Our World

The kids have had a crash course in life and death while living on the farm.

I never liked Our World but dad would sit down to watch every Sunday.

“Run, run,” I would silently cheer on the fleeing zebra but it usually didn’t have a happy ending and I would leave the room upset.

But recently we had our very own, albeit smaller, version right on our doorstep courtesy of the cats.

Every day we’d find a mouse or a bird on the doorstep. Jesse was the culprit. As he’s only new to this hunting game, his prey, I noticed, were babies. One day, after months of watching the mummy and daddy birds mysteriously coming and going from the shed, we found their nest. Not long after, apparently so did the cat. We found the contents strewn over the doormat. Heartbreaking.

Maybe I should’ve been shielding the childrens’ eyes but I figured it was helping teach them about life and the finality of death and therefore ceasing some of the questions I seem to field on a daily basis.

Although Cade – then five - accepted it well, the twins have only registered in recent months that their granddad isn’t coming back. I’d spent most of the last year repeatedly explaining his whereabouts.

So this day, in particular, Jesse caught his usual prey but Trixie decided to get in on the action. She took over and proceeded to eat the bird piece by piece right before my two little ones’ credulous eyes.

They stood on the other side of the window and gave a running commentary:

“Trixie that was Jesse’s bird. You share!”

“Look mum, it’s dead.”

“Look mum, it’s got a red thing.”

“She’s eating the wing.”

“Mum, now he’s biting the head off.”

“Now all this red stuff is coming out.”

“Its legs are still moving.”

“Where’s the bird gone?”

“There’s a little bit of the bird there mum.”

“I don’t want to know guys,” I said dry-wretching from a safe distance. “It makes me sad and it makes me feel a bit sick.”

“Yeah it makes me sneeze,” said Jayla, sniffing. “My bird’s all gone. It’s died.”

“Yes it’s sad when things die because they don’t come back,” I said.

“Grandad died,” one of the twins commented.

 “I know and it’s sad because he stopped moving too.”

“Oh look the birdy’s all gone. Now it can’t fly anymore. I don’t love Trixie eating that bird. It’s disgusting!” Jayla turned away from the window looking mildly upset while Jai, unfazed, looked on.

But the temptation to look again got the better of her and she went back for more. Although by now the show was over apart from Trixie licking her chops in satisfaction and one lone feather.

According to clinical psychologist, parenting author and tv presenter Nigel Latta, young children’s understanding of death is very different to ours.

“They are, not surprisingly, unable to grasp the finality of death. In their world we are as permanent as the sky and the ground and it is inconceivable to them that we may suddenly no longer be around. It is very easy, in the midst of a terrible loss to think that the smallest people in the family are not affected but this is not the case. Just because you can’t say you feel sad or upset, doesn’t mean you aren’t.”

# Use correct and specific words and don’t be vague or use confusing euphemisms, such as saying the person who has died is in a ‘special sleep’ or is ‘lost’. If you think about how young children see the world it’s easy to understand that these types of descriptions are more likely to make them anxious than saying, for example, “Grandad can’t come to visit because he died.”;

# Talking to your toddler about the death will also help you get a clearer picture of what he’s thinking and allow you to correct any beliefs he develops which aren’t true;

# Play is how children express much of their inner life and feelings. So, it is normal for the person your child has lost to appear in his play activities and for his play to reflect what is happening around him and inside him. This is a healthy thing and it is how young children process their thoughts and feelings;

# A young child’s questions can sometimes be almost brutally frank, saying things like: “Did it hurt Grandad when the car squashed him?” Be prepared for that and try to respond calmly and without judgement. He is simply asking questions without regards to how they sound;

# Remember, young children have relatively short attention spans and so they are not able to sustain feelings of grief for long periods of time. This doesn’t mean that he is not feeling the loss; it’s just that for him the rain clouds pass through very quickly.

(Excerpts from littlies.)