Are you going to die?

I talk about lifetimes: A flower, when you pick it, has about a one day lifetime. A cat, maybe 15 years. People can live to be close to 100 years old. We don't know how long our lifetime will be so our job is to make it be a wonderful experience for ourselves and others. Look for books on the topic. I like "Lifetimes" by Bryan Mellonie. We had to deal with the very swift sickness and death of a nine year old friend when my oldest was only four. It helped a lot.

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The fast change of subject from death to houseboats tells me he asked a question, received an answer, and moved on for the time being.

Sounds like you did it right.

I've never been sure though about promising to live a long time. With an older child, I'd qualify it with a "probably".

I'm sure there are many excellent books. I've always winged it. No matter what serious topic comes up, they seem to ask the one question the book didn't cover.

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The fast change of subject from death to houseboats tells me he asked a question, received an answer, and moved on for the time being.

Sounds like you did it right.

I've never been sure though about promising to live a long time. With an older child, I'd qualify it with a "probably".

I'm sure there are many excellent books. I've always winged it. No matter what serious topic comes up, they seem to ask the one question the book didn't cover.

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I agree with Ann. God forbid you get hit by a truck tomorrow, you don't want your kid to go the next few weeks going "But he PROMISED!" I'd've said something like "...but that probably won't happen for a long time" or "hopefully, not until you're all grown up".

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My daughter, who turned 5 today, has recently become obsessed with death and dying. I think it came about because she realized she has 2 Grandma but only 1 Grandpa. So we showed her picture of her with her Grandpa who died when she was 15 mos old and tell her stories of how she used to love to sit on his lap and giggle and the joy she brought to his life. What hits me especially hard is when we are driving down the road or taking a bath and she bursts into tears and says "I don't want to die" or "I don't want you to die, Mommy" Mommy hasn't exactly come to terms with those things herself yet, kiddo.

How do you respond to that, when they don't understand the concept of death, or even, truely, the concept of time? And it's a very real possibility staring them in the face. Daddy is a cop, we have children shooting children at school and sweet 16 parties. Death is plastered all over Daddy's cable news channel every day.

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Michelle and others: We can't promise to live forever, but we can stress to our children that they will always be loved and cared for. We can stress that our lifetime is uncertain so we will remember to make sure every day is used wisely. Then, move on to the question of, "what can we do today that will make someone else's life better?" Plan a way of making Daddy laugh or Grandma smile. Kids: this is what our life is for!

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I went to the doctor for a complete physical to make sure I could make good on my
promise. It does pass eventualy they seem to come to terms with it on thier own. I was
an occaisonal cigar smoker and and my 6 year old, at the time, said "if you don't stop smoking cigars your going to die young". I thought, you know he is right, and quit. Goes
to show you it's really our children who teach us how to be good parents.

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