A new fascination
by Dresden on February 11, 2013
A few days ago I read one of W’s favorite winter books, The Snowy Day. Snow was predicted in the Philadelphia area and W was excited. For those of you not familiar with the book it is about a little boy named Peter who takes himself for a walk through his neighborhood after it has snowed.
On one of the pages it talks about how Peter makes tracks with his feet and then he finds a stick and makes different looking tracks. On these two pages of the book you do not see Peter, just his tracks.
Out of the blue, when we read the book Friday night, W exclaimed, “oh poor Peter. He died. He’s not here any more.”
I turned the page and said, “oh! see? There is Peter.”
The next time we read the book when we got to those pages with the tracks W, once again, proclaimed, “Peter is died.” I asked him what that meant and he said “died is with Millie and Pop”.
Now obviously those are the names of my Grandparents and we do have family photos of them in the house and we have explained that they are both no longer with us.
This morning W noticed a balloon that he got over the weekend had started drooping. He made the sounds of crying (not actually crying) and moaned, “my balloon is dead.”
To be honest I don’t think I handled the moment well at all. I think I said something like, “oh it’s fine.” But then I went to Mom’s room and asked if he had made any of these remarks to her or if they had talked about this subject recently. To her knowledge it was out of the blue.
With toddler logic there doesn’t seem to be such a thing as “out of the blue”. Seeds are planted and they can grow into conversations months later. I wonder what W over heard and when. And I only really wonder so that I know if he is searching for comfort or just having an understandable curiosity.
On a personal level I fear talking about death with W because I don’t want to fuck it up. I’m going to make a stop by the library tomorrow and see if there are any age appropriate books that might help.
How have you guys navigated conversations about death?
{ 13 comments… read them below or add one }
When my DD was exploring the concept of death, we borrowed this book from the library: Lifetimes by Bryan Mellonie. It’s a very beautiful book, but I’m not sure she was ready to tackle those more complicated questions yet (why/how/when do you die). She was more interested at the time in the concrete information of how the people she knew (great-grandparents) died, where are they now type stuff.
As long as you are honest and age-appropriate, and let him guide you through his questions, I don’t think you can go wrong. I like to get some books from the library as a backup in case I can’t find the right words…
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I remember Mel posted about this with the twins a while back, and I thought the suggestions in the comments were awesome. Lemme look it up…OK, I totally can’t find it, but maybe Mel can, and I realize I’ve now just given you yet another thing to do. Sorry.
I remember that Sesame Street did a great episode about what happens when you die when Mr. Hooper died. They probably have good links on their website.
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We were plunged into this when our nephew was unexpectedly stillborn. BB asked lots of questions, and still does. We fared slightly better when our old dog died recently. We have no religious belief, so explained things in terms of molecules being reused for new things. A bit like Duplo! I’d say keep answers short and wait for more questions – let him dictate how in depth he takes it.
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Tot is also talking about “dead”. Usually it involves our playing around and him falling to the ground limp with his eyes closed and stating that he is “dead” and that either MH or I need to “fix” him. With having so recently lost his Grandpa, I am sure a book is where I should have turned then, but I didn’t think of it. Thanks for the suggestion, and if I happen upon a good find, I’ll pass it along.
*I am thinking that Amalah suggested a good book regarding this. I’ll check that out too.
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I’m glad (in a way) that my in-laws’ dog died a few years ago. Although my husband’s family didn’t want to mention it to my daughter, I jumped right in and told her that the dog had died. She was old, she wasn’t feeling well any more and she died. It took her a long time to process what it meant, and she still focuses on it occasionally. But, I think it helped her grieve when my FIL died (and my husband’s grandmother and then my aunt all within a month) last year. She cried and was sad about it, and she still misses him, but she’s clear on what happened.
I think your best bet is to ask him what brings this on (perhaps one of his school friends had a death in the family). And the thing is, you’ll think you did it wrong anyway, because at some point he will become slightly aware that he is mortal too and he’ll say something that makes you think you said the wrong thing. But that’s just a chance for course correction, because it’s a very complex topic that requires lots of discussion. (I am totally against avoiding the topic. I think it’s counterproductive.)
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Just got a bunch of resources from my art therapist friend. I will pop them in the mail tomorrow. Over-all deal? Tell the truth.
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We are navigating it at this very moment….
Backstory, our next door neighbor died last June in a car accident. He left behind a wife and daughter. This daughter is E’s age and they go to school together and play every day at each others homes.
Last night I asked how his time was next door. He said she was sad and missed her dad. I told him it was ok for her to be sad and we just need to give her lots of love. Next thing he was in tears saying he doesn’t want his dad to die.
I didn’t know what to say. Obviously I don’t want to lie, but I really just wanted to say don’t worry daddy wont die. But I can’t know that and told him we would pray and ask God to keep us all safe. It was a cop-out answer and I need to figure out what to say when it comes up again.
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We talk openly about death. Our cat, my mother, and two of their great-grandparents have died during Burrito and Tamale’s 3 years on earth. We also have photos up of other relatives who have died (several of whom Burrito and Tamale are named after). The deceased loved ones come up almost daily — presents they had bought for one of us that we are using, things that belonged to them, holidays they enjoyed that we are now celebrating, etc. When we celebrated my mother’s birthday with cake a couple of months ago, Burrito and Tamale sang Happy Birthday to her for days afterward.
My explanation of death is, “Her body was broken and she died.” So many explanations that people use can be horribly misinterpreted by little kids — she went to sleep forever, she was very sick, she went on a trip, etc., as they think that anytime they or someone else goes to sleep or are sick or go on a trip, death may be next. I am very clear that people sometimes break individual body parts (they’ve seen people with leg casts for example) but that death occurs when the whole body is broken.
Sometimes when these people/cat come up, Burrito or Tamale will spontaneously say, “She died. Her body was broken.” Last week Burrito said that about my mother then added, “I want to fix her.” So they get it but they don’t.
They haven’t yet asked what happens after someone has died, so I haven’t tried to explain that one yet. My plan is to give them some of the beliefs that people have — afterlife, reincarnation, that’s the end, etc. — so that if they ever hear another kid talking about Heaven or something, they won’t be blindsided.
I get books for almost everything but I actually haven’t gotten any death books. If I do, I’d go for the Mr. Rogers one (it’s about pets), because they love all of the Mr. Rogers books and they are the most sensitive books about difficult emotions that I’ve seen.
Oh and Burrito loves Snowy Day and really enjoys that page! Every time I ask, “Where’s Peter?” and he says, “He went to get a stick,” so that page is easy. The issues that get raised for us on other pages are the fact that a small boy is wandering the street unsupervised and the reasons that he doesn’t have curtains in his bedroom (maybe they are already open, or maybe he doesn’t like curtains, or maybe they can’t afford curtains).
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Mine are a bit obsessed with it (nearly 6 and nearly 4), except the 3 year old says ‘dived’… I explain that usually people only die when they very old or very sick (eg gradad’s dog was very old), and they have had a few moments of ‘but I don’t want you to die mummy’ – to which I point out that I am not -that- old, reminding them that their great grandma is 92 (kinda want to get them thinking that she is very old and may die without being too explicit..).
Definitely honesty though – they know my dad died (before they were born), they seem to absorb it on whatever level they are at, then it comes up again from a slightly different angle a while later. I’m anticipating the first human death to be a bit traumatic for them.
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We don’t know exactly what to say yet, although I think the next time it comes up, I will say what we/others believe. I’m not personally religious, and I don’t think there’s anything that comes after, but some people believe in heaven, and some people believe in reincarnation…how the heck does one begin to explain this to a pre-schooler? It’s confusing for sure, but I think I’m just going to dive in and then ask him what he thinks happens, or would like to happen. And of course keep reassuring him that it mainly happens to people who are very old (or *very* sick, sigh).
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We have death convos all the time. It began when my grandmother died a year and a half ago. We did research then and came up with “her body doesn’t work anymore and she is under the ground.” Since then, we have also discussed (always when he has brought it up himself) being in a box, becoming just bones, and the concept of “heaven.” We share our beliefs, but also tell him that not everyone believes what we do (which is that spirits don’t die the way bodies do and that after you die, everything is beautiful and happy and nothing hurts or is scary.) We also say that we don’t know for sure because we have never died, but that this is what we think happens.
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I don’t really know but I know this is coming for us. I’m not looking forward to it.
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I echo Baby Smiling in Back Seat. Our son’s friend (who, I believe, shares W’s birthday) died last year after a 16 month ride with a nasty cancer. After her diagnosis talk about illness and death quickly became part of our every day conversation. Thankfully a close friend runs a program for bereaved children so she was an incredible resource for our community.
We told him Stella’s body didn’t work anymore and that caused her to die. We also told him that usually doctors can help people who are sick but she had a very bad brain cancer that the doctors couldn’t take out. We tried to stay away from equating sickness with death because that apparently causes anxiety for them whenever a loved one gets sick. We answered all his questions honestly and age appropriately e.g. Q: where did she go? A: We don’t know but Mishi and Aimee (her moms) believe she’s the brightest star in the night sky. What do you think? Son: Yes, I think she’s a star. I saw her in the sky.
I highly recommend the book Waterbugs and Dragonflies. I really like the fact that it makes it clear that the people who die don’t die because they no longer love those left living. Our friend highly recommends When Dinosaurs Die and many of the families in our circle of friends read it to their 2-4 year olds. I checked it out when Stella was first diagnosed but I thought it was too much for a 2.5 year old. Our son was almost 3.5 when she finally died so perhaps it would have been appropriate then but I didn’t revisit it.
The bottom line is death is a part of life and I’d take this as an opportunity to start the conversation with W, especially because there are Millie and Pop are part of your lives and you want him to have a context for what happened to them. One of the things our friend helped us understand is that kids have a tendency to internalise and blame themselves (death, illness, divorce whatever) so helping them understand these concepts as being outside of their causal control or influence is helpful to them as they confront death as they grow.
Good luck with the conversations. We love Snowy Day. Peter is my favorite kids’ book character.
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