Discussing death with young children can be one of the most challenging conversations a parent or caregiver faces. Whether prompted by the loss of a loved one, a pet, or simply curiosity, addressing the topic with sensitivity and honesty is essential for helping children understand and process their feelings.

Here are some tips to guide you through this delicate conversation:

Be Honest, Yet Age-Appropriate: When discussing death with young children, it’s crucial to be truthful while considering their age and level of understanding. Use simple language that they can comprehend, avoiding abstract concepts or euphemisms. For example, instead of saying someone “went to sleep,” which may confuse or frighten them, explain that the person’s body stopped working, and they won’t be coming back.

Encourage Questions and Provide Reassurance: Children may have many questions about death, ranging from practical concerns to existential inquiries. Encourage them to ask questions and express their feelings openly. Reassure them that it’s normal to feel sad, scared, or confused and that you’re there to support them through their emotions.

Use Concrete Examples: Young children often understand concepts better when presented with concrete examples. Use everyday experiences, such as the lifecycle of plants or animals, to explain the idea of death in a gentle and relatable way. Reading books or watching age-appropriate movies about loss can also help facilitate conversations and provide context.

Share Your Beliefs, but Respect Theirs: If you have religious or spiritual beliefs about death, you may choose to share them with your child. However, it’s essential to respect their beliefs and interpretations of death, even if they differ from your own. Offer comfort and guidance without imposing your worldview on them.

Offer Rituals and Ways to Remember: Engaging in rituals or creating meaningful ways to remember the person or pet who has died can provide comfort and closure for children. This may include attending a funeral or memorial service, planting a tree in their honor, or making a memory book with photos and mementos.

Be Patient and Available: Processing grief takes time, especially for young children who may not fully understand the permanence of death. Be patient and understanding as they navigate their feelings, and reassure them that it’s okay to feel sad or angry. Let them know that you’re there to listen and support them whenever they need it.

Seek Professional Help if Needed: If your child is struggling to cope with grief or experiencing prolonged distress, consider seeking support from a child psychologist or counselor. These professionals are trained to help children process their emotions and develop healthy coping strategies in times of loss.

By approaching the topic of death with empathy, honesty, and patience, parents and caregivers can provide children with the support they need to navigate this challenging aspect of life. While it may be difficult, having open and honest conversations about death can ultimately help children develop resilience and understanding as they grow.

Images: Pexels

When the veterinarian haltingly emerged from the back room, a stricken look on her face, I knew parenting improvisation would be coming.

It was just before Christmas, three years ago. One of our cats had recently been put down and the kids, at the time just 5 and 3 respectively, were confused as to why the pet carrier had returned empty.

“But what does it mean to die, Mommy?”

We had two cats. Though their dad and I had already been separated for more than a year by this particular Christmas, both cats still lived with him while the kids spent the majority of time with me. I thought it was a fair deal. The cats were a feature at daddy’s house and, while I sometimes missed my furry friends, I was relieved to be with one less burden of responsibility.

When one of the cats became ill, their dad had been away for work and the moment of intervention came and went. Before long, the poor thing just couldn’t be saved. Sadly, the other cat also seemed to have lost weight and we mutually decided to take him in for a check up.

We walked into the vet’s in a festive mood. We weren’t often together as a four-person unit anymore, but on this drive we’d all been singing carols in the car and the kids were laughing and merry. The remaining cat was agitated to be out of the house, but with lots of cuddling and cooing, the kids and I managed to haul him out of the carrier and surround him with our familiar smells and touch during his check-up. The doctor was extremely professional and gentle. There was no cause for alarm.

A routine blood test in the back room later, however, and out she came with that blanched look of horror.

“He became so nervous that he spontaneously went into cardiac arrest,” she said. “We tried to save him but we couldn’t.”

He just… died. A heart attack. Only a week after the other cat had perished. Surreal.

“Where’s Husky?” my oldest asked, looking at me with her chocolate eyes wide with worry. “Well,” I said slowly, as their dad stormed out of the veterinarian office in a fury, “Seems he wanted to be with ‘Little One.’”

“But where’s ‘Little One’ after she died?” she asked again, still stumped. This is when I knew I had to shift gears—and fast. I turned to the vet and asked to see the cat. Out he came in a blanket. His eyes were still open, his body still slightly warm. He was already stiffening up: the perfect moment for a lesson on death.

The morbidity of our situation is almost funny, in that black humor kind of way, though that took me awhile to see. There I was, alone, with my two little people, both of them up on stools to look at the dead cat while I leaned over the examination table saying gravely: “This [pause]is death.” I explained that he had gone, got them to look in his vacant eyes to prove it, and told them no one really knows where the spirit goes, etc. I even let them touch him. They were fascinated. Not afraid or sad, just accepting of death as just another fact life delivers.

“Seems to me he died of a broken heart,” I said, to no one in particular.

Because, after all, lots of things die natural deaths. Love, marriages, cats. Yet, songs can still be sung in cars and Christmas can still feel festive with or without loved ones nearby, and plus or minus one (or two) with fur.

Nevertheless, I think we’ll stay pet-free for a few years yet.

This article appeared in the beijingkids October 2019 Family Foodies issue

The traditional Chinese way to say good-bye to the departed is not something I’m intimately acquainted with. But, in my complex where several families have lived for more than two decades, I have witnessed some fascinating funeral rituals. In the past two weeks, there have been two in the courtyard. While I don’t understand everything, what is loudly conveyed is the importance of a collective farewell from an established community.

I have lived in China for eight years. I also live in an old complex in Lido, a twenty-three year old complex to be exact, that was constructed very early on in the development of outer fourth ring road areas. This was the housing complex given to the people who originally lived on this land in píngfáng (one-story houses). In other words, when this was nóngcūn(countryside), more than seventy percent of the families in my housing complex were working the fields. The remaining thirty percent of the units in this complex are rented out—some to foreign moms like me.

Last week, as I was riding my bicycle into the complex in the early evening after work, I had to pull over to let a funeral procession pass. Large round, circular floral umbrella-like banners were being twirled and lifted into the air. They were decorated with many Chinese characters and those who danced and walked with them did so with a lot of energy and life.

I didn’t want to be disrespectful by photographing something so sacred, but I nevertheless (and very inconspicuously) caught a few images as they were passing in the twilight dim.

These “circular flower” holders were followed by a band of musicians who sounded like they were whacking pots and pans in no particularly rhythmic order. They were carrying large metal bowl-like discs with sticks or hand-held cymbals that they were crashing together.

They marched out of the complex and turned the corner. Later, I realized where they were going: to the patch of earth (a small planned forest) between the airport expressway and Side (四德）park, an area in which burial mounds still exist as they once did in the countryside. This is their traditional gravesite. It has been protected.

The following week, another funeral happened. This time, the family set up a large tent with tables and chairs as well as a yellow inflated archway through which a smaller tent held the departed’s photo displayed alongside of many flowers, like a shrine. They’ve been serving refreshments these past two days to community members. When people walk away from the site, they all have small red flowers pinned to their lapels.

The procession should happen this evening, and as I listen to the clanging and singing, I know I won’t help but feel once again that there’s something so very right about these rituals. They’re a loud farewell, audible from the other side, rather than mournfully solemn, quiet affairs. After all, it’s better to “go out with a bang,” no?

I can only hope these ancestors are aware of how moved their goodbye rituals have made this particular lăowài feel.

Photos: Courtesy of Ember Swift

This very short book tells the story of a colony of water bugs in a pond. Every now and then one of them climbs the stalk of a water lily, disappears and never comes back. Two water bugs make a pact that the next one who climbs out of the pond will return and tell the others what happens above the pond. When the next water bug climbs up the stalk and leaves the pond, she finds that she is unable to go back into the water as she has transformed into a beautiful dragonfly.

This story is so beautifully written and illustrated that it is soothing to anyone who reads it, adults and children alike. Presenting death as part of a life cycle is a very reassuring way to talk to children about it.

This post first appeared on Lyliane Stewart’s site parentingeastwest.com on December 29, 2013.

Lyliane Stewart is a teacher, a positive discipline parent educator and a mother of two young adults. Originally from Switzerland, she lives with her husband in Beijing where she has been very active with the school community over the years.  Her personal experience of living internationally in a cross-cultural family has given her a good understanding of the various challenges encountered by multi-cultural, multi-lingual expatriate families. Passionate about psychology and education, she founded Parenting East West to offer support to families around the world. Lyliane believes that by gaining a better understanding of ourselves, and of human relationships in general, we become better equipped for parenting.  She offers weekly interactive parenting classes through which she introduces positive parenting tools and strategies.

The Mums2B group she started meets in Sanlitun weekly and welcomes new expectant parents.To get in touch, send a message to: parentingeastwest@gmail.com

Photo courtesy of Pilgrim Press

It has remained on my to do list for the past, oh, seven years or so. We have insured our lives against the unthinkable, saved for the unimaginable, and invested for the inevitable, but we haven’t hammered out a will. Deciding to draft a will makes perfect sense to me, but I always get to that question, ‘where do I start?’ and then I see some cute kittens on the Facebook and get distracted. Okay, I’m not that easily distracted (hang on, someone’s texting me….)

Where was I? Oh yes, will power. Since this is a recurring discussion in our household, I thought the process might be useful to my dozen or so readers (thanks Mom). So, I’ve decided to take a journey into the how to of writing a will for us and hopefully it will shed some welcome light on the subject for others too. I’ll be meeting with some Beijing based experts, but also looking into online solutions that might be as simple as cutting and pasting into a document, filling in the blanks, and then getting things notarized by a lawyer. However, living abroad also adds a layer of complications that hopefully can be easily sorted.

For us, I found a great place to get started was the cheekily named getyourshittogether.org website that was started by a woman whose life was devastated by her husband’s death in a car accident in 2009. She found that since their legal and financial affairs were not organized prior to his death, life for her and her children was greatly complicated afterwards and she spent months trying to get things sorted out. She created the website to raise awareness and make it easier for people to get organized in life so that death is less traumatic and stressful. If you have been putting off getting your own financial house in order, the site is a good place to get a simple checklist of what you should do and to get started.

Photo courtesy of Ken_Mayer (Flickr)

• Mattresses
• Box springs
• Bed frames
• Headboards

• Under peeling paint and loose wallpaper
• Under carpeting near baseboards
• In upholstered furniture seams
• Under light switch plates or electrical outlets

• There are many possible signs of bed bug activity. The first would be seeing the bugs. Adult bed bugs are about the shape and size of an apple seed. A second sign would be case skins. As the juvenile bugs grow, they shed their skins, discovery of which can indicate their presence.
• After feeding, bed bugs return to their harborage to hide. They eventually defecate in these areas, which appears as black to brown stains on porous surfaces or black to brown mounds on nonporous surfaces.
• Bites also may indicate bed bug activity, but further signs will need to be found, since other sources can cause red welts on the skin, the best decision would be to hire bed bug control services to determine if you have a bed bug problem.

• Red, often with a darker red spot in the middle
• Itchy
• Arranged in a rough line or in a cluster
• Located on the face, neck, arms and hands

• When at home, follow these handy tips to help keep bed bugs at bay.
• Remove all clutter from your home, which makes finding bed bugs easier.
• Wash and dry your bed linens often using the hottest temperature allowed for the fabric.
• Closely inspect any second-hand furniture for bed bugs before you bring it into your residence.
• Inspect your residence regularly—after a move-in, a trip, when a service worker comes in or guests stay overnight.

Photo courtesy of Wikimedia commons

Interesting, albeit grim, news this week in the China Daily: Cancer is now the leading cause of death in the capital according to the 2010 Beijing Health White Paper – not surprising given that the disease kills 7.6 million people around the world annually, making it the number one cause of death worldwide each year.

Nationwide, the leading cause of death nationwide continues to be cerebrovascular disease (i.e. aneurysms caused by hypertension, smoking and/or diabetes), but incidences of cancer have “increased in China by 80 percent over the past 30 years” … with “2.6 million people developing the disease each year and 1.8 million people” dying from it. The article cites the population’s increasingly sedentary lifestyles due to rising prosperity as the main culprit (it’s hardly a coincidence that the past 30 years roughly corresponds to the duration to date of China’s economic reform period).

Beijing’s ongoing air pollution problem is also undoubtedly a contributing factor to rising disease rates. But there’s even worse news: according to treehugger.com, breathing in bad air on a sustained basis can not only lead to “increased risks of stroke, heart attack, and lung disease,” but is now also believed to adversely affect brain function as well.

…Researchers from Ohio State University suspected that inhaling particulate [matter]may have some unexpected consequences that go much deeper. To test their theory, the team of neuroscientists exposed mice to the same types of pollution released from automobiles, power plants, and factories, concentrated to levels not unlike those found in many urban centers throughout the world. What they found was quite alarming. After 10 months in this environment, similar to those faced by millions of people daily, mice showed signs of depression, anxiety, and learning difficulties.

And then there is the seemingly endless stream of food safety scandals. Earlier this week The Beijing Times (via China Daily) ran an article alleging that filtered “gutter oil” made by illegal cooking oil processing plants in Tianjin and Hebei are being sold in local wholesale markets and even a few [unspecified]supermarkets in town.

An insider told the paper that the raw materials for the illegal oil include swill, oil that has been repeatedly fried, leftover pieces of pork from slaughterhouses and poultry fat. The oil is then blended and bleached … Statistics from the capital’s management agency in charge of the city’s appearance said some 1,750 tons of food waste is produced in the city every day and kitchens produce 60 tons of waste oil daily. The agency said the city can only properly process 600 tons of food waste each day.

More troubling, still, is how this recycled oil usually passes inspection and authorities have “no effective way to detect illegal cooking oil … to date” (no word on whether the oil contains the same carcinogenic fungus found in a study conducted last year on recycled restaurant cooking oil).

Lawmakers are once again crying foul, citing a lack of enforcement, awareness and policy loopholes in the wake of this scandal and a three-month probe into domestic food safety sector. Suffice it to say that one should never buy cheap cooking oil in bulk from large wholesale markets – best to stick with the pricier brands in larger supermarkets and/or imported olive oils.

We could go on and on with a litany of depressing domestic health news, but for now, while the sun is shining, we’ll cut the cynicism and wish you a happy worry-free weekend (just don’t forget the sunscreen).