Children and death
Kristi
Morgaine, 4.5, has been extremely interested in death. When she was
2, I lost my grandmother and my best friend to cancer in a short
time. She still plays with my friend's daughter occasially. When
she was 3 her best friend's grandmother died in a car crash
Christmas eve. This past summer her great-grandfather, who we saw
often, died, as well as my husband's aunt. We've fielded a lot of
questions and had a lot of conversations.
Sometimes she gets worried. I hold her and try to answer her
questions honestly without provoking fear. At least once a week
she'll say, "I'm sad because I miss great-Grandpa." I am still not
sure I believe in spirits, but when we got to the "some people
believe" part she liked the spirits. I told her (which is the
truth) that when I miss my friend I sometimes talk to her spirit.
She liked that too. If she asks about children dying, I tell her
sometimes it happens. Sometimes children get sick or hurt and the
doctors can't make them better, but usually the doctors can make
them better. There's a country song about an abused girl who dies,
and we heard that one day on the radio. We talked about that.
The best thing, I think, to do for your child is be honest with
them. If you can't be honest with them it's probably best to defer
to someone else. If you're honest and frank when answering your
child's questions, it takes some of the dark mysteriousness away.
One day my friend's daughter was here, after she had died. Gwen was
4, Morgaine was 3. They were coloring. I didn't hear the beginning
of the conversations but I heard, "My mommy's body got very sick and
she had to die. God wanted her in heaven." (They're
Catholic.) "Yeah, I know that." "Yeah, sometimes Mommies have to
die." "But my Mommy's not dead!" "Nope, she's not." And they
moved on to something else. So simple; that conversation really
helped me talk more frankly w/Morgaine about death. Just some
thoughts.
Oh, this year I asked her if she wanted to celebrate El Dia del
Muerte; she really liked the idea so we checked out some books on
Day of the Dead and left out some little food and gift items for her
grandfather and my friend and others in the family who've died. She
liked that a lot.
Kristi
2, I lost my grandmother and my best friend to cancer in a short
time. She still plays with my friend's daughter occasially. When
she was 3 her best friend's grandmother died in a car crash
Christmas eve. This past summer her great-grandfather, who we saw
often, died, as well as my husband's aunt. We've fielded a lot of
questions and had a lot of conversations.
Sometimes she gets worried. I hold her and try to answer her
questions honestly without provoking fear. At least once a week
she'll say, "I'm sad because I miss great-Grandpa." I am still not
sure I believe in spirits, but when we got to the "some people
believe" part she liked the spirits. I told her (which is the
truth) that when I miss my friend I sometimes talk to her spirit.
She liked that too. If she asks about children dying, I tell her
sometimes it happens. Sometimes children get sick or hurt and the
doctors can't make them better, but usually the doctors can make
them better. There's a country song about an abused girl who dies,
and we heard that one day on the radio. We talked about that.
The best thing, I think, to do for your child is be honest with
them. If you can't be honest with them it's probably best to defer
to someone else. If you're honest and frank when answering your
child's questions, it takes some of the dark mysteriousness away.
One day my friend's daughter was here, after she had died. Gwen was
4, Morgaine was 3. They were coloring. I didn't hear the beginning
of the conversations but I heard, "My mommy's body got very sick and
she had to die. God wanted her in heaven." (They're
Catholic.) "Yeah, I know that." "Yeah, sometimes Mommies have to
die." "But my Mommy's not dead!" "Nope, she's not." And they
moved on to something else. So simple; that conversation really
helped me talk more frankly w/Morgaine about death. Just some
thoughts.
Oh, this year I asked her if she wanted to celebrate El Dia del
Muerte; she really liked the idea so we checked out some books on
Day of the Dead and left out some little food and gift items for her
grandfather and my friend and others in the family who've died. She
liked that a lot.
Kristi
the_clevengers
--- In [email protected], "Kristi" <hayes@m...>
wrote:
Muertos celebrations. One local place has people from the community
build altars - either general ones or ones for specific people. You
can walk around and look at the various altars, they're like artistic
pieces really. And they have a tree where you can write names of your
ancestors who are dead. The kids were fascinated by all the little
skeletons and stuff used in the artwork, and by the idea of leaving
food out for the dead. It's a much more interesting celebration than
the watered down Hallmark-ized Halloween that we now celebrate in the
US as a rule (though we do that too!) - store-made Power Ranger
costumes are a far cry from dancing skeletons.
Blue Skies,
-Robin-
wrote:
> Oh, this year I asked her if she wanted to celebrate El Dia delher
> Muerte; she really liked the idea so we checked out some books on
> Day of the Dead and left out some little food and gift items for
> grandfather and my friend and others in the family who've died.She
> liked that a lot.My kids have both really enjoyed going to the local Dia de los
Muertos celebrations. One local place has people from the community
build altars - either general ones or ones for specific people. You
can walk around and look at the various altars, they're like artistic
pieces really. And they have a tree where you can write names of your
ancestors who are dead. The kids were fascinated by all the little
skeletons and stuff used in the artwork, and by the idea of leaving
food out for the dead. It's a much more interesting celebration than
the watered down Hallmark-ized Halloween that we now celebrate in the
US as a rule (though we do that too!) - store-made Power Ranger
costumes are a far cry from dancing skeletons.
Blue Skies,
-Robin-
[email protected]
In a message dated 5/5/2004 1:52:10 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
tri_mom@... writes:
celebrating, but never really learned enough about it to do so-a local celebration
would help so much... Maybe someday.
Peace,
Sang
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
tri_mom@... writes:
> My kids have both really enjoyed going to the local Dia de losHow neat!! We don't have those around here! I've always thought about
> Muertos celebrations. One local place has people from the community
> build altars - either general ones or ones for specific people.
celebrating, but never really learned enough about it to do so-a local celebration
would help so much... Maybe someday.
Peace,
Sang
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]