5yo worried about dying/death

thatgirlsam

I remember the first time me and my brother realised we were going to die one day, me about 5, him 4

My Nan said ' Oh don't worry , by the time you're old there will be a pill you can take so that you can live forever' and ' Humans will live to at least 150 by the time you're old'

Bless her cos that really did help, off we skipped all happy again

And i remember my cousin telling us not to worry because Heaven is right above Devon and we love it there!

mwa

My DD is 4 1/2 and very much going through this phase too. She's finding it hard to differentiate between being 'old' and 'big' and is saying she doesn't want to eat or sleep as she doesn't want to get old and die!! Glad I'm not the only one, am treating it as a phase and trying to be factual about it.

nad1611

One of my girls was exactly the same but without any obvious or significant life event to explain it. It didn't matter how long we used to sit her down and explain things, (which is difficult because you can't exactly say you're not going to die)!! she would always go to bed and start crying and we'd went throught this for about 6 months or so, we tried everything and in the end it went as quickly as it had come.
I know this isn't exactly advise but I suppose I'm saying that it's all pretty normal and lots of kids seem to go through it. Just have to be patient I think.

cat04

My 6 year old DD is very sensitive, caring, empathetic etc. She had a phase very recently where she would also get very upset about me dying. We've had to have numerous chats (usually at bedtime unfortunately which is when she brings it up) about how usually you don't die until you're old etc. I use my Nan as an example, she's 90 in April and is still going strong (think that's down to her daily tot of whiskey though :beer:).

DD brings the topic up every few weeks, and the only thing I can link it to is the trouble I've had with my ex recently (no contact, including over Christmas, and she is adament she doesn't want to visit him and therefore I think she's worried that if I were to die she would have to go and live with him which in her eyes in not a good thing at all), as it usually crops up either before or just after a visit to him. She hasn't experienced any deaths in her memorable lifetime so I know it can't be that. During these occasions she also makes statements such as she wants to marry me when she grows up so she will always be with me etc.

I hope I've been able to reassure her that yes, I will die at some point, but it will most likely be when I'm very old and very grey She hasn't mentioned it for quite a few weeks now, so hopefully she's passed that stage so no doubt your LO will too

GlasweJen

We had a lot of deaths in our family (13 in 12 months) when my sisters kids were 4 and 5. The oldest girls was very upset by it all but the 4 year old didn't seem to bother much, she would occasionally put a fuzzy felt character in the sky and say something like "daddy is in the sky because he's dead so he can only watch now".

We just let them get on with it, answered questions as honestly as possible and I was really amused the other day when the younger one (now 6) came home from school ridiculing a story that they had read in school as only babies believe that dead people live in rainbows!