Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Age or Ability Specific Forums Pre-school Title change: Talking About Mortality

I am sure many here have had children who delved into very mature subject matters during conversation. No, I am not talking about the birds and bees, but rather what happens to them when they get old and die. I have be caught off guard with some of these topics, and am trying to figure out the balance between being honest and up front, and not scaring a child with too much information about our eventual end. DD is almost 3.

ohhhh, I just smiled because this is just the beginning! At least once a day I have to remind my DS10 that I am the mom and if I need advice I'll ask for it, but until then just let me be the leader. He has always asked about death, and I just answer in the most appropriate factual way I can. My DS can google it if he wants so I'm glad he comes and talks to me about it! Gifted kids seem to want to know about death and while it may seem inappropriate, I think it's just their insane curiosity!

DS1 understood death (as in a final separation) before he was three, and it led to months of devastating meltdown hades. I only twigged too late that his grandparents had been taking him to the cemetery of fine days, talking care of family graves, and it never occurred to them that their grandson would spend evenings screaming in fear of dying and being buried, and being separated from us. I asked for advice on the mothering gifted forum, but none of it (be factual, be truthful, talk about the circle of life, or conversely, talk about heaven, talk about God, about the undying soul...) worked for him, he was simply having none of it. Didn't want to die, didn't want to be buried, did not want his soul to go to heaven ("how would that work if I am underground? I won't even be able to SEE!"). He insisted that he wanted to live in a house with both of us for ever and ever, and the only thing that somewhat worked was my reassuring him that I'd take care of it. Talk about lying to your kid with the best intentions!
The best advice I ever got was from ultramarina IIRRC,who said that she did not only firmly deny that any of their family was in danger of dying (on the grounds that if anyone did, they'd have bigger problems than whether that was a lie) but also simply forbade her kid to even worry about death, as that was an adult responsibility and not her child's concern.
Oddly, this worked for us.

Thank you Tigerle! I think she fully knows that people do in fact die at some point, and she does have fear of it for herself and her loved ones. She picks up on information from everywhere, even other peoples conversations at a diner, and assembles it well, so I do not believe she will buy any untrue explanation. She defines the human information sponge. I no longer try to figure out how she knows anything that she knows.

She does understand that some things are only adult jobs like driving a car, I could go the route of just letting her know that that is mom and dad's responsibility not hers to worry about. I have already given her my personal comfort that it is more important to think about the fact that we are currently alive.

I think this sort of thing varies tremendously with the individual child.

My DD was fine with (and insisted on answers about) pretty heavy-duty topics at a very young age. Death, war, poverty, genocide, rape, intellectual disability, hidden/non-hidden disabling conditions, and mental illness were all conversations that I know I had with her in all kinds of settings over a period of many years, and starting when she was two or three. We'd covered all of that by the time that she was 8 or 9.

I certainly HOPE that nobody eavesdropping was thinking that I should not have those conversations with my daughter, or that they were things that shouldn't be discussed in public. We don't differentiate academic topics of discussion that way in our family. Private, personal topics, sure-- there is a sense of needing privacy.

But I don't spend time worrying over my DD overhearing someone else discuss something I don't want her thinking about. I can't imagine having a child that I'd need to worry about that. It must be very hard to shelter a sensitive soul like that from just casual inputs in public. I hadn't thought about it before now.

Yup. Somebody mentioning death. Of anyone. Once it was Napoleon, believe it or not. Every mention could set off that train of thought leading to a screaming, inconsolable meltdowns bout the horrible power of death. It made the first half of his third year very stressful. And I did have to forbid his grandparents to take him to the cemetery for a year or so.

DS3 went through a period of some contemplation of death around 2 after reading a poem featuring the line, "Alligator pie, alligator pie, if I don't get some I think I'm going to die." He somehow inferred the universality and inevitability of death and seemed okay with it after some discussion. Imagine these topics stated over the course of a few weeks, introduced one at a time.

My side of the conversation involved these talking points (which have a heavily Catholic underpinning):
- Death as a milestone in a longer existence
- The idea of life as preparation for a heavenly the afterlife
- Introducing the concept of timeless solidarity with the deceased through the communion of the saints, so that loved ones who have passed away aren't seen as inaccessible, and so that we don't leave people behind alone (tied into the Ascension and Jesus' promise to be with us always)
- Linking post-death destination to behaviour within DS' locus of control
- Discussing the idea of a fulfilled life
- Discussing what it means to love infinitely, and the connection between parental love and God's love
- Life expectancy and the probability of death at various ages. I told DS that I wouldn't die until he was an old man, which is likely. 3 of my grandparents have lived past 90, and we have many great aunts and uncles who lived into their late 90s on my side of the family. I have 100 to break!
- I sneakily linked life expectancy to controllable behaviours, like diet, exercise, and sleep to create an incentive for good decisions in those areas.

You know, I HAVE been tempted to exploit DS' fear of death by cancer in order to enforce broccoli.
I've decided not to go there, for various reasons. I just make him eat it.

Thank everyone for all of the responses. I do realize the title of the post is a poor choice of words. I had a broader idea at first, but as I started writing I realized I really wanted to hear peoples ideas on this one topic rather than everything she is doing and saying right now. I changed the title of the post to make it more in line with body of the post.

HowlerKarma, I am right with you on that. We do not shelter our conversation very much at all. Particularly not at the academic level of topics. Academically, she understands many very adult worldly topics. My post about her picking things up at diners was more to state there is no way that I could shelter her if I wanted to. From since she was very young I have very often been unable to figure out how she learned things that she knows, and now I no longer try. She just has a wealth of knowledge that she has some how picked up along the way from what often must have been very incidental methods.