{"id":20470,"date":"2015-02-22T22:42:38","date_gmt":"2015-02-23T03:42:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.dangermond.org\/?p=20470"},"modified":"2015-02-23T18:41:52","modified_gmt":"2015-02-23T23:41:52","slug":"how-to-speak-to-your-child-about-death","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.dangermond.org\/?p=20470","title":{"rendered":"How to speak to your child about death"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you have stumbled upon this site asking yourself that question, then go somewhere else. Today, with my almost six year old in the backseat, a discussion began innocently enough. How old are you Mommy? <\/em><\/p>\n

I’ll be 56 this year, and you will be six. You can always remember how old I am by adding 50 to how old you are.<\/p>\n

So when I’m 7 <\/em><\/p>\n

I’ll be 57<\/p>\n

And when I’m 8<\/em><\/p>\n

I’ll be 58<\/p>\n

And when I’m 9<\/em><\/p>\n

on and on we went till he was 20 and I was 70, but then he said, and when I’m 100<\/em><\/p>\n

I’ll be dead<\/p>\n

What? <\/em><\/p>\n

[count, 1, 2, 3 then]<\/p>\n

TEARS * SOBBING * HEAVY BREATHING<\/p>\n

I don’t want you to be dead! Why do you have to be dead!<\/em><\/p>\n

Honey, every thing that lives dies, but that is not going to happen for a long time. <\/p>\n

Will Stella die? Will Heidi die? Will I die? <\/em><\/p>\n

Every being is born, lives and grows old and dies. That’s the cycle of life. We are all going to live a long life hopefully and we won’t have to think about anything but living for now. <\/p>\n

I don’t want to die! I want to play! I want to be a kid! Will I get to be born again?<\/em><\/p>\n

Maybe. I don’t know. <\/p>\n

[I pull over, he gets out of his seat, and comes over and gets in my lap, sobbing as I try to comfort him in my arms.]<\/p>\n

* * * *<\/p>\n

Yes, keep moving, don’t pause here to find out how to speak to your child about death. <\/p>\n

\"IMG_0122\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you have stumbled upon this site asking yourself that question, then go somewhere else. Today, with my almost six year old in the backseat, a discussion began innocently enough. How old are you Mommy? I’ll be 56 this year, and you will be six. You can always remember how old I am by adding 50 to how old you are. So when I’m 7 I’ll be 57 And when I’m 8 I’ll be 58… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20470","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-main"],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1kHSD-5ka","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dangermond.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20470","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dangermond.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dangermond.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dangermond.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dangermond.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20470"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/www.dangermond.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20470\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20481,"href":"http:\/\/www.dangermond.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20470\/revisions\/20481"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dangermond.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20470"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dangermond.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20470"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dangermond.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20470"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}