When we talk about choosing the third road in coming alongside your child to have this conversation, it might help reassure you that, in my experience, these conversations are often harder on parents than they are on children. This will be a hard topic for you to navigate, and it’s easy to assume your child will have it that much worse. However, kids are often a lot more resilient than we give them credit for.

I’m confident yours will be no different.

When discussing ancestors, it can also be helpful to have a small photo album of photos the children can keep with them. Children are concrete learners, and having tangible things to hold can help them process more effectively.

Also, this conversation is an excellent opportunity to teach your child about any traditions your family practices. Talking about traditions and customs can help children connect better with their ancestors if your family has practices that are very important to you.

Laying this groundwork can be crucial to healing processes. I was once working with the family of a little girl who was in heart failure. She was on the transplant list, but the family was told it might take a long time to get a new heart. Her siblings obviously knew she was very ill, and their father had the foresight and wisdom to have very open conversations with them about the possibility of her death.

Sadly, she died waiting for a viable transplant. Having been empowered by pre-processing their grief in this way, her siblings made the decision with their father to attend her memorial service. Part of their healing process was handing out teddy bears to all the children in attendance in their sister’s memory.

If their father had been afraid of the conversation, it’s certain his children would have been less able to process their sorrow in a healthy way like this. But because of his willingness to be vulnerable with them and take the time to talk to them about death, they were able to openly grieve and honor their sister in a very meaningful way.

Optimize your space for breaking news about the death.

Sometimes you won’t have an opportunity to pick your environment, and that’s okay. You can absolutely do right by your child in that circumstance. However, if you can optimize your environment, definitely do:

• Try to have this conversation at home. Kids ideally will have a familiar, private space for this conversation in which they won’t feel observed or judged. Again, depending on the circumstances, this may or may not be possible – but do whatever you can to find a quiet, protected space away from strangers’ view.

• Minimize distractions. Make sure there are as few distractions as possible where you’re going to be talking – this isn’t the type of conversation you should have with a TV droning in the background. If you have another child too young for the conversation, try to ensure they don’t become a distraction. This will emphasize to your child that your attention is solely trained on them and what they need in that moment.

• Speak like you’d want spoken to – eye to eye. Find a place and setup which allows you to be on the same level as your child. The news is going to be frightening enough without an adult looming over them. Sit eye to eye with them and break the news gently. You’re going to be a lot of things to your child in that moment, and one of them is a friend. Emphasize to your child you’re in this together, even in how you orient yourself in space.

Be sensitive to the comprehension level of your child.

There can’t be a set prescription for talking about death – whether in general or in particular – for “toddlers” or “preschoolers.” There’s just too much variation in understanding. For one thing, there is a massive gulf of comprehension levels between an average only just two-year-old and an average late four-year-old here, even though a census taker might call both of them the same thing. For another, even two children born on the same day can – and will – have vastly different abilities to comprehend and respond to news of a death.

So be sensitive to the particular needs of your child. Do the best you can to tailor the way you enter the conversation to their level of understanding, and then follow their cues about how to continue the conversation. Try not to take in a preconceived notion about how that talk will go, and have the flexibility to roll with their response.

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Be forgiving of inevitable misunderstandings.

Even in a situation in which you expected the death and did your level best to work your child up to a point of being prepared for the news, be prepared for your child to nonetheless struggle with understanding. I mean, honestly, do any of us actually understand this? There was something in the person’s body we call “life,” and then something happened, and now that thing, that essence, is gone, to somewhere we don’t know. It’s a mystical, mysterious thing, even to the most learned and wise of us.

Young children, notorious for being neither of those things, are going to cram this situation into frameworks they already have in an attempt to make some semblance of sense of it. But they lack the cognitive development necessary to actually comprehend the gravity of death and dying. So instead of getting mired down in the bog of trying to explain what life and death are to them, just be there.

They may conflate death with a concept of sleep or hibernation. They may view death as reversible given enough time or medicine. They might see death as some kind of punishment, either to them or to the deceased. Even if you see their response as ridiculous, be patient with it. You’re both in this together. Just be ready for conversation at the level they want and need, when they’re ready for it.

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Give your child what they want – little more, no less.

This isn’t the time to inundate your child with every little detail. Break the news succinctly, then give them the floor. They may respond a hundred ways, from being completely non-plussed and asking for a snack to descending into horrified sobs and anything in between. Let them guide the conversation. They know what they need in that moment in terms of information and support, so let them tell you rather than presuming you know.

These responses are all okay, and shouldn’t be judged or chastised. Your kid isn’t being irreverent, or crude, or disrespectful, or hysterical. They’re being a kid.

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Use straightforward language and tone.

Nobody expects you to robotically convey the information here. However, the language you use needs to be matter-of-fact. No euphemisms, no figures of speech, no flowery language, no big wind-up:

Do what you have to prior to the conversation to get in the right headspace for it – but once you’ve started, get straight to it. Humming and hawing will only make the encounter more awkward and your child more nervous. They’re liable to think, ‘If this is making Dada so scared, this must be really really bad.’

Reinforce your loved one’s absence from their body.

It’s important in this process to begin disassociating your loved one from their body. When you’re sharing memories about days gone by, that was “Grandma” – the living person they shared life with. That is not the entity they will be speaking of and interacting with in the days to come, however. The figure which will be present at the funeral, which will be cremated or placed in a coffin, which will be buried, is not “Grandma,” but rather “Grandma’s body.”

It’s an important distinction to make. People are capable of thought and feeling, and it’s essential your child not have any impression your loved one is “in there” but merely unresponsive. No matter our respective philosophies about the afterlife or lack thereof, we can all find common ground in saying the body is now a discarded vessel. So do your best to phrase conversation about your loved one’s remains impersonally, so your child doesn’t worry about them suffering from being “trapped” in a coffin, urn, or grave.

Don’t be afraid of silence.

This is going to be a difficult, uncomfortable conversation. It will be tempting to try to fill silences with reassurance or explanation. It’s important to allow your child to process this information at their own speed, though – and to give a space they can fill with questions, emotions, or just time to think. Silence is delicate and easily destroyed, but if protected from harm, it can be powerful.

Don’t rob them of all that with caveats or platitudes. It’s not time for any of that. Life sucks right now, and there’s nothing either of you can do about it but sit together. Don’t shoo them through their process of grief just because you’re uncomfortable, and remember that they’re starting from scratch with information you’ve had for some amount of time already, and with fewer tools in their belt to deal with it all.

Don’t suppress your emotion, but don’t do this falling apart.

It’s not only okay for you as the adult in the situation to express emotion or cry – it’s healthy. You’re modeling the fact emotional expression in response to sad news is an appropriate response, and giving your child permission to express their own emotions naturally. You shouldn’t “be strong” and stifle your emotional response, or even suppress it in front of your child while you grieve privately. Trying to squelch your own emotions will silently teach your child that emotional expression, even in a circumstance this sad, is unacceptable. That’s exactly what you don’t want.

However, it’s advisable the person breaking news of this nature to a young child be in control enough to have the conversation in a measured way. If someone is still in a mode of not being able to talk about the death without breaking down, it’s not a good idea for them to be tasked with guiding a child through the process. The situation will be disorienting and anxiety-inducing enough without having to watch their caregiver, who’s supposed to be in control, seeming so out-of-control.

Again, it will suggest everything is out of control, which is a scary proposition to a child.

Avoid some problematic words and phrases.

Little makes we human beings more uncomfortable than talking about death, and the result is often our saying things that are unhelpful at best or harmful at worst. Something isn’t always better than nothing – remember, don’t be afraid of silence. Here are what Samantha and I have found to be among the most-repeated troublesome phrases people default to, along with explanations of why they’re problematic:

Helping Your Child Process the News

So now you’ve notified your child about the death, and the initial shock is giving way to a new phase of processing and coming to terms. What are the next steps in guiding your child through this?

Don’t be concerned by a seeming lack of concern.

Young children don’t process information the same way adults do. Their response to news a loved one has died might be completely anticlimactic. It’s possible the response is something akin to, “Okay. Can I have a snack now?” It will often take gently coming back to the subject repeatedly for it to begin to register – and depending on your child’s age and their relationship with the deceased, it might take until the funeral or far beyond before they fully grasp they will not see their loved one again.

This is all okay. You don’t need to try to rush them through the process of understanding. Simply be available to them.

Don’t take offense to narcissism or seeming callousness.

Toddlers’ worlds revolve around them. I still remember a scene from 2003 – I was working in a teacher supply store, and an acquaintance with a three-year-old son came in to shop. We, perhaps rather diabolically, had knick-knacks for kids behind glass underneath the register at toddler eye level. Her son, of course, immediately spotted them when she came to pay and asked for something or other that escapes me now.

“No, we don’t need any of those today,” she told him. Aghast and agape, he stared up at her and, with genuine confusion in his voice, spluttered, “Buh…but I want it!”

It’s developmentally appropriate for a toddler to process things first through a prism of how it affects them personally. So in the context of their being told about a death in the family, don’t chastise or punish them for making news of the death about themselves. They may say something like, “But who’s going to play with me now?” or “Now nobody is going to pick me up from daycare…” It’s okay. Don’t take it personally that they’re taking it personally.

They may also repeat information coldly and out of context, or interject it into inappropriate situations. You might be in a random moment of giving your child a bath, or paying a cashier, or exchanging pleasantries with someone at the grocery store when your child decides they need to say, “Grampa is dead and never coming back.” Depending on where you are in your own process of grief, this may be salt in the wound.

Try to keep a spirit of understanding, though. They’re doing their best to process and cope, same as you.

They’re not being cruel with any of these situations. They’re just looking at the situation through the only lens they have: Their daily experience. Toddlers aren’t wired for deep empathy, and you can’t fairly expect it from them.

It’s okay to say you don’t know.

We humans have a complicated relationship with all things mystical and mysterious. We’re happy to read a mystery so long as it’s resolved at the end, but something so intractably opaque as death is destined to make us uncomfortable. Don’t let this send you down a garden path of contriving pat answers for your child’s questions, though. There are certain things we just can’t know about death, and you should be open and honest about that fact.

To care for yourself is to care for your child.

In the process of guiding your child through this process of grief, make sure you don’t neglect your own needs. The maxim “you can’t pour from an empty cup” holds especially true here. Your child is watching constantly, not just when you’ve steeled yourself for a deep, meaningful conversation. If you’re not eating, not sleeping, not keeping up your hygiene, your child will notice and will be unsettled by it – even if you’re tending to them perfectly with the things you’re saying.

Have ready responses for predictable questions.

There are certain questions that are likely going to be front of mind for a large percentage of young children told of the death of a loved one. You’ll be ahead of the curve here if you anticipate them and have a mental template for how to address them. Not a canned answer, not a rehearsed blurb, but a firm footing to jump off from:

In the Interim

Now that you’ve had the hard initial conversations, the next step is…waiting. There’s usually a lull of some number of days between initial news of a death and a closure event like a memorial or funeral. This interim can present both problems and opportunities when it comes to how your child is coming to terms with the situation:

Expect to revisit the issue in the days following.

It’s often the case you’ll have to gently more or less start over with your child in terms of helping them understand. That may cause you some frustration, and make you feel like you’re ripping your own painful scab off when you have to reiterate, yet again, that someone you love is dead, and that no, your child can’t see them.

Dig deep into your reservoirs for patience and grace here. Again, they’re not being cruel. They’re struggling to digest the enormity of the situation.

Try to maintain your routines as much as possible.

Routines are a balm for the mind of a child. Being able to project and predict gives them a sense of control and security. In the wake of the death of a close family member, it will likely be impossible to precisely maintain the status quo for them; however, the more you can make familiar to them – even if you’re only capable of protecting and preserving something like a wake-up or bedtime routine for a time – the better off they will be.

Depending on how close the loved one was, it might feel like a betrayal to divert your attention from their death to do something so ‘mundane’ or ‘frivolous’ as taking your child to a weekly playgroup or going to a long-planned birthday party. Fight that notion in your mind. If your connection is that solid, I’m confident your loved one would insist your child’s world not be made to shudder to a grinding halt to commemorate their death.

Forecast what will happen next within the family.

As with protecting routines, the best way for a child to feel more in control is to know what’s happening around them, and not to simply be dragged from one thing to another. Give them a roadmap: On this day this person will come into town, on that day we’re having a meal, on another day is the funeral. Taking a few minutes here and there to project forward in time (and explain the significance of what everyone is doing) will pay dividends.

Let your child participate in rituals.

Toddlers and preschoolers often benefit from “working out” their grief in some concrete way. That may take a number of forms, and will depend on the interests and understanding of your child. Something like a small garden your child is allowed to choose flowers for, a piece of artwork dedicated to the person’s memory, a memory box filled with mementos, or even just an opportunity to light a candle can be a vehicle for your child to channel their thoughts and emotions into.

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In Samantha’s clients’ situation, it would be easy for an outsider to scoff at the therapeutic benefits of something as simple as a kindergartener’s artwork. But just like physical energy, emotional energy isn’t destroyed when it’s suppressed somehow – it has to go somewhere. Just the act of letting that energy flow into a creative process can be enough to reduce a child’s angst and make margin for a healing process to get a toehold.

Expect and forgive regression in your child.

Your child may regress in certain behaviors in response to news of a loved one’s death. This can be especially frustrating in the high-stress environment of bereavement – just when you most need your child to keep it together, he or she suddenly reverts to baby talk or thumb sucking, or becomes acutely clingy or irritable, or starts having fits of anger, or any number of other things. Do your best to be understanding.

Think about it this way: Imagine your child as a sieve, with information pouring through they pull the meaningful stuff out of. Day to day, it’s like a half-open kitchen faucet coming through. Issues here and there – the occasional misunderstanding, the now-and-again tantrum – but by and large no big deal.

Now imagine their little sieve selves getting a fire hose turned on them, with water that has tons of mud and grit. Their capacity is going to clog and overflow in short order, and there’s just no telling what it’s going to look like when that torrent starts spilling over the sides.

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Attending Funerals and Memorials

It’s time for your kiddo to say a final goodbye. How do you help them here?

There is likely only downside to infants and early toddlers attending.

The latest science suggests our earliest long-term memories don’t start until we’re at least two-and-a-half years old. That somewhat tracks with my experience; I have very hazy memories of chickens my grandparents, ahem, phased out before I turned three (apparently with my enthusiastic yet dry-heaving assistance). My earliest memory in which I can vividly recall a specific progression of events isn’t until I was four.

There is thus little to be had in the way of benefit to taking a child younger than this to a visitation, wake, funeral, or another similar ceremony – particularly when the deceased’s body is present. They will not resent you later in life for not having taken them, because with no opportunity for long-term memory creation and no cohesive sense of what death is, there is no such thing as ‘closure’ or ‘paying respects’ for a child this young.

So all you really stand to gain from this prospect is an oblivious or confused – and potentially anxious and fearful – child on your hands. If you need to be in the service, do your best to arrange care for a child this young, even if it’s someone tending to them on site but outside the room. Besides the considerations for your child, an infant or early toddler is probably going to be restless at best and a major distraction at worst.

Funerals are not for the deceased – no matter your philosophy about death and the afterlife, most of us would probably agree they’re not in attendance. Funerals are rather for the living people who loved them. So since we’ve established your child has little to gain and much to lose, the disservice here would not be to your dead loved one in not attending – it would be to those gathered, whom you’re risking having to endure an upset child who was dragged to the funeral breaking the reverence of their collective moment of reflection.

However, that point raises an exception to my assertions here. If the family would like your very young child to attend, with full knowledge that they can’t be expected to sit with folded hands for the duration of a memorial service, and you feel comfortable with it given what you know about your child, it’s okay to take them. Your child won’t be scarred by attending. They may be confused, but with no concept of mortality, the body of the deceased will just be another person who happens to be in a box.

Again, funerals and memorials are for the living, so whatever you decide, make the decision in the best interest of the most people. If you do wind up taking them, ensure you coordinate with someone – preferably either a hired babysitter or someone more distantly related or acquainted to the deceased rather than a deeply mourning immediate family member – who can whisk your child out of the service if they become overwhelmed.

Give an opportunity to make an informed decision about attending.

Funerals are unsettling and, frankly, just weird places – even for adults. Recognize that fact as you approach a funeral or other memorial. Even for a somewhat older child capable of remembering and processing a funeral experience, you should still provide a guilt-free opportunity to decline attendance. Again, kids know what they need in terms of understanding and working through their own shock and grief, so don’t make assumptions and proceed without checking in with them.

Don’t let a fear of others’ opinions lead you to railroad your child into attending. Don’t suggest to your child they’ll regret not attending. Remember, if an older preschooler or school-age child attends, it’s highly likely they will be left with a lifelong memory of it. If they have a poor experience, that will remain with them for a long, long time.

We promise, your dear departed loved one will take no offense at their absence. So as long as no living person guilts them about their decision, there should be no issue.

Your child can manage to come to a place of closure and honor your loved one’s memory without being paraded past their lifeless body. If he or she elects to not attend the funeral, there will be plenty of options for allowing them opportunity to grieve.

See if yo○○u can tour the funeral space beforehand.

Being able to recognize spaces and predict the progression of events is empowering to a young child. If your child will be attending the funeral and is unfamiliar with the space, speak with the involved religious leader or funeral director and see if you can have a few minutes to bring them in. If possible, have them brief both of you on what to expect during the service. Some specific questions to have answered would be:

• Where will your child be sitting?

• Where will the casket, urn, or memorial picture be?

• If the deceased will be present in a burial casket, will it be open or closed?

• What will the service look like in terms of the order of songs, speaking, and other elements?

• How long is it projected to last?

• What will happen in the space when it’s over?

○ Will there be a receiving line as family thanks attendees after they view the body?

○ Will ushers dismiss attendees row by row?

• Where will your child be going after they leave?

○ Is there a graveside service?

○ Is there a family/community meal afterward?

If anybody in these roles has a cross thought about your asking for this on behalf of a child, I seriously question their choice of vocation. When I was a pastor I would have been deeply honored to have had the opportunity to teach and guide in that way. I’m confident a request of this nature will be met with whatever accommodation the person in question is able to muster.

Prepare your child for the state of the deceased’s body.

No matter the service type, if the remains of your loved one are present, they are guaranteed to not look like your child expects. That will likely be upsetting to them if they’re not prepared for it, and you might be left weathering a barrage of insistent, tearful questions in the moment about why your loved one “doesn’t look right.” To mitigate this, have a discussion beforehand based on what your child will encounter at the service:

Burial

If the funeral will be closed-casket, this will be a fairly simple, straightforward discussion: “Your [loved one]’s body will be inside a box, which is called a ‘casket’ or ‘coffin.’ The inside is like a small bed their body is lying on, with a pillow for their head. The casket will be closed, so you won’t be able to see [loved one]’s body, but I promise it will be in there.”

If the funeral will be open-casket, you should brief your child so nothing about the experience shocks them. As with other points in the process, emphasize up front your loved one no longer inhabits the body they will see. With that said, here are some things to talk to your child about:

1. The fact their loved one will look different. There’s only so much that can be done aesthetically with a dead body. Signs of life – genuine color, supple skin, and so on – are all gone and have to be approximated with makeup and other elements. Children don’t need a rundown of all the science and vocational tricks to mortician work, but they should know the figure they will see will not be quite what they expect. If they have questions beyond that, field them and guide them through the discussion in an age-appropriate manner.
2. The fact their loved one will not, and cannot, move or respond in any way. Rather than salt in a wound, this can be a source of comfort. Your child may have seen something in media featuring a character in a dazed or comatose state suddenly springing back to life, and find themselves wondering if it’s possible their loved one might spring their eyes open upon their approach or sit bolt upright in the casket. Assuring them there is no chance of this can calm their imagination.
3. The fact the body will be cold and hard. As you’ll have been repeating in this process, death is when the body completely stops working and cannot start working again. Thus, all the ways the body produces heat are shut down, and the body will be cold and rigid. Whether your child experiences this directly by touching your loved one’s body or sees someone else do it, the interaction is going to seem off.
4. How it’s okay to be nervous or afraid, and that someone is always nearby to help. Seeing a dead body for the first time can be an intense emotional experience, so tell your child there will always be a way to check out – and honor that promise. Make sure, no matter the other logistics, your child is not left to wander or fend for themselves. Whether it’s you, another family member, or a babysitter in attendance, ensure there is someone constantly tending to and monitoring your child for signs of distress so they can intervene quickly.

Cremation

Explaining cremation to children is especially difficult, because let’s face it – the prospect makes many to most adults a bit squeamish. Additionally, the vast change in form factor from an adult-sized body to a relatively tiny urn introduces extra space for misunderstanding. Some children may infer that their loved one has simply been shrunk down and is now trapped inside. If your child has had any exposure to ‘genie in the bottle’ type stories, you may also have to deal with their musing there is some secret trick to getting them out.

As with other phases of this process, though, let your child set the tone and pace of the conversation. You shouldn’t flinch in answering direct questions. But you also don’t need to immediately give a dissertation on cremation and cremains when your child asks questions. You can start with the basics: Your loved one’s remains will be sealed up in a container called an ‘urn,’ which is not very big. Then solicit questions.

If your child takes this at face value for the time being, that’s fine. It’s likely he or she will have questions at some point, but they should develop in their minds in their own time. It’s more likely, though, that there will be an immediate question about how their body now manages to fit inside something so impossibly small.

While it’s important to not lie or deceive your child at any point in this process, it’s also not necessary to subject them to every detail upfront. Dole out information as it’s requested. When discussing cremation in particular, it’s important to doubly reinforce the premise that all feeling has ceased, and their loved one no longer inhabits their body – again, all along this process it should be “Grandma’s body,” not “Grandma.” To the question about the change in volume, you can say cremation is a process that changes a body into something like sand or dust.

If they press for details, you can say “the process uses heat.” Avoid using words like “fire,” “burned,” or “oven.” Heat is a gentle, invisible thing to them, whereas fire is chaotic and violent. If you get a direct question about fire after all of this, unless you for some reason got a briefing on the process with macabre levels of detail, you can almost certainly say “I don’t know” in good conscience.

Don’t make attendance an all-or-nothing proposal.

Memorial and funeral processes are pretty overwhelming, even for adults. But think about them from a child’s frame of reference:

There will be family interactions leading up to them that are draining and anxiety-provoking before anything ‘official’ even begins. Then there can be a multi-hour visitation/wake/family night where they would undoubtedly be interacted with almost constantly. Then a long, confusing, boring funeral, featuring grown-ups who are crying, some of them really hard (which is unsettling for a young child, who envisions adults as eminently in control of all things).

Then there might be a weird parade of cars with their blinkers on snaking its way to a cemetery, where more strangers have more boring speeches ignoring the fact that scary man on the big digger machine is going to dump dirt on Grandma as soon as everyone turns their back for one second.

It’s just…a lot. When you’re planning the best course of action for your child, make sure you leave them – and yourself – the option to segment the experience. Can they attend one hour of the visitation and then be taken somewhere relaxing or fun while the bulk of the family remains? Can they attend the funeral but not the graveside service?

Don’t get tunnel vision and falsely give yourself binary choices – think outside the box about what would be most beneficial for your child.

The Days to Come

The days after the funeral will be the beginning stages of a new normal. Here are some things to watch for and consider in this phase:

Be observant of monologue and play in the coming days.

The inner workings of your child’s mind often rise to the surface during unstructured play. This is one of the most important ways your child processes and parses novel concepts. In the days and weeks following the death of a loved one, stay tuned into what your child is talking about or acting out in these moments (and if your child receives care outside the home, ask to be looped in on any observations those caregivers make).

Don’t interfere or direct your child, just observe. It can give you clues about curiosities, misunderstandings, or fears surrounding what has happened, and allow you to gently query them. But again: Do this later. Don’t interrupt them in the moment by jumping in and trying to have a Big Important Conversation right then. Let their mind spin in its own way, take notes, and start a new conversation later on in your day.

Children may act out death or dying in the course of their play. Don’t discourage this. They’re not trivializing death, or your loved one’s death in particular. They’re using play as a coping mechanism and a way to channel a huge, chaotic circumstance into something they can direct and control. This, despite its appearance in the moment, is an aspect of grief.

Don’t avoid discussion about the deceased, or protect your child from it.

In the days and weeks following the death of someone close to your child, you might be tempted to avoid talking about them lest you tear off an emotional scab. While this is well-intentioned, it’s counterproductive, and risks making discussion of your loved one salacious in your child’s mind. Kids aren’t often going to take the lead in memorializing them and will rather follow their guardian – so if you’re avoiding the subject, it just leaves an elephant in the room your child won’t really know how to deal with.

In this vein, don’t avoid conversations about your loved one with adults when your child is present. If your child walks into the room when adults are mid-conversation and they suddenly start turning away to blot tears and quickly change the subject, you’re going to make the situation feel sinister and the subject of death feel like an unspeakable taboo. You may need to make your language level more appropriate in order to include them in the moment, but don’t shut them out. This is all happening to them, too, and if you leave information gaps you have no control over how their brain chooses to fill them.

Even if your inclination outside of parenthood would be to withdraw into yourself, find the energy and courage to talk things out. Don’t force your child to sit and talk about anything, but if you have their ear by whatever means, share this season of life with them in all its richness. Cry with them, laugh about an inside joke, share memories. The best way to memorialize a life is by living yours to the fullest.

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Consider leveraging the service of a therapist in some cases.

It’s not the case that every peripheral experience with death will necessitate professional help – if a remote great-grandparent whom your toddler has never met dies, there likely won’t be a need to rush them into therapy over it.

However, if someone deeply enmeshed in your child’s life dies (a parent, step-parent, sibling, grandparent they interact with frequently, and so on) – especially if it’s unexpected – you may not have all the emotional bandwidth or tools you need to help them navigate the aftermath. Your primary care provider would be a good first port of call for getting information about, or a referral to, a qualified counselor (whether for yourself, your child, or both).

If you’d rather get your own qualified help remotely when it’s more convenient for you, there are good counselors to be found online. A resource I’d suggest looking into is Online Therapy. There you’ll find over a hundred qualified counselors from all over the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia who can help you navigate this and a litany of other challenging issues, all for significantly less than many in-person providers – and depending on your carrier, you may be able to request reimbursement or direct payment for your services.

If you sign on using my links, you’ll be supporting my work here and will get a 20% discount on your first month of services. If you need more tools in your belt here, have a look – because it’s not failure, and don’t let any puff-chested “alpha” bro tell you otherwise. If you’re doing a physical job and need more tools, you’d probably talk to a pro at a hardware store rather than trying to forge them yourself – so why should doing an emotional job be any different?

Enlist the help of good books and media to help explain and inform.

There are an increasing number of good resources for parents and children going through a season of bereavement. Here are some options to get you started in your search; all of these books have an intended audience of children under ten years old:

You may want to consider getting more than one to highlight multiple perspectives and ways of thinking about navigating through a season of grief. All are well-reviewed, and some, like Lifetimes, have been helping kids find more solid footing for years on years.

Grieving is a complex, years-long process.

There aren’t clear-cut, progressive phases or stages of grief – especially for kids. Their response to a loved one’s death will likely pinball to some extent, and that’s okay.

Children can also re-grieve a loss when they go through a developmental phase which brings them to a place of greater understanding about a prior death. So don’t assume the pain of a loved one’s death will slowly and steadily dull over time like it might for an adult. Be perceptive when the deceased is mentioned to gauge reaction – a flash of facial expression might be all the reaction you get, but if you’re watching for it you can potentially leverage the moment for a fresh conversation if you feel it warranted.

. . .

Listen, there’s no getting around it – this is hard. And as much as I tried to sound authoritative here, the fact is that I don’t look forward to having these conversations with Sprocket and Tater any more than anyone else. Talking to kids about death and dying is a sensitive and challenging topic, but it is essential. Dying is what makes us human, and parenting is nothing if not a long series of lessons on how to be human.

Remember all along to provide your children with a safe space to ask questions and express their feelings. That doesn’t only apply in this season, but it’s especially important within it. None of these conversations are going to happen if your child doesn’t feel safe coming to you and having them. As parents, we have the power to shape our children’s perceptions of death and dying. By having open and honest conversations, we can empower them to develop resilience, empathy, and a healthy understanding of the natural cycle of life.

Be willing to do the hard work of embracing these difficult conversations with compassion, ensuring your child has the tools they need to navigate the inevitable challenges of life and loss. If this is your present reality, you have my every sympathy. I hope this guide has been of some material benefit to your journey, and may you find blessing as you navigate it along with your child.

A very special thanks to my co-author Samantha Renner.