"dead" was a first word for DS. He asked about a whole fish on ice at thegrocery store when He was 9mos old.
Now we get stuff like "I want them to keep killing animals because I'm an omnivour... "
I get reallyuncomfortable about his questions lately around war and violence. I try to be honest. Recently, we startd him in martial arts, and I found I had a hard time saying it was a "fighting" class, but that's what he'd ben asking for, and it was a tease not to say it really frankly. Eventually I had to say "this is a class where you learn to fight, but they will also teach you about when and how to fit and why you shouldn't get in real fights, but only play the fighting games.". (it turned out I also had to find out when he'd be old enough to play war games, with multiple fighters per side. Oy)
Anyway, I think kids ask about these things for really different reasons. Mine seems to really be interested in human violence from what I can only describe as an anthropological perspective. Hs interest in death in general seems also to be anthropologocal -- he wants to know mainly about foodways and human intervention in animal lifecycles. He is deeply interested in how I feel about my father's death before he was born. He wouldn't ask about heaven if I spent a week talking around it (i know 'cause Idid). He's not interested in funerary customs (yet -- he paid a lot of attention to some stuff I said about my academic work recently, but didn't get as far as asking), and I suspect when that comes up he's going to want a compairative approach!
Anyway the best way to talk about this stuff is probablyreally dependant on the reason the kid is interested... For mine, it's not charged at all, but wobbling on answeres is really frustrating for him. You've gotta just ADRESS the queston, clearnly and dispasnately.
So...I'd work at figuring out why yours is interested inas much detil as possible before picking a strategy.
Last edited by Michaela; 10/02/12 04:18 PM. Reason: Finished the post
