While these questions can take parents by surprise planning in advance how and what to talk to your children about when they ask about death can help you.

It is critical not to avoid or try to brush off the questions as that will only cause more confusion and perhaps even fear if children pick up your discomfort on the subject.

Stay Child Centered
It is very important to discuss death and dying at the child’s level of understanding. Taking in abstract terms or using common phrases about death to kids will only cause confusion. You certainly can talk about spiritual or religious beliefs about the death and dying with your children but keep them at an age appropriate level.

Be careful not to use terms like “sleeping” or “passed on” or “lost” but rather be compassionate and honest. Children need a clear description that makes sense to them. Even younger children can understand that a body can stop working when a person is in an accident or is elderly. Often this type of honest, clear and simple explanation is enough for a youngster.

Talk About Real World Examples
It is important, especially with younger children, to stay to simple examples and not to try to include too many concepts at one time. It is important for children to understand that death is a normal part of life without stressing the mortality of the child or of you as the parent. It is also important to remember that younger children, especially those under the age of 10, may see death as reversible.

Kids may ask about a pet, family member or loved one’s death repeatedly. Be patient and provide a consistent answer that provides the information the child is seeking. Talking to a counselor or reading a book about death that is at an age appropriate level can help a parent start the conversation and allow children to ask the questions they may be worrying about.

Nobody likes to lose – winning is fun, right? Instilling friendly competition into your children is a good way to lead them down the path of being well-rounded individuals. A healthy dose of competition doesn’t only have to apply to being a better player in the sports arena; it can also apply to being a better business owner, a better employee and a better person all around.

Healthy and friendly competition can be the basis of motivating children to exceed expectations – expectations that they may not feel they can beat. Many parents feel that teaching children to be competitive because of the expectations some coaches put on their players. Many experts disagree, citing that this friendly competition taught at a young age teach them to successfully compete in the world as teenagers and ultimately as adults.

Again, competition doesn’t just apply to sports. When children learn how to compete in a friendly manner, they are learning to try the hardest. These same values will carry over into life when they are competing for a new job or promotion. By learning to compete as children, they are given a leg up on the competition who may not have had that same experience.

Liken teaching your children to compete to the gazelle and the lion: in Africa, when a gazelle awakens each morning it is well aware that if it doesn’t wake up and run it will be eaten by the lion. The lion on the other hand, knows that it must be faster than the slowest gazelle or it will starve to death. The moral of the story? It doesn’t matter if you’re the lion or the gazelle – each morning wake up and be ready to run.

Thank you for reading!

From a very young age, children are exposed to different people on a regular basis – any of whom can form their thoughts and beliefs. None of the people they are exposed to on a regular basis are more important than their parents.

Many parents don’t see themselves in a teaching role, but the fact is, as parents we are our children’s first teachers. We teach our children to walk, talk, dress themselves, feed themselves, how to be polite, how to be tolerant and a million other things that shape the people they become – all before they’re every expose to teachers in a classroom setting.

What parents do forget, especially those who work full-time, is that even when children enter the classroom, they can still be the best teacher that their children will have. While we want to instill good morals and values into our children – these are both valuable to them as functioning members of society – it’s also important that we teach our children to think for themselves and form their own beliefs.

While classroom teachers can instruct them and provide them with a sound educational experience, they are unable to reach a child in the same way a parent can.

While we all have different teachers teaching us different things in our lives, we must remember as parents, we are the best and most important teacher our children will ever know.