How does a non-believer sugar coat the concept of death to small children?

[Lilliput]

My dd had a friend to play today. His father was killed in a car crash about 18 months ago and this little boy (4) will talk about his dad quite a bit. He was telling my dd that his daddy's body was broken when he died but God gave him a new one and now he lives in heaven with God. "where's heaven" my dd says and he then says it's above the clouds. Being nearly 4 my dd was quite accepting of this.
It got me thinking about what I would have said if she had asked more questions. My dh and I are very sceptical about religion. I was brought up with no faith and no religious instuction at all and my dh had a very typical C of E upbringing. I would feel as though I couldn't use the concept of heaven to sugar coat death to my children. What do other non-believers say to their kids?

Lilliput don't have any kids yet (dc1 due march) but I remember from when I worked at a publishers that we had excellent feedback on this book from the bookbuyers with kids. It does talk about a "heaven", or rather, more of a waiting room, but describes it as a place where people go very briefly before "passing on" into the great blue yonder, which is basically it (i.e. loss of consciousness, body returning to the earth etc.) No religion or mysticism involved; the waiting room idea is used as a metaphor to help with explaining the next bit, iyswim.

I've always liked the idea that loved ones go onto a happy place that they liked and meet up with other loved ones who have gone and look over you (without being creepy!!!). I know it sounds a bit wishy washy but I think all they need at that age is the reassurance that the departed are safe and still know and remember them if you see and that all they have to do to remember the departed is think of a memory and there they are.

How much of a non-believer are you? Do you believe in an afterlife? If so, there's always the 'next room' analogy (sp?) I'm trying to remember what I told my children when my Nanna died they're 4 and 3, I think we just said she'd gone away and that she wasn't poorly anymore (different in your friends situation) I'll keep thinking.....

When fil died after a long illness in hospital, we told ds (then 3) that his body had broken down because he was old and worn out. The doctors and nurses had tried and tried to mend him but they couldnt. We said that although we really missed him we were happy that he wasn't in pain anymore. We told Ds about the cremation "a big special fire" and Grandpas party (wake) to remember all the fun we had had with him. Ds still talks about his grandpa a lot, and likes to remember having fun with him. He will have a conversation with him (sometimes with one of us voicing the part of grandpa, but then he does this talking to inanimate objects too), and will tell other people that grandpa died. I think its confusing to talk about heaven and special sleeps and angels, because it can mislead about the permanence of death. Not wishing to offend anyone, hth

My friend is a very devout baptist and her faith has really got her through losing her husband. I have personally dabbled with buddhism which believes in an afterlife and reincarnation however my dh feels as though he doesn't believe that and so can't tell our kids that. I personally think it's a lovely idea and a couple of people have told me that there is something about my dd that makes them believe that she has "been here before". My dh has a very clinical view on death. You die and you body rots or get burnt. Not so nice for children and I also feel slightly uncomfortable with the very basic truth. I want to believe in more IYSWIM.

Twiglett has a great 'glove' explanation - you put your hand in the glove and wiggle it about, then take the glove off, lay it down and fly your hand off, so the hand is still alive but doesn't need the glove anymore. If you do a search you'll find it - in fact I'll do it for you!

here you go

I dont think kids need sugar coating and find it alarming that anyone would tell them tales they dont believe themselves. My kids all happily accept that things die and that is it. I am an aethiest and would feel terrible lying to them. It is usually the adult who is uncomfortable and not the child in my experience in terminal care.I have looked after dying teenagers who accept the notion that nothing happens next quite readily and have faced death with tremendous courage. As I said it is the adults who have the problems and I would like my kids to remain pretty fearless.

This is very good as well.

That is lovely, it just made me cry .

A lot depends on the age of the kids and the closeness to the dead person(s). Anyone needing a lot of advice i n a hurry might find the British Humanist Association helpful - they even do, if I remember rightly, a book or booklet on explaining death to children.
I'm another one with the clinical view, when we die we're dead, the only thing that lives on is other people's memories of us and/or any significant work we may have done - be that a cure for the common cold or a song that always fills the dancefloor...

As a non-believer I would prostitute my beliefs or lack of them and would advise my children that the soul lives on - the physical body may be gone, but the spirit is in heaven.

I don't necessarily believe this myself but I believe it is a helpful prop to shield small children ...until they are old enough to make their own conclusions.

So I am just about at the opposite end of the spectrum to glitterfairy but unlike gf "don't find it alarming" that she is prepared to give the uncut 18 certificate version of death (although personally I don't understand this approach)

it's so sad that this little boy has lost his father. How is he coping?

Personally I wouldn't sugar-coat the idea of death. My only experience of this is talking to my kids about our (much-loved) dog's death, which I know is a bit different from a person, but even so. I told them that he had died, that his body was very old and tired and in pain, and that now he wasn't tired or in pain any more. I find the 'next room' analogy a bit confusing for (small) children (though it would work for older ones, who understood that death was final), since it suggests that the person who has died is still reachable and that they might come back. I told my dds that although Bobby (the dog) might not be with us in his body any more, he'd always be with us in our memories of him, in the stories that we could tell about him (the dds only remember him as being old, but we have so many funny stories about his daftness when he was young) and whenever we thought about him or looked at photos of him. This is the same line that I'd take about a person who died, I think.

However, if my dds want to think about people (or dogs!) who've died as going to heaven (dd1 sometimes talks about Bobby as being 'in heaven, on a star, with your [my] grandma looking after him') I don't 'correct' them and tell them that heaven doesn't exist, I just reiterate that Bobby will always be with us in our thoughts, and that seems to do OK for the time being.

you can get that waterbugs and dragonflies story in book form

for my little one I say 'when you are very, very old and tired your body wears out and you want to go to sleep and it is like going to sleep forever. But we always remember people and still love them even if we can't be with them.' that sort of thing.
The oldest (teenager) is fine with the idea of no afterlife. They think they are immortal anyway (and their parents have one foot in the grave)!

I do say it is not hte same as going to sleep though, but the children have never worried abotu going to sleep after this explanation. There was a momentary wobble when the eldest - at six - realised she would die one day. Took it as a personal affront!

dara. Handlemecarefully I am constantly aware of the fact that parents do not want to tell their children the truth about life and this applies to terminal illness as well as other things.

I think the fairy stories are the 18 version by the way not the other way round. As I have said in my experience children accept death as a fact adn go on with their lives it is the adults who have the problems.

I haven't got a problem with death.

Infact I feel like killing you right now!

............................................................................................................................................joking!

...that was a joke incidentally.

I have no idea why my post presented itself in that odd way [off to muse over that one]

My mom died this year, so we've been going through this a bit with DS1 (5 now). We just say that we can still remember the dead person, and talk to them in our heads if we like.

We go for the "returning to the earth" theme. death is like being very tired and falling asleep (i.e. their aunt recently died of cancer after being very ill for a year) and the body returns to be part of the earth and becomes changed into flowers, trees, etc.
Cat which got run over similarly recycled into garden.

also we emphasise that people have to die sometime or there would be no room on the earth for all the new babies and it would be a great shame to have no babies or children around.

We are non believers too, but i told the children that people we know who have died are floating up beyond the clouds with Angels and baby angels. call it Heaven or call it what you want.

When my children were little, my best friend's little baby died aged 6 months and the pain and confusion my children were in was all too clear.
Telling them this was for me the only way I could think to soften it. They couldnt grasp the concept of 'gone' at 3 and 4.

A few years later, my 4 yr old let go of her helium ballon and instead of crying she smiled and said 'look, Mummy,its going to the angels and all the people up there, theats nice isnt it?.'

Says it all really.

Like SpicedFennelWine my family have always gone with the recycling idea, that we become parts of the earth and thus other things. So loved ones are part of everything around us.
I found this very comforting when my grandfather died when I was 8/9 and cremated, we watched his ashes being scattered and blown by the wind and I imagined those little bits becoming parts of other countries, other places and parts of the stars and sky as well, so he was wherever we travelled.
My daughter is too young at the moment, but this will be the explanation we will give her when necessary.