Death and the Kindergartner

[mamajoan]

Around the age of 4,5,6, it's normal for a kid to go through a period of intense curiosity about death. Isaac is definitely in that phase now. He has been asking a lot of questions about death, mostly fairly easy to answer ("when will you die? when will I die? why do people die when they get old?" etc. -- and from Ruthie, frequently, "how do sharks die?"). Also whenever I tell him or Ruthie not to do something, he usually says "will it make me die?"

There are also the questions like, "What if this building [that we're standing next to] fell down?" or "What if that airplane landed on us?" I usually reply, "Then we would die. But that's not going to happen." Well, in the building case I said that we would hear and see it starting to fall, and we would run away.

Ruthie likes to do this highly annoying thing where she climbs on my back and puts her arms around my neck and chokes me. One of the first few times she did it, I was groaning and telling her to stop, and I foolishly said "you're killing me," in jest, but of course Isaac didn't realize I was joking so he got very concerned. Now every time Ruthie does that, he goes, "Stop it Ruthie! She's going to die!" I have attempted to explain that I'm not really going to die from Ruthie choking me, but he still gets anxious about it.

One weekend day a few weeks ago, I had put Ruthie down for her nap and gone to lie down in my bed for a bit. Isaac came out and wanted to play a game. (This sentence shall serve as a placeholder for a longer post about how tricky it is these days to manage weekend afternoons, since Ruthie needs her nap and I need my downtime but Isaac is raring to go.) I told him he could set up the game on the floor next to my bed, and I would lie on the edge of the bed and play the game while resting. So we did that, but midway through the game, I dozed off.

Unfortunately, when I fell asleep, Isaac totally freaked out. I guess he thought I was dead or something! :( He went into the living room and started crying hysterically. I woke up and heard him crying and couldn't figure out what on earth was going on. Finally I got him calmed down enough, and me woken up enough, to understand what had happened. Then we had a long talk about what he could do to wake me up (say "mama" loudly, shake my shoulder) and what he can do to tell if someone is alive (various ways to check whether I'm breathing). And I explained that healthy young-ish adults do not just drop dead in their beds halfway through a game of dominoes. Am not sure how much of that sank in though.

We have talked many times about what to do in an emergency; he can tell you 911, and we've talked about what to say if he has to call. But apparently knowing it in the abstract, and actually doing it correctly in the moment, are very different skills. I'm not sure how much to worry about the fact that when he thought I was dead, he just went to cry on the couch. I mean, he's only 5. I don't want to expect too much of him! I don't know whether *I* would remember to get the phone and dial 911 if I found someone I loved dead! I like to think, though, that eventually he would have come back to the bedroom and tried to wake me up. I dunno.

Ruthie, btw, also went through a phase recently where she was obsessed/concerned with the idea of being left alone. I'm wondering if one time when the babysitter was here (while I was at chorus rehearsal) maybe Ruthie came out of her bedroom and couldn't find the babysitter, and thus got it into her head that Olivia (the sitter) was leaving our house after putting Ruthie to bed. She asked me repeatedly, "What if you and gramma and Olivia went away?" I told her over and over again that this isn't going to happen, there will always be a grownup in the house. Not sure whether that really sank in, but she seems to have stopped talking about that, anyway.

Then yesterday in the car:
Isaac: "How many years will there be?"
me: "Until what?"
Isaac: "until the earth dies."
me: "oh, a lot! Millions and millions."
Isaac: "Oh. ...How does the earth die?"
me: "Well, eventually the sun will start to get bigger and bigger and bigger, and then it will get so hot on the earth that everything will burn up."
Isaac: "Oh. But that's okay, because we'll be dead by then already."
me: "yes, we will."
Isaac: "What if there are other people on earth when that happens?"
me: "well, hopefully they will have time to make a spaceship and get away before the earth burns up."
Isaac: "Oh."

and a little while later...
Isaac: "When was the big bang?"
me: (a quick google to refresh memory) "About 13 billion years ago."
Isaac: "Can I see it?"
me: "eh?"
Isaac: "Can we go on YouTube? I want to see a video of the Big Bang."
me: (internal rotfl) "Umm...well, there's no video of it, because there were no people around back then."
Isaac: "Let's just try."

So I went on YouTube and searched on "big bang" and got, of course, some episodes of that sitcom, and some songs by a band of that name; but did also find an educational "origins of the universe" video, which talked about how scientists throughout history have used observable phenomena to calculate the earth's diameter, the distance of various astronomical objects, and so forth. It was about nine minutes long and Isaac was riveted to it the entire time. Ruthie on the other hand just kept saying "But where's the big bang? I want to see the big bang!" and then broke down crying when I told her we can't watch a video of the Big Bang. LOL!!!

Then this morning it was back to "Is Aunt Rae dead?" Aunt Rae is my great-aunt who is 92 and who, since we went to her 90th birthday party, is apparently the epitome of "old" in Isaac's mind. And no, she is not dead yet.

Ruthie, btw, has also started asking some "what if" questions, which can be confusing because she says "once" when she means "what if." So for example,

Ruthie: "Once a shark came in our house and ate all our food!"
Me: "Well, then we'd have to go to the store and get more food. But that wouldn't really happen."
Isaac: "Yeah, because the shark would die when it got out of the water."
Me: "Yeah, and also it wouldn't be able to open our fridge, because it doesn't have hands."

The other day Ruthie told me this long and involved story about a shark coming into her bedroom and biting her on the head. I'm wondering whether this was actually a dream that she had? I'm also wondering what the heck it is with her and sharks! LOL.

Comments

[gosling.livejournal.com]

My sister was a tad obsessed with sharks at that age too, I think. They're scary powerful creatures we don't actually encounter in real life all that much, and when they do they are behind glass in an Aquarium.

[queenalia.livejournal.com]

with sam it was cows. we finally convinced him that they couldn't climb our porch stairs, and he got over it.

[metafrantic.livejournal.com]

..you mean the Big Bang happened about 13 billion years ago, right?

[mamajoan.livejournal.com]

LOL!!! Dammit Jim, I'm a doctor, not a Carl Sagan!

[azurelunatic]

When I was six or seven or so, I scared myself silly with the concept of infinity. I was picturing infinite time mixed with complete sensory deprivation.

[mogwar.livejournal.com]

Kidlet broke my heart when he was Isaac's age by coming home from kindergarten and asking, "Will you still love me when you are dead?"

Now, of course, I know this is completely developmentally appropriate, but at the time, I freaked a bit (internally - I believe that externally I simply told him that of course I would always love him, no matter what).

[as2.livejournal.com]

I laughed so hard that I cried (while reading this post to givemean_a). Thanks for sharing this here.

[edie22.livejournal.com]

i just read another mom on my flist who said that her daughter had made up a game about sharks too. She's a little older than Ruthie, I think, but its weird to see two posts the same day about that!