Would you tell your 4 yo about death of a great aunt that they only met once? 4 yo’s grandma will be sad and see’s 4yo daily

There are some fantastic books at the libraries about death and grief aimed at different age groups xx

Gosh, thats a hard one.. part of me thinks its good to have an awareness so that when someone more impactful to him or even a pet passes he already gets the concept but the other part of me thinks hes still so young and you dont want his mind wondering into worry about other people he loves a lot passing.

I dont think theres a right or a wrong answer to it. Maybe discuss with your partner when hes back and decide together?

Im trying to think back to my own experineces, i remember being about 5 when my grans mum died who i knew but maybe only saw once a year and i think i was sad when they told me but i was very quickly ok about it. I was always a very empathetic caring little girl so, i reckon he will be fine about who it is its just more the concept of death i get. I feel like i knew about death early from watching lion king (i still cry when i watch it)

Either way, im really sorry for your loss and i hope YOU are ok x

Yes. The book Lifetimes is great for this. It breaks it down into something as simple as “her lifetime ended and grandma is sad that she won’t get to spend time with her anymore.”

Yes i would explain (I have a few times since we've gone to funerals and have lost some pets) conversation about my daughter's great great grandpa at his funeral...
Daughter "who is that?"
Me "your great great grandpa"
D "what happened"
M "he passed away"
D "why"
M "he grew up and had a looooooooong long long looong life, then he got really tired and decided it was his time to go."
D "oh..did i get to see him?"
M "no baby you didnt get to see him."
D "well I want to meet him"
M "thats a great idea! Let's go talk to ______. ______ can tell us stories about him. Plus we can see all kinds of pictures."

Yes but at that age they can be very matter of fact about death which can seem a bit blunt to someone that is grieving. They don’t really understand it or the fact it’s permanent,

When my mum died, my sister said to her (then) three year old that Nanna was a star in the sky, she would point to it and said that's where Nanna is now so he won't see her again.

He's older now so he understands a lot more what it means and handles it very well for his age.

It depends about what do you think happen when someone die and why?

I was talking about my uncle to my 4 year old (he died 10 years ago), and she asked why she never met him. I told her he was dead. She just said "oh, ok" and went about her business. Outside of talking about killing bugs/ dead bugs, that was the first time I mentioned death. She hasn't said anything else on the subject

NEVER EVER say went to sleep, sleeping, anything about sleep!!!!!

A 6 year old girl was told “he passed in his sleep” and she didn’t let the house sleep for like a month!!!

When my nan died we didn’t say anything even though we saw her a lot she never really mentioned it but on the odd occasion she did we just said oh we can’t see great nanny any more and then she moved on