How do you talk to little kids about death?

Can a prosecutor or family lawyer please contact me? I have questions. 

In reply to RevRico :

Are there lawyers on grm? I might need to find another message board...

Been fighting in family court pro se (no lawyer) for two years... What's the situation?

This sounds important enough to warrant starting a separate thread for better visibility.  Unfortunately, the best I can do is send good thoughts your way.

RevRico said:

Can a prosecutor or family lawyer please contact me? I have questions. 

Uh oh. 

In reply to RevRico :

I'm both.  I'm not even sure what 100 year old email IM's from this board go to, so shoot me an email at dszomerATcharterDOTnet if you don't want to post anything publicly here.  I'm not authorized/insured to deal out legal advise when not working in my "professional capacity", but I'll help you if I can.  

In reply to kazoospec :

Thank you. I'll email you tonight when I can use my laptop. 

ProDarwin said:

I'll be following this thread because I expect I will need to have this conversation soon with my son :( 

Well, the time has come... I haven't had the conversation with my son yet, but I don't think I will need to.  I'm pretty sure I can just say 'grandpa is gone' and he will accept that.  I had him in the room less than 2 hours before he passed, but he had no idea what was happening.  

Actually, possibly one of the most frustrating moments of parenting thus far.  My father was fairly unresponsive at that point but I know he could hear us.  I just wanted my son to give him a hug or kiss, hold his hand, or say something nice, but he was in full on toddler mode and just wanted to run around and do toddler things.

In reply to ProDarwin :

Very sorry to hear about your dad. We're here if you need to talk.

When Gibson was 2, his (great) grandfather ray passed very suddenly. Hed had cancer and whatnot,  but one day he was fine, walking around and doing ray stuff, and less than 24 hours later we needed to get our assets to the hospital, he was being read his last rites. Honestly,  Gibson had no idea what was going on. My (ex) wife was explaining what some of the oxygen equipment was, and he does his hand binoculars, and "oh. I see now. He get all better". When you've got 20 people in a room waiting for a family patriarch to pass on, that E36 M3 is funny. Ultimately, we never really told him what happened, and he just sort of rolled with it. I doubt he has any memories of that night at all, and while ray was very fond of Gibson, he probably means as much to Gibson as a fire hydrant. Now that hes older, we've had to explain death (lost a cat a couple years ago) and it was simply, he wasnt feeling well and it was his time to go. Had some tears and whatnot, mostly because Gibson and Charlie basically grew up together, but life goes on. 

Death is the reason for buying kids expendable pets. Seriously. So they get used to the idea of a creature they are used to seeing alive, no longer alive. After that experience once or twice it is much easier for them to process human death.