Need Some Help to Talk to Your Kids About Death?

A recemt conversation with my 7-year-old granddaughter in which she asked me some questions about death made me wonder about just when should we talk to kids about dying?

Do we wait until they ask, or should we start educating them before it touches their own lives in some way first?

Death is an intimidating subject for most parents. Many are uncomfortable with the subject themselves and so they hesitate to bring it up with their children. Maybe they think that talking about death will cause their child to become overly frightened and wonder if their parents, or they, themselves, will be dying anytime soon. The don't want to scare them about death, but they don't want them to be totally at a loss should someone close to them die unexpectedly.

Good books can help parents cope with this part of educating their children long before such a loss occurs. Some such books describe the loss of a pet goldfish or hampster. Others deal with the illness and expected death of a loved one, and still others with the actual death of someone close to a child. Some are written for very young children while others are better suited to elementary school or teenage kids.

If you have children in your home, and the subject of death is a tough one for you to discuss with them, take a look at some good books on the subject and see if they would help in your situation. Don't wait until a sudden death in your family sneaks up and leaves your children unprepared.

Some of my favorites are available at Amazon and are listed below. If none of them appeal to you, check out some of their other offerings until you find one or more that do.



1. Grandpa Bunny is a much-loved Little Golden book that some of your kids may already have on their bookshelf. Even though it is about death, it isn't scary at all, and shows kids that their is a special time for everything, even death.


2. Help Me Say Goodbye is for kids a little older than the Grandpa Bunny book and encourages kids to make pictures and write down short memories of their loved one to keep as a memorial to that person.


3. Tear Soup is for young people but even adults find comfort in this story of making a pot of tear soup. While you are making it, the tears may flow freely, but when you have finished, you put it away for a while, only taking it out from time to time to add a few more tears.


4. Angel Catcher is a journal, but before you say, "I hate writing," check this one out on Amazon. It has lots of readers singing its praises for helping them verbalize their feelings about the person they have lost to death. One girl tells how leading questions the journal asks helped her to say things about her brother that soothed her grief. Several adults commented on how much theyappreciated this book for helping them through their own grief; so much so that they bought extra copies for friends who were also experiencing the loss of someone they loved.

The Only Gift I Really Want For Christmas

A friend recently challenged a group of us to write down what we would most like to have in our Christmas stockings this year.

I gave her challenge a lot of thought, and finally decided that the best thing I could possibly get in my Christmas stocking this year is a very extra-ordinary cellphone.

If you knew me personally, that request might surprise you, because I hate cellphones. My husband purchased a tracfone once and the job of figuring out how to even make a simple call to a friend was, in my opinion, a colossal waste of time. And, when I did finally get connected, the party on the other end sounded as though they were speaking to me from deep down in a well. I'll take a good old dial phone anyday.

But, according to the rules of the challenge, the gift I request must fit into a Christmas stocking so, this one time, for this wonderful and extra-ordinary gift, I will happily put up with modern cellphone technology, and here's why.

The cell phone I am requesting is one that has been pre-programed so only one person can call me on it; my Mother, who died 7 years ago.

I cannot describe the joy I would feel each time that phone rang. Answering it would take precedence over anything else I was doing so I could sit down with my Mom for one of our cozy little chats.

I would ask her all the things I didn't get around to asking her while she was alive and still living just 20 miles down the road from me. Over and over, I would tell her how much I miss her and probably always will. I would catch her up on all the things her family and friends have been doing since she left. I would listen to her tell me how she spends her days, and ask her why she doesn't call more often. I would ask her all those questions that I meant to ask her, someday, before it was too late.

Then, most of all, just before we said good-bye, I would tell her that I love her.