explaining death/funeral to a 3 year old

[hollyhobbie]

Hi,
I have to take 3 year old DD to my gran´s funeral next week. She has met my gran a few times, but as we live abroad, she wasn´t especially close, so won´t find that upsetting.

She probably WILL find other people (including possibly me) crying upsetting and she´s going through the ´why´ phase, so i´m sure she´ll be full of questions.

So, what do i say. how do i explain the idea of death. we aren´t religious, so no heaven/God explainations will do.

There´s no one I can leave her with as we´re flying back and all the family will be at the funeral, so she has to come and I think it´s good that she does, but I want to be ready for her questions...

Sorry, I´m in an internet cafe, so can´t find the question marks on this keyboard. I´ll be at my parents´ house tomorrow, pre-funeral, and I hope to read your excellent advice then...

HH

When my Mums dog died (bad comparison I know....) we just explained to DD that she had died because she was old, and it was like going to sleep forever and that she wouldn't be back.

Got fed up near the end when every answer was followed by WHY? And sorry to say we eventually ended up with "it just does"

hi sweetheart (((((((((((((((((hh)))))))))))))))))))

when i was growing up, my m+d explained that the body is like an overcoat that we take off when we don't need it anymore. this "overcoat" is then buried to return it to the earth. this place is then marked with a special marker called:headstone, gravestone (any which your dd would understand) where we can go if we miss that person. people will be crying because they are upset that they won't see that person again (i personally believe in the afterlife, have had too much proof not to but you may not) for quite a longtime. hth xxx

Thanks for your replies. I'm at my parents' now, so can finally type question marks: ???

And I've started the process by reminding DD that flowers that are picked die. Not a very obvious starting point, but at least the concept of death is out there in the open.

Let's see what Tuesday brings.

(BTW nervousal, I try so hard to answer the 'why?' questions honestly and sensibly, but like you quite often end up answering, 'why not?')

hi hollyhobbie(((((((((((((((((()))))))))))))))))

hows thigns sweetheart?xxx

have you seen my hand in glove thing .. I've found that really useful and I think some other people here did too

By Twiglett on Fri 21-Jul-06 20:48:17
I put a hand in a glove (well in a sock cos I couldn't find a glove)

I said to DS .. "this is you .. the glove is your body" (wiggling fingers all around), "but the hand is the bit that is really you and some people call that your soul or your spirit" (keep on wiggling)

"when you die your spirit goes on" (gently take hand out of glove and make it keep wiggling and swooping around .. tickling him works too as you gently lay the glove down on the ground)

keeping his attention on the hand swooping I said "when you die you don't need your body any more so your spirit leaves it behind" .. spirit hand keeps swooping and talk descends into tickling