My DS just turned 3 and lately he has begun to act out scenes with him dying. He even uses it as an excuse if I ask him to do something he will flop on the floor and say "I can't because I'm dead"
I am quite sure the whole dying routine is common for boys but it still creeps me out.
What did you do when your lil rascal entered the "death drama" phase?
Where the heck do they pick this stuff up from anyways?

DD3 is also very interested. She makes up stories, and often people or animals die in them (and then, sometimes, they come back to life). DD discovered death, unfortunately, when I had a miscarriage last fall. We just talk with her honestly and openly about what it is and what it means. We are not religious, but we have also explained that other people have a different view of what death means.

I will admit that a few times I've said something like, "Please stop saying that you are dead. It makes me feel very sad." I'm don't think that's the best approach, because I don't want her to be afraid of death and I don't want her to feel she cannot do the work she needs to do to understand it. But the simple fact is that it is creepy when my beloved little child is being morbid and there is only so much of it I can take before it starts wearing on my sanity.

LOL

Mr W will find two longish objects, give one to me and then say, "En Garde!" and begin his attack. When I get him, he lets out an "Arrrrgghg" and flops on the floor. I do the same.

Its fun and it is harmless.

I can see how you can be sensitive to this given your situation.

Oh, DD doesn't just act out fight scenes. That wouldn't bother me at all. Well, actually, it would bother me, but for a totally different reason (that being that DD is only recently out of a hitting & kicking phase that I am anxious to avoid repeating). She is very sensitive to violence, and just a bit of exposure to it can trigger a lot of acting out.

What bothers me is how much (and how) she TALKS about it. A while back she told me she had a dream in which she was at the zoo with Grandma, and they saw the elephant and the giraffes, and then Grandma killed all of the animals, and then all of the people died too, and Grandma died, and DD died. Other stuff happened too, but for some reason it wasn't as memorable for me. And it is all said in a cheerful voice with a huge smile. Once or twice would be fine, but it seems that nearly every story she tells involves at least one senseless death.

And then, of course, there is the deep philosophical discussion. Asking whether various relatives are still alive. Et cetera, et cetera.

Us too! Today he told me "sissy died the other day and I'm sad"
I am sure this is just a phase but it is still creepy

My DD is 4 and I have been getting a lot of death questions, which I find odd because no one close to us has died. Although she watches a lot of Animal Planet and death is a big part of the shows. She has asked where we go when we die, what do we do with dead people, do we get to say good bye before we die, what happens to the body when we die etc. Also, my all time favorite was when we were laying in bed one night last summer when she was 3 and she says, "hey mom before summer comes we need to dig up some dead bodies and take their skin off so that the mosquitoes will bite the dead skin and not our skin." Okay, will get right on that:) I think that gets an A+ for original thought irrespective of the morbidity.

My DD (soon to be 3) has also been going through the death phase for awhile. Very similar to what has been described above.

Last week we went to visit a friend of mine who has an over sized puppy who doesn't understand her size and ability. Thinking she was outside with the door closed I made the mistake of coming downstairs leaving my child up the stairs to find the door was not closed and the dog came running in and up the stairs to give DD kisses in the face. While doing this she pushed DD over and down the stairs to my horror. She only went down on stair before I could catch her but talk about a heart attack for all. After that incident DD forever informed anyone that would listen that the dog was trying to kill her. I have no idea why the word kill is even in her vocabulary but it is.

ROTFLMAO.

It's just a phase? DS5 still goes a tad overboard once in a while!

DS5 is always talking about death. He has a whole list of things that he tells me that he wants me to teach him before I die (driving a car, cooking etc.)! He also doesn't like seeing any grey hairs on me, or me having a birthday. I think that the idea of death is very strange for them at this age.

Unfortunately school seems to have confused the issue as at Easter time they spoke about Jesus coming back to life. The other day when I told him to be careful and stay close to me in the car park he said that if he gets run over he will just come back to life like Jesus!

Wolf did the same thing as the rest of the kids mentioned. It was this frantic DEATH phase that lasted for nearly a year I think. There was a lot of talk about Mormor's pets who died and what happens when we die, etc... I read up on it and it's a common phase, but it is creepy none-the-less.

He's almost 5 now and it's calmed down a lot, but recently he was telling everyone our cat is going to die soon. The cat has diabetes and is 13 years old, but he is certainly not going to die soon!!! In his mind several years is still "soon." And of course the dramatic deaths at the business end of a sword or gun haven't lessened...

Is it a common phase for 3 year olds, or is it a sign of giftedness at 3? I don't remember my older daughter being aware of death so young, but my DS3 is very curious about it right now and not in a scared or morbid fashion--just very matter-of-fact about it.

His grandma was talking about a turtle she had as a child, and he asked her what happened to it. Overprotective mother that I am, I started into a long story about how turtles live a long time, and how it was probably living happily in a pond somewhere. He thought about it for a minute, then said, "No, I think it died." Cracked us both up.

I think it seems a common phase for alot of children although gifted kids may see/feel a more in depth picture of the life/death cycle.

Trillium, it could also be a "boys vs girls" thing too. DS5 was, at 3, far more curious about death than DD3 is now.

Around age 4 or 5, DS seemed to get a lot out of a book called I Found A Dead Bird.

Unfortunately, even in second grade, many of his school journal entries (what little he would write) contained at least one sentence about death, particularly killing. And sometimes he would even be the killer! GAAH, talk about creepy! Most of the time I tried to let it go without comment, thinking it was typical for boys his age & that he probably was doing it to impress his classmates, but DH was even more freaked out and kept telling him to "stop writing about killing all the time!"