Do You Ever Talk About Death with Your Children? | Episode 561

But in dealing with our friends and family, our children need to understand, uh, how does death impact families and individuals, and sometimes they learn it through ha- the death of a pet or, you know, an, an animal in the family.

But, uh, quite often it's, it's a family member.

So it's a great opportunity to talk about how people grieve, and there are many different ways of grieving, and there are healthy ways of grieving.

But grief is a reality.

We miss something in our lives, and that something is a person or maybe an animal or s- some, some, something that was significant to us.

And so it's an opportunity for us to talk about healthy grieving and really being okay with feeling the sense of a loss, but that loss not be a cripple or an anchor to, a- uh, holding us back, but in some way it propels us forward.

And so there are books written, uh, about, uh, grief, a death in a family.

You can find things in the library on things that are written on a children's level.

And so it is, it's, it's worth a conversation.

Whenever a situation presents itself, is don't be afraid to charge in and address questions that there may not be any good answers for.

We don't have all the answers.

In fact, sometimes all we have is questions.

But there's something comforting about having someone who's alongside you when there are questions, when there is pain, when there is loss.

And parents, you can train your children to have healthy grief, healthy loss, and healthy adjustment.

So whatever brings it to the, to the conversation, whether it's the death of a friend, the death of an animal, um, sometimes it's the death of a dream.

We can grieve those things as well.

And helping your children to feel sad, but to not be, uh, taken captive by that sadness, that is something that we as parents need to help our children with.