped on it) blew away out of her hand. I thought that might be an extension of her current 'things don't last forever' anxiety.

I really hope that this doesn't last forever!

Be chipper

(Advice given by ahundredtimes on a dc a-and-death-pondering thread)

I wish I knew how to do links!!!

Was v funny advice

My dd2 (3) is doing this. She worries about what will happen to her dollies when she dies. She worries abouit herself dying, and me.
She also seems to have a strange notion that when people die, they have to be eaten which I think came from the many conversations we had about a dead rat on the road, which got flatter and flatter and then disappeared.

It is very normal at that age, I found that girls were especially interested. When I was a widow it was little girls who asked me all sorts of questions, to the total embarrassment of their parents who tried (and generally failed)to change the subject!
Death tends to be the last taboo subject-I would just answer questions in a natural way.

It's a phase. Just keep answering her questions, and reassuring her, for as long as it takes for her to process this difficult fact, and she will be fine.

missed off a bit of what I wanted to say!

It may mean you go over and over and over the same thing, leading you to think she has a problem that you need to 'solve'. But this isn't the case, she needs to go over and over and over to process it and having the same conversation a million times, while making you want to scream is just the way kids do things. So try to not worry, and just go with the flow.

My dc think that everyone who dies is reborn - we're not religious but I think the vicar visited the school at Easter and gave them the idea. I'm not disillusioning them at the moment (they're 4 & 6). My DD (4) thinks evetyone lives to 100, then goes pop (her words) and turns back into a baby.

Some might argue I should tell them the truth but we all fib about Santa, don't we

The thing is bella that nobody knows 'the truth'.

bella, isn't that what happens...?

My dd was and to a degree still is like this - she is facinated with dead things.
At about age 4, there was a duck that had been hit by a car and was on the side of the road in some bushes. Everytime we passed we had to look at the duck, and see how it had changed/deteriorated.

Just answer her questions in a matter of fact manner.

Also, my kids seem to respond well to the whole "circle of life" idea. Everything has to eat, and things die to make room for other things.

Agree with duck - it's just part of their learning aboyt the world, isn't it? Some are more affested by it than others. There was a funeral recently in our village and dc wanted to know what was going on, so I explained. DD wanted to go into the cemetery and dig up the bones for a look, whereas ds didn't want to talk about it ever again.

Abbey - are you saying it's possible we get to 100 and go 'pop' - fantastic

BTW, affested is my new trendy, cool spelling of affected. Obviously!

Possibly your DD is right bella and she has been here before. It is difficult to discuss because you can say what you believe but you don't know.

Thanks for all the advice on here.

It's difficult to know which story to go with, as I would describe myself as agnostic, whereas DH is very much an atheist. Of course, DD must make up her own mind what she believes in the future. I also probably have my own issues, in that death is just an AWFUL and terrifying concept isn't it, and I don't really want to think about it.

She asked me if heaven was all bright, because she had been worried that death would be "all dark".

Wessexgirl, I think part of my DD's concern is to do with the overall transience of things. She wants to keep all her toys for ever and ever, she never wants to move house, she got quite upset that one day our car would get rusty and break down and we would have to replace it.

I go with the idea that people live on in your hearts. e.g. if granny dies and she loved you the love lives on, she is just not here in body.(i.e. if you love granny even if she isn't here then granny loves you even if she isn't here.)

DD asked me how people get to heaven, and I said um, er, some people think you sort of ... fly.

And she gave me such a look of utter contempt and said I think you're tricking me mummy.

One of my cousins died at the beginning of the year, leaving two little girls. I avoided talking about it around DD, but I wonder if she's somehow picked up on it, and this has made her worried? She didn't know this cousin, so she has not experienced her death as a bereavement. It might mean that she realises at some level that sometimes young people DO die though.

I never have the news on around her, and if the radio starts talking about child murder or teenage stabbings etc. I switch it off. Maybe this is too over-protective?

That's a nice idea Abbey.

My 5 year old ds is exactly the same. Infact he spends so much time worrying about death that he is making me paranoid. I have started to stress about me and dh dying just because he keeps going on about it all the time and who will look after him and how will the baby get fed etc. Its so awful. I bet in countries where death is more a 'part of life' that this doesn't happen.

Yes, I spend a lot of time thinking after all the reassurances I've been giving DD1 that I will be around till she's old, I have to make sure I don't let her down by shuffling off earlier.