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Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Explaining Death to toddlers
My Grandma passed away this week and we have yet to tell my son because we have not figured out the best way to explain it to him. I thought I would ask here to see if anyone has been through this and how you handeled it. My (older) son is 3 so part of me thinks he is too little but I think we need to tell him something. i should add that we dont go to church so he does not know about God.
Re: Explaining Death to toddlers
I was in 15 when my Dad died, my sister was 2. He died on my lap and in front of my sister. I was crying a lot and just kept telling my sister that daddy was sick when she kept asking me what was wrong with Dad.
Once he died and the ambulance came we continued t tell her that he was very sick and a few days later told her that he died. We let her say goodbye to him at the wake, but she just thought he was sleeping, she didn't understand.
We did go to church, but she didn't really understand god fully or heaven. So we just told her over and over that he is in heaven, showed pictures of what heaven may look like in books. We also would always remind her that Daddy was watching over her. To this day she has no clue who her dad is besides pictures and stories, but she feels like she knows him (which is important).
As a kid she always looked up and would have conversations with him, we always told her to she could talk to him anytime and we always all said goodnight and good morning to him everyday, it's become a tradition, still to this day!
Just be honest, and they will only remember what they want and understand!
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I'm so sorry for your loss.
My DD was almost 3 when my Mom passed away 2 years ago. We told her that she was really sick and that she died. We explained to her that there is big sick and little sick. She was big sick and the doctors just couldn't fix her. We just get little sick and doctors help us get better. This way she didn't get scared if one of us was to get sick that we were going to die too.
We did tell her that she went to Heaven and that she couldn't go see her anymore, but that if she missed her we could look at pictures and we could tell stories about her or talk to her.
I did not let her see my Mom in the casket, I didn't think she would quite understand her being there, and I certainly didn't want her to think she was sleeping (another phrase we were told to avoid). She handled everything so well - probably better than any of the rest of us. 9 months later, we lost DH's Grandma. I stepped out of the viewing room and came back in and my MIL was holding her right next to the casket and so she saw his Grandma there - she FREAKED out when they closed the casket. She couldn't understand how they could close it with her Grandma in there. That was much harder to explain.
Now, she goes with me to the cemetery, and helps me put flowers on my Mom's grave and is very open about it all. She will tell you that she went to heaven and that we miss her. Occasionally, she will ask me a question about heaven, like how come there isn't a phone because she wants to call her, or she asked me the other day if it ever snowed in heaven.
I am constantly amazed, and quite proud of how DD has handled it all. She had 3 deaths relatively close together and has done okay with it.
I would get this book, it helped with dd1 (3.5) when my father died:
Lifetimes [Book]by Bryan Mellonie, Robert Ingpen, Robert R. Ingpen in Books
$7 online, $14 nearby
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When our dogs died I told N that they had died which meant they were very old, got very sick and went to heaven/rainbow bridge to live with God and that they wouldn't be coming back. He seemed to do just fine with this explanation but has since asked more questions like, "where is heaven?" "when are you going to die?," "when am I going to die?" etc. For now we just generalize that people/animals die when the are very old, mommy is not going to die until he is a grown man with his own family, he won't die until he is a very old man, and he's seems satisfied with my answers.
He hasn't had a person he knows die so I don't know if it would be as simple for that but kids seem to accept some things better than we think they will.
Our kids were exposed when our grandparents (their great grandparents) passed away as toddlers. We talked a lot about how great grandpa/grandma died and "we weren't going to see them again, but that we were going to go visit all our Aunts and Cousins and celebrate the amazing life they had". We tried to make it simple by saying things like "we wouldn't see them with our eyes anymore, but we can remember them and still love them forever."
Our youngest was mostly exposed with animals dying recently. He still every once in awhile just blurts out names of dogs that have died this last fall, "Bailey, Logan, and Otto, are dead, but Taj is not dead!" Sometimes he talks about people too...I think their blunt discussions are more to understand it themselves, but it's still hard to hear sometimes. Even the other day, they were talking about some car bombs in Afghanistan on NPR and Micah blurted out, "Afdantan people died, but we're not died, right Mommy?"
I also drove past a cemetary on my commute a lot and sometimes would try to answer DS#1's questions about why they put people in the ground. I would struggle and try to explain that it was just a custom so some people could go and remember their lives there. But I also happened to laugh once when DH was explaining all the flowers to DS#1 by saying, "That's where they plant the dead people, so flowers grow." Due to that, at a couple funerals, he would say things like, "Now they can plant Great Grandpa in the ground to make flowers grow."
I think just talking about it to them helps them start to realize that life is a process and the kids often remind me that us adults have much harder time with death than kids do.
Are you united with the CCOKCs?
When my grandma died, DS was just 2, but we explained that when people get old or really badly hurt their bodies don't work anymore so they die. He seems to have a pretty good grasp of it now, but it took him til he was closer to 3 to really "get" it that he would never see Great-grandma again except in pictures.
ETA: This thread is totally making me tear up. I miss my grandma. DD reminds me of her sometimes in truly eerie ways, and I wish that she could have known her namesake (her mn is grandma's name)
Mama's Gonna Buy You A Mockingbird
I really appreciate all the thoughtful responses. We talked to him tonight incorportating many of the posted ideas and he asked some questions and seemed okay with it. He did say "can we go to heaven some day" which I thought was cute.
Glad it worked out so well and he seemed to understand. Do not be afraid if he says in random conversation with almost no emotion "grandma is dead". My sister did that for a long time and a friend of mine just lost her husband 5 months ago and her boys tell people all the time, I used to go camping with my dad, but now I can't because he is dead.
It can be hard to hear, but it is just how they deal with things!
V says this at least once a week when she asks about Fluff and I remind her that she's in heaven with Vinny & Grandpa Frank.
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