Please or to access all these features

Add post

Watch this thread

Save thread

Start a new thread

Flip thread

Hide thread

My feed

Active Unanswered threads

Getting started FAQ's

Unanswered threads Acronyms Talk guidelines

Hide shortcut buttons

Talk

Philosophy/religion

Join our Philosophy forum to discuss religion and spirituality.

Flip

Original poster

How to comfort DD (5) worried about death

14 replies

jumpyjan · 22/04/2012 21:29

She is talking about it regularly - worried about me and DH dying and herself.

Tonight I said that she should not worry as her soul will go up to heaven with Jesus (she understands a bit about Jesus and heaven). I also said that I would always be with her or looking down on her. She seemed a little happier but I want to better explain death from a Christian point of view.

OP posts:

hiddenhome · 22/04/2012 21:41

tbh, I think that's about all a five year old would need. Anything more and it might just confuse her. Some children do worry about parents dying and it's nice to provide some comfort for them with a simple explanation and that's probably enough. As she gets older, you can explain things in terms of what faith you believe in/are raising her in and of course she is free to come to her own conclusions once she's older still. Children just need security and comfort when they're little

Original poster

jumpyjan · 22/04/2012 21:56

Thanks hidden. I am a bit unprepared to be honest as I was not expecting it yet. Its also the fact that its more than curiosity and she has been a bit tearful about it

OP posts:

hiddenhome · 22/04/2012 21:59

Yeah, just keep it simple. My ds2 is a sensitive soul too and he sometimes worries about me and dh dying. He's 7, but I just give words of comfort and reassurance and leave it at that. He can learn the theology when he's old enough to cope with life/death issues.

PrisonerOfWaugh · 22/04/2012 22:00

I can recommend 'The Lion King' as a great place to start a discussion of the circle of life etc. We have some great convos with 5yo DD about what happens when various things die.

The Jesus aspect has only made her more confused unfortunately.

zaphod · 22/04/2012 22:23

For about a yea.r when I was 5/6 I worried about death, me sometimes, but more often that my Mom or Dad would die. It normally hit me at bedtime and I would often cry myself to sleep. Sometimes though it would hit me during the day and I'd start to cry. Believe me it was hard to explain and nobody really got what the problem was. It wasn't that I was afraid of the hereafter, more that I dreaded the seperation from my loved ones. Eventually I grew out of it. I don't think that anything anyone could have said would have helped frankly.

I now think that it had something to do with the fact that my family emigrated, leaving my house, grandpa, and familiar stuff behind. So it was a lack of security kind of thing. Have there been any changes that might have unsettled her recently? Just a thought.

thejaffacakesareonme · 23/04/2012 10:36

DS1 was asking lots of questions like this after his Great Granny died. It seemed to comfort him to know that when the people he loved died they met up in heaven, so they weren't alone. We also told him it was a lovely, happy place.

madhairday · 23/04/2012 11:38

I've always found this book waterbugs and dragonflies to be a great story to use with young children when talking about death, there are some other good recommendations on that page too.

boringnickname · 23/04/2012 11:48

I had a similar thing with DD, she is 6 now - i tried to say that people go to heaven to be with Jesus etc. She didn't really want to accept it because to her, her daddy is the eldest so will go first. So she said, can you ask God to send daddy's bones back? I said no darling i can't talk to God directly, so i she said "well email him then, you're always on the computor"!!

chipmonkey · 23/04/2012 11:53

LOL at emailing God! ds4 is 3 and we buried dd last October. He got very confused. He thought first of all that dd was living in the church with the parish priest as he thought the priest was God. After all we had been to God's house.
Then that she was living with some bloke called Kevin ( instead of Heaven) Then I tried to explain the difference between the body and the soul and out of that he took that her body was in one place and her head was in another place. Ds3 who is seven has a much better grasp of it.

boringnickname · 23/04/2012 12:03

oh chipmonkey , im so sorry for your loss, it must have been very difficult or the little ones to understand :( have to admit to a little smile at her living with Kevin though :) Children are so lovely.

chipmonkey · 23/04/2012 13:07

the only Kevin we know is my sister's ex, who is their cousin's Dad so we still see him on occasion. Needed to get that cleared up before they met him again!

gaunyerseljeannie · 30/04/2012 14:38

I told children that that when you die the warm bit makes you "you" stays in everyones hearts and memories and keeps them warm and happy when they think of you. The other bits which are made from the same stuff as all the earth and the stars, so go back to join them and get made into beautiful new things in the univers, so we all become something beautiful again.
They loved the notion that they might be a daffodil.. or a dog

yakbutter · 04/05/2012 16:59

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

LaBelleDameSansPatience · 16/05/2012 21:59

"The other bits which are made from the same stuff as all the earth and the stars, so go back to join them and get made into beautiful new things in the univers, so we all become something beautiful again."

Wonderful, Jeannie. I think I might use that, if I may.

Flip