Death is often difficult for children to understand. Some children may have experienced the death of a pet and you can start there with the explanation. Others won’t have lost anyone and be very confused.
Being aware of the stages of grief can help you understand how your child is feeling and give you a better idea of how to help them understand. The stages of grief are 1) Denial 2) Anger 3) Blaming 4) Bargaining 5) Depression and 6) Acceptance.
When you are ready you need to sit them down and tell them as kindly as possible that grandma died. If you use a phrase like “passed away” some children may not understand what you mean. Don’t tell them that she went to sleep and won’t wake up because that can cause them to fear falling asleep. Don’t tell them that God took her because that may also cause the child to fear that God will take Mommy, Daddy or brother next. Try to answer their questions if they have any as honestly as possible, but let them experience the death the way they need to. Don’t assume you know how they should experience it. Some children won’t cry. They may cry later when something reminds them of grandma. Everyone grieves differently.
This is where your religious beliefs will come in to play. If you believe in God and believe that grandma went to be with God in heaven then you can tell them that. You can let them know that they will see them again someday, but that grandma will always live in their memories. Let them know that grandma will be watching out for them from heaven. Whatever you think happens after death you can explain that to the child as long as they are 5-6 years or older. If a child is younger than 5 they may not understand the concept of death. Let them know that grandma has died and they won’t see her again. You don’t want to sugar coat it so much so that you make them think that grandma has gone away, but that she will come back. If she doesn’t come back then they will think it’s something they have done that keeps her away.
There are many books on the market to about death that may be helpful in this situation and you may want to read something to them. A good one that I read is about death being like a candy bar. The good candy is all of your great memories of the person who died while the body that they see in the coffin is only the wrapper. Letting the child know that they will always have their memories of grandma will help them cope.
Helping your child make a scrapbook of pictures of grandma will give them something they can look at when they start missing grandma. This keepsake can stay with them forever and they will always remember grandma. This is great for any age child because after a few years memories of grandma may start to fade and they can always go back and look at the scrapbook of grandma and remember how she looked and read about the stories of fun things they did together. In essence this is keeping her memory alive in them.
Make sure that you are there to comfort your child and let them know that you are open to any questions that they have even if you don’t have all the answers. If they ask you a question like where is grandma depending on the age of the child you might answer that grandma’s body is at the cemetery and grandma’s soul is in heaven with God. If you believe something different then insert what you believe here. Younger kids may just want to know where her physical body is while older kids may want to know more about heaven. They may want to know if they can visit grandma or she can visit them. Answer these questions to the best of your ability and as honestly as you can.
Older children 7-10 may try to personify death as someone like the Grim Reaper that they’ve seen on TV or in a video game. What works best for this age group is to give them all the facts. If grandma had been sick let them know what she had and tell them that the disease ran its course and grandma’s body stopped working. At this age they understand the finality of death, but maybe not all of the details.
Children older than 10 can usually process death much like an adult can and they will try to find meaning to their life and to their death. If you can help them do that then it may help them to cope better.
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