How To Talk About Death With Your Child

Death is a natural and yet uncomfortable occurrence in all our lives. How we address this to a

child/children can shape their understand or misunderstand if not done in a mindful way.

It is important to always tell the truth to your children however being mindful of the age-

appropriate truth. Being mindful of both their age cognitive ability is a key factor in this process.

Finding the sweet spot of giving enough information to pacify their curiosity but not enough

information to scare them. If you have more than one child private conversations are

appropriate as its best to meet their individual needs.

Tools to assist can be very useful such as what does your religion or personal or family beliefs

around death practice prescribe to. Allowing your children to say a proper goodbye if that is

appropriate and possible can be helpful so they feel they included proactively know something

uncomfortable and painful is going to occur and ease in that thought or understanding.

Giving them the space to ask questions is important as it will provide with their understanding

of what has happened. Check back with them weekly and or monthly good be helpful to

establish where they are in the grieving process. Showing photographs of the deceased and

reflecting on memories of them can helpful for children as they often fear they will forget their

loved one if no longer see them.

Being mindful of your body language is important as well. Children should see appropriate

range of emotion from the trusted adults in their lives so don’t feel you need to shelter them

from that as they often pick up on it and can become scared.

Remember children are more resilient than we often give them credit for but remember they

have a large curiosity and short amount of life experience to understand things that can be

scary or uncomfortable.