My 3yo daughter sometimes asks where “Grandma shop” is. She means my Mum who died 5 years ago.
Obviously she never met her but (astonishingly perhaps) all the families she knows are the traditional two parents and 2 kids model so she knows something is missing and we’ve not had to talk about death etc and no one in the family is religious.
I just don’t know where to start with it and I’m notoriously poor at this sort of touchy feely stuff. Also I’m not sure I’m prepared for the next questions which I think are likely to come!
Any thoughts / suggestions / experiences?
Just tell her the truth, your creating a problem that needn't be.
"she went to live with TJ and Elfin"
get some goldfish.
they will die soon. it will help.
I am (semi) serious. 🙂
"she went to live with TJ and Elfin"
do they live together?
Get some goldfish and then kill them to accelerate the process.
@iDave no, thats just too horrible, i'm trying to avoid the worrying. She is quite a sensitive kid as well.
MSP you're probably right. as i said i'm not good at touchy feely stuff; is the "she got poorly and then died" thing the right way to go?
I'd say "She got very old and then died".
Otherwise she might worry every time someone got ill.
Get some goldfish and then kill them to accelerate the process.
Our youngest got a little fish tank for her 4th birthday. My wife didn't listen when I said it needed to run for a week or so before putting the fish in; she was 4 years and 1 day when she found them dead in the water.
is the "she got poorly and then died" thing the right way to go?
Yes. Though maybe expand on 'poorly' or she'll be terrified next time she's poorly...
Just tell, her my dad died just before I was born. My mum just told me he was dead.
Funnily enough my understanding of death is probably as developed now as it was when I was 3-4. Ie I understood if you dead your not alive anymore.
What has changed is my understanding of life. At 3-4 I didnt really understand how long and complicated life is. I just thought you lived for a bit and then died soon after. Didnt worry me though.
"The bogeyman came and took her"
Genuinely laughing at allthepies....
"She got very old and then died".
Agree with that, and take her to see the gravestone/memorial if it's near enough to show that people are remembered and thought about after death.
tbh my kids took the death of my grand mother [ their only gret gran] quite well no tears etc and also the cat [ about 3 &5 at the time and both in the same month].
They dont really get death in the way we do ...they are not scared of dying yet so talk openly IME.
They ask when grandparents will die in much the same way as they ask if they can have a pudding or go cycling tbh.
@esme the getting poorly bit is worrying me, the getting old bit doesn't really help as grandad shop is a "young" 65 and grandma shops Dad is still knocking about... funnily enough if he'd croaked it by now i think the whole explanation thing would be a little easier.
i can see how the fish idea works, although killing one seems a little extreme.
Get her a kitten then stamp on it's head.
She'll soon realise what death is.
i can see how the fish idea works, although killing one seems a little extreme
Meh. It's only a fish.
On the same lines as the goldfish & kitten, but without real death, watch 'Marley & Me'.
The goldfish idea is just beating around the bush, just take her for a drive to near an old peoples home, and see if you can mow one of the coffin dodgers down as they are crossing the road.
I've got a 4 year old and 3 year old.
Last year both of my wife's Grandparent's that were still alive died. One was 90 and died of cancer and the other was 85 and died of alzheimers.
We are not religious (I'm an athiest) and after a couple of hours of discussion with my wife, we decided to make death less scary by explaining that they were both very old and that they had gone to heaven. We explained that when people die and go to heaven, that we don't see them again until we die. Both girls accepted this and accepted that death is not a horrible thing. We just didn't want scare them. We also explained that heaven was high up in the sky. Although we didn't say it, we made heaven appear flowery and pink (Well that's what they like).
The girls are very resilient and they didn't question what we had told them at the time. However we knew that they were thinking it over and in time they threw some curve balls at us! A few weeks or months later, my eldest asked if we could sent letters to heaven. We again explained that you could only go to heaven when you die. She then stated as a matter of fact that the postman must be able to get back because he would have to deliver the letters. She also asked if she could go and have a look at heaven.
The only downside is that on one or two occassions my eldest has publicly embarrassed me. I was in Sainsburys one day and there was an elderly gentleman in front of men at the till. My daughter asked out loud "Is that man going to die soon?". If there had been a rock, I would have crawled under it! I was just hoping that due to his age that his hearing might not be that good! 😉
We are faced with a similar dilema regarding my wifes mother. Basically she kicked my wife out when she was 15 and has never been seen since.
Not quite sure how to handle that one yet...?
Tell truth, my 4 year old knows all about my Mum, kids go through a period of obsessing about death until they get bored with it.
My grandad died when I was very young. When I asked why he was missing my Grandma replied in her harsh Geordie accent 'i left him in the garden, a tat man came and took him and turned him into coal and beads' I wouldn't advise this method, I was a very confused child.
My father told me that my Grandad died during the War of the Worlds and was shot by a Martian....I've thought he was a coq till this day for that, I'm 35.
My 4 year old daughter asked me why I have a yellow daffodil on my dashboard, I told her that it's to remind me of my mam. I told her that she died of a horrible disease called cancer before she was born. Every time we pass the same place in the car she asks the same probing questions about mortality.....telling her about it helps deal with it.
Be truthful, be honest, use heaven if it helps...even if your not into it. Look at heaven in the same way as father Christmas, the tooth fairy and so on rather than the personal compromise that STW'ers may flame you for.
At a similar age my youngest seemed very proud when the cat died & wanted to dig it up & show everyone - mind you he does have a heart of pure granite..
The other thing we didn't mention or talkabout was illness. Again we didn't want them to think that everytime somebody was ill, that they might die.
In hindsight we think this was a good thing, as my mother in law was diagnosed with cancer earlier this year. This time we just explained that Grandma was ill and that the medicine they give her will make her hair fall out. Again the girls accepted this and because they haven't yet established a link between illness and death, they only see it that Grandma is ill and that she will get better. After all medicine makes everybody better in their eyes.
I guess they will need to be a quite a bit older before we introduce the link between illness and death.
just be honest 🙂 pets die, relatives die, friends die, friends and relatives are abused, raped, fired, have mental health problems, have long term and or terminal physical health problems, there are natural disasters in which millions can be wiped out by a wave or earthquake... hell they might even find out STW exists! 😯
its much easier to deal with the shit the world throws at you growing up if you have a sense of perspective and haven't been sheltered from the real things happening around you.
the most emotionally balanced, prepared and resilient people i know are the ones who had honest parents from an early age.
my 2p 🙂
[i]She then stated as a matter of fact that the postman must be able to get back because he would have to deliver the letters.[/i]
Kids rock 🙂
+1 in the "tell the truth" camp. You'll get the odd embarrassment like with the elderly gent in the shop, but they'll get it. You might even get asked if you're going to die soon, because from the perspective of a 3-4 year old, parents are impossibly ancient 😉
"daddy, will you die soon? cos.. you know... you're old"
"possibly, i might be hit by a bus tomorrow... better tidy your room properly before bed as you wouldnt want me to die disappointed in you"
😈
Whatever you do, don't win them goldfish off the fair. You'll never teach her about death like that. They're double-hard bastards! Seriously - They're indestructible and live forever. Its probably being brought up by 'Carny Folk'. They could probably neck twenty pints and beat you arm-wrestling, then nick your girlfriend as a trophy. All while imploring you to "scream if you want to go faster!!!"
Or happily swim around for years in a vat full of battery acid
Tell her to CTFU.
The best way of describing death to a child is to say "Can you remember what it felt like before you were born? It's just like that."
Amazed that an atheist talks about heaven?? I went with honesty, largely because I can't do anything else. Told my daughter when my sister died that most people die when they get very old, but that there are some diseases that kill people, and that it is horrible and unfair (ok, subjective, but that's how I felt!). Ten years on at 14 she's pretty rational about the whole thing.
I fail to see the problem here. If you are missing a relative, just go and buy a new one in the grandma shop.
IGMC
Dave
Yes i dont get the tell them about heaven approach when you yourself think it is a lie. One day they will realise that is a lie [ or you lied] and will have to come to terms with the truth then.
I explain about the cosmos and returning to energy etc [ without the rotting bit]. Serioulsy they dont get it emotionally like we do so they just want information.
you could try this though - if you dont have kids this is a superb funny and informative [ ish] programme [ horrible histories]
My fav bit
Just tell them the truth, I don't see the problem with explaining what death is to my little boy although as other people have said, they still don't understand it really at that age. Although when our rabbits got semi eaten by a fox we told our boy that they had gone to the woods (which technically they had - I left them in the bracken rather than burying them in the garden!). He still looks for them now 2 years on 🙁
Tell her she's gone to Devon - my niece use to mispronounce / misunderstood the difference between Devon and Heaven.
My Dad died 4 years ago when my girls were 4 and 7. I just told them the truth - didn't even occur ro me that there was another option (which there isn't).
Since then they have dealt with the deaths of one hamster and about 8 hens with a simple 'oh dear'.
Don't let kids watch Marley and Me!!
Especially if you have a dog.
Honestly, it isn't worth it.
My freind had a goldfish that would feign death on a regular basis. I wish I realised at the time I could have harnessed this potent and emotive educational tool.
"Dude I think your goldfish might be dead, and that I might have just slept with somebody on your couch"
and no one in the family is religious.
what has this got to do with death?
tell her that granma's life ended. don't fill her head with stories of heaven.
I explained to our 4 year old about her pet chicken dying (put down, had an infected leg that would not heal) and not being around anymore, nothing about heaven etc. She took it very calmly.
a week later whilst shopping she starts to tell me that dora (the chickens name) had her feathers taken off and her feet and placed on a shelf.
kids don't really care/understand that much tbh, just don't tell some confusing lie.
I'm not religious either but I don't think the heaven option for very young children is such a bad option. It's a perfectly viable alternative that gives millions comfort at times like this. When they are older then they will make their own decisions. Forcing your beliefs either way is a bad thing and telling them heaven doesn't exist is just as bad or even worse imho. So as far as my two were told, my wife's Dad died and went to heaven before they were born.
Now my eldest is seven, we've modified a bit and she understands heaven is not a physical place that living people can visit. Instead when you are alive it's a place in your imagination where all the people (and pets, even fish) that you have loved but have died go to spend the rest of time but they are healthy and happy and as old or young as they want to be, so we can remember them when they were at their happiest.
They fully understand that life is a temporary thing. I do wish they wouldn't ask my Dad when he's going to die though (he takes it quite well, tbh)
Both my parents died when i was younger, so my kids have never known grandparents on my side,my wifes parents live in the same village and my girls love and adore them,we have pics of my folks in the house and the kids know all about them i've never avoided telling them the truth about them being dead and they have accepted it no problem it's the only way to do it
Al
Kids have no problem at all with death. It's adult that do.
Just tell her.