TW -

I watched a lot of nature documentaries as a young child so I think I just understood it naturally from those? My parents would just tell me someone’s died and leave it at that 😅

My husband’s grandparents both passed away last year when my son was 3. We explained that when people get older, they die. And this means that their bodies are gone, and we won’t see them anymore - but that we can still remember them and talk about them whenever we think about them.

We thought it was best to be honest but try not to overcomplicate it, let him ask questions if he has them etc.

He accepted it all and he still talks about them from time to time.

We’ve used the word ‘dead’ and elaborated that it means they are no longer with us, and cannot come back.
We’ve explained their body has stopped working.
For now we’re avoiding sickness as an explanation as I think she needs to be a little older before differentiating between sickness that you recover from and sickness that leads to death, but will definitely add this in as she gets older and can understand more.
We also don’t want to use heaven etc because we’re not religious.

My son is also 3 and we had to put our dog down in December. From what I read, you should be direct but don’t over explain. Before she was put down, I told him “Lola is sick, and she is going to heaven. She’s not going to be with us anymore” I had him say goodbye and my in-laws took him for the actual procedure but when he came home I explained again. “Lola was sick, and she died and went to heaven, which means she isn’t here anymore.” He will occasionally ask about her and I explain the same thing. He says sometimes that he’s sad and he misses her but I reiterate that I feel the same and it’s okay to feel that way.

We used dead too. Explained they got too poorly so their bodies weren't working any more. Explained that we won't see them anymore.