I had to explain death to Citrus today. It was easier than I expected although I am sure she will have more questions once she starts to think about it.
When a friend died at age 38 a couple of years ago, his daughter was three years old. I remember conversations at the time that the best way to discuss it with a toddler is to be direct but of course use situations that she understands.
So first we talked about ants and bugs. She got the point immediately and talked about how they were dead after she kept stepping on them and they no longer worked. Then we talked about broken toys or broken crayons that could not be fixed. She told me that we had to put them in the trash, so if a person died we had to put them in the trash, too. Uh. I got as far as explaining that we sometimes put people away in a nice park with trees and grass and decided that was enough.
We talked about being able to look at pictures and tell stories about someone. She told me that she was sad that someone had died, because he was a silly and funny man. And then she declared that she was not going to step on bugs any more.
One Response to “Explaining Death”
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nice…