Dear Tanya

Can you give any advice on how to help our four-year-old daughter. She has recently experienced several deaths (her grandad, granny’s dog and the neighbourhood cat) and has become obsessed with the subject.

She asks questions almost every day, such as “When will I die? Will I die on a Wednesday? Will you cuddle me when I am dying? When will you die, Mummy? Why do people die? Who will look after me when you and Daddy have died?”

She makes statements such as “You will die before me; Daddy will die before my brother”. She often cries about the dog, the cat and her grandfather, although initially her response to Grandad’s death was very practical. We had made him a plate and bowl with Grandad written on and she said that we should give it to her other grandad.

Recently she asked about how she and her brother got their middle names. She was named after an aunt, who died before our daughter was born, and she became upset.

We have answered her questions as honestly and openly as we can. We told her that usually people die when they are old, hopefully she will die after us, that people die as there would be no room for everyone and that she will be able to look after herself by the time we are gone. (We are not religious so cannot use that kind of explanation.) However, we are unsure if this is the right approach and would appreciate any advice.

Anne and Nick

Talking to children about death, rather like talking to them about sex, can be so difficult because it flies against adult instincts to keep young ones innocent and for them to feel only happy and secure. Conversations about death can be especially challenging if they come after a bereavement that has left adults themselves feeling emotionally shaken.

As a culture we are particularly poor at dealing with death; our traditional rituals tend to be muted and discreet. Children are often excluded from funerals and burials because we feel uneasy about them seeing so much sadness and feeling our pain. Emotion is often held in and loud expressions of sorrow are seen as signs of weakness and a lack of dignity.

However, children need to experience significant life events if they are to learn how to be resilient. We should also have the courage to express emotion in front of our children and help them to learn that expressions of grief are necessary and appropriate. The more we shield children from such family experiences, the more we increase their emotional vulnerability later in life.

While children who experience the death of a loved one will show extreme changes in their behaviour, these are not indicative of long-term damage, but rather their struggle to understand the concept of a person (or pet) suddenly not being there any more.

Many young children can show significant sleep difficulties that, on closer investigation, can be linked to their naive but totally plausible belief that going to sleep is the same as dying. A number of bereaved children whom I have met have been told that “Mummy/ Daddy went to sleep” — a rather insensitive euphemism for death. Sleep is a separation — many children struggle with it at some time — and to associate it with a permanent separation such as death is ill-advised.

How you have handled the situation with your daughter seems spot-on. You have been honest. It is important that you understand that at her age many children become interested in death and begin to ask questions. They hear about death in fairytales (the kind mother dies and the wicked stepmother arrives, etc), see dead animals or, like your daughter, have real experiences of death.

Children at different ages possess different levels of cognitive ability and often what they say reflects this. Your daughter has a very clear-cut way of thinking: hence the specific, often difficult to answer, questions. However, she may show “magical” thinking that makes her believe that she can bring back the dead person or that they are now, for example, living in the cat.

Most distress in children is played out through their behaviour — such as bedwetting, tantrums or clinginess. However, with still-developing communication skills they can also ask the most probing questions and these need to be addressed. For the religious, children can be helped because the notion of an afterlife helps them to think of their loved one smiling down on them, only from somewhere else, where they will see them again one day.

If you are not religious then the loss of someone can be explained as them living on in us. Looking at photos can help this process, making observations such as “Look, Mummy has got Grandad’s eyes and you’ve got his cheeky smile”.

You are always allowed to tell your child that you don’t know the answer to her question. In that situation children can be asked to think of different answers through play or drawing; you will come to understand what they know and what they don’t know as well as how they are constructing their world to cope.

There are some fantastic organisations to help you. Grief Encounter does incredible work with children of all ages who have been bereaved (usually from losing a parent) and need support. It offers a place for these children to show and tell what they are feeling. Often children will mask this to protect the grief-stricken adults around them. The charity is at www.griefencounter.org.uk; also visit www.childbereavement.org.uk/ and winstonswish.org.uk.

There are also some excellent books: I Miss You: A First Look at Death by Pat Thomas (First Look at Books); Sad Isn’t Bad: A Good-Grief Guidebook for Kids Dealing with Loss by Michaelene Mundy (Elf-Help Books for Kids); and my favourite: Muddles, Puddles and Sunshine: Your Activity Book to Help When Someone Has Died by Winston’s Wish edited by Diana Crossley (Hawthorn Press).

Given your honest, straightforward approach your daughter will cope very well with some really tough experiences for one so young. She will also grow and learn from them and her honesty will help you and all the family to face one of life’s greatest emotional challenges.

If you have a family problem, e-mail

proftanyabyron@thetimes.co.uk

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