Talking to Kids About Death
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Listen to all my episodes of Dr. Laura's Deep Dive in your favorite podcast app. Search for Dr. Laura's Deep Dive podcast and follow my deep dive today. Dr. Laura's Deep Dive. Dr. Laura's Deep Dive podcast. Most kids are aware of death. They probably don't understand it, but it's in their cartoons, video games, on their TV's.

They may have a friend who has lost a loved one and talked about it. Perhaps the death of a grandparent or their family pet has opened up a conversation that you're not quite sure how to handle. For Melanie's family, it was the tragic death of her brother that had all of the adults worried about what to say to his four-year-old daughter. Here's what I suggested. Melanie, welcome to the program.

Hi, Dr. Laura. Boy, I've been listening to you for 32 years, and I never thought I would call, but here I am. Forgive me. I got a call yesterday that my brother died in a motorcycle accident, and I'm on my way where he lived right now. But I'm calling because he has a four-year-old little girl.

And we're really struggling with how to tell her in a way that she'll understand. Like, I know we need to be honest and tell her the truth. Okay. Melanie, Melanie. Yeah. Nobody understands why a loved one had to die of any age. No one. I think you're forgetting that.

You don't understand it either. I just saw him. He's a nice guy. He's a family man. He's my brother. I love him. I don't understand why he had to die. That's everybody. So don't make her unique because she's four. Understand that in the beginning, in addition to nobody understands, she's four and more doesn't understand. So you're not going to have an event with her when you get there.

that's going to have her understand and sort of be copacetic. It's not going to happen. There's going to be months of hysteria on and off, on and off. And then it'll look like she's not thinking about it at all. And maybe she's not because she's young and getting on with her life also. And she's responding to her mom and everybody else and Aunt Melanie. So there's nothing brilliant you're going to be able to say. Take that off the plate.

What you can do is a lot of hugging, a lot of holding, and a lot of saying, this is so sad, and we're all going to miss him so much, and we loved him so much. And mom, me, and name people are all going to be here for you. So immediately she gets surrounded by she hasn't lost her safety in the world. Because I'll be quite frank with you. Kids at that age are mostly worried about themselves. And that's selfish. Yeah.

It's just that they're just in the beginning of their brain and attitudes and all of that developing. So the more you can reinforce, we're all going to be here for you. We're all going to be able to take you places, help you with school. You start talking about how she's going to be surrounded by support in a way that the kid understands that. Okay. Watch movies with you, read a book. But right now, and you're going to have to have this discussion like a dozen times.

over the months. This is not a one shot. Now, what the hell happened on his motorcycle? What happened?

The only thing we know is that he was headed home from work and he was going straight in one direction. A car was turning left and they collided. He hit the driver's side door and he died on the scene. That's all we know. Most of motorcycle accidents are close to home and they usually have to do with some moron making an inappropriate left-hand turn. Yeah.

Jeez. Just want to pinch their heads off. Yeah, so this is hitting our family really hard because... Of course. His dad died the exact same way. So it's been a lot for us. On a motorcycle with a left-hand turner? Not left-hand turner, but motorcycle, yes. Died on the scene, yes. Okay. Wow. That's weird. Yeah, so it's...

It's kind of a lot right now for us to take in. So I just wasn't sure if there was specific words I should use or anything like that. No, just a lot of love, a lot of hugging. Okay. A lot of, you know, caressing her hair as she goes to sleep. You know, just a lot of love. Okay. We can do that. Of course you all can. And I'm so sorry. As a fellow biker. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, we're all motorcyclists, and when things like this happen, it certainly makes us not want to anymore. Yeah, I understand that. Well, I'm on a trike, so I have a little bit more stability, and I drive it like it's a car, so, yeah. All right, I'm so sorry, but I hope you feel centered now and be able to handle this.

I do. It definitely helps me put it into perspective and what we need to do on our end. And yes, it's okay to cry in front of her. Oh, yeah. There's no controlling that. Okay, good. Yeah. I really, really appreciate your time and helping me through this. Call me back anytime, Melanie. Very sad.

You know, surprisingly, kids deal well with the truth. So it's good to talk about death honestly. Don't say things like Fluffy ran away or he's in a better place. Or worse, he went to sleep. That just makes your child afraid of bedtime. Answer their questions directly and in the briefest way possible. Keep it appropriate to their age. Don't volunteer too much. There's really no benefit to the child hearing the gruesome details about a death.

For example, I don't believe kids need to know that someone died by suicide. It's sufficient to say something like, so-and-so died. We don't have all the details, but we're all very sad about it. One immediate question you can expect is, are you going to die, mommy or daddy? That's a reasonable childhood fear and one you should be prepared to answer.

When I spoke to Robin, she needed a way to comfort her nine-year-old who had come to realize that death can happen to anyone and at any time. Robin, welcome to the program. Hi, Dr. Laura. Thanks for taking my call. My husband and I have three kids, 11, 9, and 5, and I'm calling you about my nine-year-old.

The back story is we have a family friend that was seemingly healthy and passed away unexpectedly while on vacation with his family. And since then, my nine-year-old seems to be very bothered by this. Most notably, he will come into our room, maybe like at 11 o'clock at night, crying, saying that he can't sleep, thinking about it. When

When we try to talk to him, like what part about, you know, the death makes you upset, he says that he's afraid that it could happen to anybody in his family. So, so. Okay, stop for a moment. Stop. Time out. The answer at that very moment should have been yes, it can. And that's why we focus on death.

taking care of each other, loving each other, enjoying each other, because you're right. It could happen at any time. You're right. His family didn't expect that to happen. For them, it happened at any time. So that's exactly why it's so important to embrace your family and friends and do for them, care for them, bring joy to their lives, allow them to do the same for you. That's the answer to the entire problem.

That's the main point in life. I love it. That is amazing. So wonderful. I will start telling him that today. Thank you so much. Now, there's a book, which happens to be my favorite book from my childhood, that addresses this, and I'd like you to read it out loud to him. It might take you a few nights. It's called Charlotte's Web. Okay. It was made into a movie, but don't look at the movie.

read the book. And it has artistic pictures in the book, and he'll understand. But the most important thing is, yeah, we've got to live the life because we could lose it. You're right. So tell him his worst fear is true. And this is how human beings cope with that truth. So good. Thank you so much. I so appreciate it. It makes so much sense. Well, I'm glad. Folks, you have to remember that

Children need to be proactive in order to cope. So it's one thing to do sort of a psychological analysis. Well, what part of the person being dead upsets you and all that? That's only a little bit of the picture. The rest of the picture is what do you give the child to do? Yes, your worst fear is truth. Oh, my God. Who wants to live knowing that? Axe could fall anytime. Well, how about we tell the kid that is the point? It's that whole circle of life.

Remember that movie, The Lion King? But here we have the truth. That could happen at any time, so that's why it's important to let people know you care about them, to do things with people, to care about people, to be conscious and compassionate about their lives. You know, give the kids something to do. I have to take a break now. I think it's a perfect time for you to think of some sweet memories you have of that person you lost.

And then I'll be right back.

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Please play responsibly. Must be 18 years or older to purchase, play, or claim. Dr. Laura's Lunch Deep Dive Podcast. When kids begin to worry about death, they need to be reassured that there's a constellation of people who will always take care of and love them. Aunts, uncles, grandparents, godparents, if you have them. It's worth sitting with them and saying, well, let's talk about dying. Where do you think we go?

What do you think happens? Let kids talk through their feelings. You can try to keep it light with a little humor, like asking, when you're 220 years old and you die, what do you want people to remember you for?

Take the subject, massage it out, ask questions. That's what I did when nine-year-old James called me. Our conversation is a precious example of how adults can help children process through their thoughts. Adrienne, welcome to the program. Hi, Dr. Laura. Hi. I'm here with my son, James. Oh, hi, James. Hey, Dr. Laura. How old are you, sir?

Nine. I've been listening to you for a long time. Have you? Tell me one thing you've learned that you think was really cool from this show. Me. Learning about other people's problems, and sometimes I have the same problems as them, and then I learn about those problems. Ah. And I have a feeling that dovetails with your call to me today. So how can I help you? What's happening? Well...

I feel like I'm worrying too much about stuff that I don't need to be worrying about. And why do you not need to worry about those things? Maybe they are important to worry about. What makes you think they're not? Well, sometimes they're just basic things. Like if my dad doesn't come home on dinner, I'm scared if I never see him again or something. Okay. Now I'm going to...

Say, I'm going to take a road here that's going to be a bit upsetting. You ready? Yeah. Okay. What if one day he doesn't come home? Then what? Well, I would be sad about that. You'd be sad. What else? I'd be upset. I would be frustrated. I would be scared and scared mostly. Okay. You'd be scared that what is going to happen? Scared if he wouldn't come home one day.

No, we already, I gave you a scenario. What if dad doesn't come home? Had a terrible car accident, God forbid. And he's never coming home again. And now it's you and your mom. Do you have any brothers or sisters? Yeah. And are you? I have one brother. Is he older? Younger? No. I'm sorry. I didn't hear that. I'm the younger one. You're the younger one. Okay. Yeah. So how would you help him? And how would you help your mother if your dad didn't come home again?

I would help my dad, but I would help my mother by doing some stuff that my dad does, like helping him do the dishes or something like that. Right. And how would you help your brother? I would help him do some of his homework. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Do you understand? You're awfully smart.

Nine years old, I'm really impressed. Okay, so what I'm pointing out to is these are scary things. Maybe someday dad won't come home. Maybe mommy won't come home. Maybe brother won't come home. Maybe, maybe, maybe. All these things are possibilities. So we can either go, oh my God, oh my God, oh my God, oh my God, oh my God, oh my God, the life is too scary. Everything could bad happen. Or we could say, I sure hope that doesn't happen. But if it does,

I know what to do. And when we know what to do, then we're no longer helpless and we have something we can control. It would be terribly sad, terribly upsetting, devastating, traumatic if any of those things you worry about happened. But maybe someday one of them will. And what you need to do with your very smart brain, and this is not the first time somebody's told you you're really smart. What you need to do with your really smart brain is think ahead. Okay, I'm scared that dad might not come home.

And I would miss him terribly. I would cry. I would be terrible. And then I would help mom and I would help my brother and they would help me and we'd survive. I need you to think about what would be the next step that you could control if something happened that you can't control. I will. Well, I can't control...

Well, I can't control not, well, I guess I can, well, I can't control making money or making the, or paying for the bills. Right. No, that would be above your pay scale. That would be your mother's responsibility. And dad and mom would have insurance. Then that would help because they planned ahead just in case something bad happens. That's what adults do. That's what insurance is for. God forbid something bad should happen. At least we can eat and keep a roof over our heads.

So what you're saying is I shouldn't be worrying about these things, my parents should? Yes. I understand. But you can be a huge support to everybody in the family because I'm sure you can think of something crappy that happened and upset your brother. I'm sure you've heard your parents talking and something crappy happened, you know, the

The chimney fell down off the house. I mean, you've heard that these things happen and you watch them figure out how to fix it. They do get upset, but then they figure out what to do, right? Yes. Good. I need you to start figuring out what to do with the stuff that scares you. But, yeah, I will. And, sweetheart, you can call me anytime.

If you can't figure out how to take on one of the scary things, just call me back and we'll talk about that one. I will. Thank you. Thank you. And my God, is he a smart young man. Wow. Boy, cognitive abilities at nine. Very impressive. Sometimes when you're really smart, you're more aware of things too. So you have to learn how to cope with them.

Understand that kids grieve differently from each other and from adults. Your child may go from crying one minute to playing, and you may think he either has no feelings or that the period of grief is over. It's neither. Playing is a way of defending against being overwhelmed by feelings they don't understand. Anyone grieving can move between feeling sad, guilty, anxious, even angry, because that's a safer place to put confusing feelings. It's normal.

Help them understand that what they're feeling is a normal part of the whole grieving process. You can borrow the broken leg analogy that I used in my conversation with 10-year-old Mark, who called grieving the death of his youth pastor. Mom and Mark, welcome to the program. Hi, Dr. Laura. Thank you for taking my call. You're welcome, Mark. How old are you? I am 10 years old. What can I help you with?

So recently my pastor from Life.Church, Pastor Deity, passed away, and I've been experiencing grief and sadness with my mom, and I'm wondering what to do. Okay. If you fell down and broke your leg, and they fixed it, but it hurts for a while, would you call and ask me what to do about the fact that it hurts and you can't run around and play ball? No. And the reason you would not...

Ask me is, you know that you simply have to tolerate it. Yeah. The same thing with grief and sadness. You have to live with it for a while. And I'll tell you why. The reason you feel grief and the reason you feel sad is you liked him and you're going to miss him. That's a beautiful thing. If you hated his guts, we wouldn't be on the phone. You wouldn't care. Yeah. So the good news is that he has left very good memories and feelings with you.

The bad news is that's what you got, the memories. You're not going to have them in the future, but you have the memories. So the process of understanding that is what we call grief. Right. And it's a feeling you have to feel if you cared about them. It's normal. It's healthy. It's a very positive thing. And you just like letting in the shower, just letting water cover you.

And then eventually you turn the shower off. And eventually you won't feel this amount of pain, but you'll always have good memories. The pain will go away. The good memories will not. Isn't that good? Yeah. So every time you feel a little more grief than you did 15 minutes ago, say, this is wonderful that I'm feeling grief because it means I cared about him and I miss him. It's a wonderful thing that I feel grief because I always will have good memories. Yeah.

You know, people who don't care about other people never have grief, but they never have good memories either. I never knew that. Yeah. So grief is the price we pay for the beautiful memories. Mm-hmm. So it's not a horrible thing at all. What do you think? Mm-hmm. I agree. Good. So embrace the grief. It's a beautiful thing. All right. All right. Thanks for your call, sir. Thank you. You're welcome.

I love talking to kids. They listen more than adults do. They may not listen in your house. When they call me, they listen. Have to take a break now, which gives you some time to think about how you can make today more valuable. I'll be right back. Dr. Laura's Deep Dive. Deep Dive Podcast.

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Please play responsibly. Must be 18 years or older to purchase, play, or claim. Dr. Laura's Deep Dive Podcast. Deep. It would be helpful to have some pictures around of your family member or pet so that when the child expresses negative thoughts about the death, you can look at the pictures together and talk about nice memories. Let your child know that we live forever in the thoughts and hearts of our friends and family.

Your child is looking to you for direction, but don't worry about trying to appear strong. Showing your emotion reassures kids that feeling your feelings is okay. However, if you really aren't handling things well, it's good to get another parent, grandma, grandpa, aunt, uncle, whoever, to fill in for you to give that kid a little stability and calmness. And generally speaking, it's better to get them back into their routines as soon as you can.

So get help with that if you need it. It's a parent's job to teach kids how to deal with the challenges of life, speak honestly, and give information that's appropriate to their age. Help them deal with their concerns so they can build healthy coping skills and function well in life as adults. Let your child express emotion with no judgment. Help them understand that death is the reason we need to enjoy every moment we have.

worry and joy cannot occupy the same space at the same time. So help your children focus their thoughts on cherishing the people and creatures they love. And I'm always here to help. I particularly love talking to kids. So give me a call anytime at 1-800-DR-LAURA or go to drlaura.com to make an appointment for you and your child to speak with me. Now, go do the right thing.

If you like this podcast, be sure to rate it on Apple Podcasts or your favorite place to listen to my podcast. Of course, I'd love if you gave me five stars. And be sure to share this podcast with a friend on Facebook or your preferred social media platform.

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