kav
Distinguished Member
How do you deal with it? I lost my grandfather last week and after I got back from a few days in Ireland for the funeral I had to explain to my kids why they wouldn't see great-grandad again. It wasn't very straightforward - it's hard enough as an adult dealing with that stuff, but with kids they have a million questions and I have no decent answers for them.
My wife bought a book which was recommended to her, but it was utterly crap. It was about an old man who was friends with two young kids, and they loved visiting his house to see all his strange and unusual things. I presumed the story would be that the old man died and the children had to get used to that, but no, it turns out that it was about a butterfly made from glass that the man let the children borrow, then one day he asked for it back, and when they (grudgingly) gave it back, he blew on it and it came alive and flew away. They were utterly confused by the end of the story as to what that had to do with death, and before I could even start to explain what the story meant I had to first explain what a metaphor was, and how the butterfly was a metaphor etc etc...ridiculous to have to do all this for a story supposedly aimed at young kids - and that's before I even get to how it relates to the death of their great-grandad.
Anyway, perhaps you know of a book that deals with the subject better than the one we got, or have some stories of your own you can relate.
My wife bought a book which was recommended to her, but it was utterly crap. It was about an old man who was friends with two young kids, and they loved visiting his house to see all his strange and unusual things. I presumed the story would be that the old man died and the children had to get used to that, but no, it turns out that it was about a butterfly made from glass that the man let the children borrow, then one day he asked for it back, and when they (grudgingly) gave it back, he blew on it and it came alive and flew away. They were utterly confused by the end of the story as to what that had to do with death, and before I could even start to explain what the story meant I had to first explain what a metaphor was, and how the butterfly was a metaphor etc etc...ridiculous to have to do all this for a story supposedly aimed at young kids - and that's before I even get to how it relates to the death of their great-grandad.

Anyway, perhaps you know of a book that deals with the subject better than the one we got, or have some stories of your own you can relate.