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How to talk with a child about death
Briefly, in concrete words, and stopping at their question. A child will fill the silence if the adult will not tell the truth.
Children feel that something is wrong before we have words for it. If we avoid the subject, they fill the silence. Often they take it on themselves: they caused it, death is contagious, or the adults cannot bear the truth.
It is worth saying it in our own words, short and concrete. “Died” is clearer than “passed away” or “went to sleep”. Sleep is especially misleading. A child can then become afraid that someone who goes to bed will not wake up.
You can stop after one sentence. The question that follows tells you what they need. You do not have to know every answer.
I don’t know that either. But I am here.
That is worth more than a tidy explanation. A drawing, a candle, one sentence said together at the funeral gives them something to hold where the explanation runs out.
Better not to say these, unless the child asked:
- They went to sleep.
- They are in a better place.
- Don’t cry. You have to be strong.
Crying is not a task to be stopped. The question is whether the child is left alone with what they heard.