Ep #340: How to Talk to Your Children About Death

Welcome to The Widowed Mom Podcast, Episode 340: How to Talk to Your Children About Death.

Welcome to The Widowed Mom Podcast, the only podcast that offers a proven process to help you work through your grief, to grow, evolve, and create a future you can truly look forward to. Here’s your host, Master Certified life coach, grief expert, widow, and mom, Krista St-Germain.

Hey there, welcome to another episode of the podcast. Today we’re going to talk about something that I get asked about because it’s uncomfortable and challenging, which is how to talk to children about death. And my hope is that some widows, perhaps new widows are just going to stumble onto this podcast episode and it’s going to help them, or maybe it’s going to show up in a Google search. And then there will be others who you know, and because you have heard this episode, you will forward it to them. If the time comes for your friends, which it does, right? This is how it happens. You will know this episode exists and you can give it to them in a time where it really might help them. So that’s why I really want to do this episode.

Before we get into that, I want to tell you a couple of things. One is, we are doing something we’ve never done before. If you listen to this episode before December 3rd, 2025, you have an opportunity to check out Mom Goes On via what we are calling the Holiday Pass, which is two weeks of access to Mom Goes On. It’s not hard work. You don’t have to do a lot. You can just really come in, check it out, see what it’s like. Get access to both life coaching calls that happen every week, a tapping call that you’ll get to experience, you’ll get to see what the community is like and see what goes on in there. And it’s perfect timing because as we approach the holidays, it can be such a hard time, right? It can be a time where we don’t need extra work, but we would like some extra support. So I want you to know that’s there if you’re interested. CoachingWithKrista.com/holidaypass. Again, CoachingWithKrista.com/holidaypass, and we get started on December 3rd.

Also, life update, because I haven’t really told you anything lately. So this week, my daughter is coming home. Very excited about that. She was in Prague. She went to Prague in July, and then she had some visa challenges, which was unfortunate. All the American employees that were in Prague also had visa problems. So she came home briefly for a weekend in October just long enough to grab her stuff and then head to Argentina where they were short-staffed. She’s already been there, lived there for a while. And so she’ll be coming home hopefully for maybe even an entire semester. I’ll get to have her home. So I’m very excited about that because I miss my little girl, my not-so-little girl. And also, I just had a really fun trip to Las Vegas to go see the New Kids on the Block.

I’ve been obsessed with them since middle school. Really fun. My best friend since middle school and I went together, and we’ve been to several concerts as adults. Mostly we did this in middle school and high school, but we went to Las Vegas, saw a lot of shows, had a good time. She’s one of the people who after Hugo died, just really rallied around me. She lived in Michigan at the time and came immediately down. And so whenever I get to see her, I’m very happy about that. So that’s what’s going on in my world. Okay. Let’s get into this topic.

Because here’s the thing. It doesn’t matter how old your kids are. Conversations about death can feel overwhelming. You want to say the right thing. You want to protect them as much as possible. You worry that you’ll say too much or the wrong thing or not enough. And so what I want to give you in this episode is something that’s really simple that you can return to again and again. It’s easy. It really just kind of demystifies this having conversations about death.

And I want you to remember as we go through it, it’s never about being perfect. There is no such thing as perfect. What we want to aim for is showing up as steady, as honest, as loving. That’s what our kids really need from us. So, three parts to this framework. The first one is to be grounded. The second is to be honest, and the third is to be available. And we’re going to go through what each one means.

So first, be grounded. Before you speak to a child about death, I want you to take a pause. Take a moment to notice what’s happening in your body. Take a few deep breaths if you need to. Put your hand on your heart if that helps. Feel your feet on the ground. Do a grounding exercise. Any of these things to come back to our body so that we are creating safety in our own nervous systems.

Because children pick up on more than what we say. Their little nervous systems tune into our nervous system. And so sometimes if we’re kind of panicking or we’re a little activated, then we might make it a little harder on them without meaning to. The more we can bring calm into our bodies, the more the calm that’s in our body and our nervous system can speak to their nervous system. All right? And again, it’s not about being perfect. Who could go into a conversation like this feeling perfectly composed? Probably no one. We just want to be present enough in our bodies so that we feel safe, so that we can send that sense of safety to the child, even when the topic is hard.

I also want to give you permission, if it helps you to feel more grounded, to write it out, if you need to write it out. Now, of course, you don’t need to write it out, but if it helps you to write out what you want to say in advance, even just so you know what you’re going to say, you could write it out and never look at it. You could also write it out and keep it right there with you if that helps you feel a little bit more safe in your body. So I want you to give yourself permission to do what supports you so that you can support them. So that’s the first thing: be grounded.

The second is be honest. Children deserve the truth. And we can give them the truth in age-appropriate, compassionate language. What we want to avoid are euphemisms, things like saying someone passed away or went to sleep. Those things can be confusing and they can be even a little bit scary, right? If you don’t know what passed away means, or it now becomes a scary thing to go to sleep, that feels a little dangerous. And that’s not what we’re trying to do.

We also don’t want to give the impression that someone who leaves might not come back. Like if they go somewhere and then they aren’t going to come back. We want to be very clear in our language. So we want to use words like died and death and dead. So you might say something like, they died, and this means that their body stopped working and they can’t come back. Or they died because they were very sick and the doctors couldn’t fix it, right? So we’re giving honest, truthful, easy-to-understand, no euphemisms.

And again, keeping in mind your tone. Just like your nervous system matters, your tone matters. So when we use honest words and we deliver them gently and clearly, that helps a child feel more safe.

Now, I know a lot of you worry what happens when a child asks a question that I don’t know how to answer. And I just want to say, it is totally okay to say I don’t know. Please don’t put pressure on yourself to know all the answers. You are a human being. You do not know all the answers. You know what you know, and that is all. So, I don’t know, but I’m here with you while we figure it out. Right? Or that’s a really good question and I wish I had a better answer. We don’t want to make anything up. Telling the truth is really important.

It’s also important, even as much as we want to comfort kids, that we don’t make promises we can’t keep. So as much as you might want to reassure them, let’s say that you’re telling them that their father has died, right? We might want to say, don’t worry, I’m not going to die, but we can’t say that. We don’t know that. So avoid saying things like, don’t worry, mommy will never die. We can’t guarantee it. We don’t want to say it. So instead, bring the language back to the present moment. Mommy is here with you right now. We are safe. We are together. We’re going to be okay. Right? We’re back in the present now. So we acknowledge what has happened, but we’re we’re not going to make promises we can’t keep.

Another question that I get asked a lot is what if it was suicide? What do I say? And again, we want to be truthful, but we just want to use age-appropriate language. So we can talk about it with compassion, we can talk about it with clarity. We can absolutely say the truth without shaming, without blaming, without adding to the stigma that is suicide loss, right? So something like, their brain was very sick and they died because of that illness. It made them think there was no other way to stop the pain. Or we could say, you know, when someone dies by suicide, it means they were hurting on the inside so much and they couldn’t see another way out. And that’s not your fault, and I’m here with you.

Also, we don’t have to explain everything at once. You can tell the truth in layers over time as your child is ready. So you are the authority, you know your children, you know that one might be different than another. And the most important thing is that they understand they are not to blame, they are not alone, they are allowed to ask questions, and that you’ll be there as best as you can. All right?

So, be grounded, be honest. And the third thing is that we want to be available because sometimes we think, well, you know, it’s just going to be one conversation, but that’s really not true. We know that, right? Talking to children about death, it’s not going to be a one-time thing. It’s going to be the beginning of many conversations, most likely. And as your child ages, their understanding is going to shift. Their questions are going to change. And sometimes they might ask the same question again and again. That doesn’t mean anything has gone wrong, right? It just means their little brain is still working it through.

And you’re also going to notice that some kids are going to talk a lot about it. Other kids are not going to want to talk at all. Some are going to cry, some are not going to cry. Some will talk to that parent, some will not. Some will seem totally fine until a significant event, a holiday or a birthday or a random Tuesday, right? I say that to say, let it all be okay. Let every child have their own reaction because they will.

Remind yourself your job is not to prevent their feelings. It’s to walk beside your child as they have their feelings, to be there for them as they allow themselves to feel what it is that they feel. So we want to let all emotions be welcome. Just like you want people to let your emotions be welcome, we just do that for our kids too. So if they’re feeling sad or angry or confused, afraid, all of those emotions are okay. None of them are problems that we’re trying to solve. Again, they’re very natural experiences that we want to help allow. We want to help make space for. And we can do that with our language. So saying things like, it’s okay to cry. I’m here. I feel sad too. We can be sad together. You might be feeling a lot of different things. That’s normal. You get to feel however you feel. Your feelings are not problems to solve.

Consider using the word and. You know it’s one of my favorite words in grief. It’s okay to feel sad and we’re going to be okay. We can miss him and we can still laugh. So avoid trying to talk a child out of how they’re feeling. Language like, don’t be sad, or don’t be so sad, or, you know, at least we had him for a while, or we should be grateful. Anything that is minimizing that you wouldn’t want someone to say to you, of course, we just we’re just not going to say that to children either. We know they’re well-meaning, but they can really shut down an emotional experience. It can make our child kind of want to hide what they’re actually feeling.

So, if you struggle with this, remember, it’s important that you give yourself permission to feel, right? You cannot give your child permission to feel their feelings if you are not giving yourself permission to feel yours. So I want to encourage you to do a little check-in, right? With your own grief and the emotions that you might be experiencing. If there are spots where you notice you’re holding onto rules about how long or how intense, you know, your feelings are allowed to be, we want to look at that. Because we’re most able to help ourselves and we’re most able to help our children if we believe that there really is no right or wrong way to grieve and there’s no wrong feelings and there’s no timeline on any of it. It’s not a linear process where we end up in some place called acceptance, right? It’s a – grief is a natural human response to a perceived loss. We’re always going to have a response to that loss. It’s going to change and ebb and flow over time. We’re going to integrate that loss into our life experience. And your children are going to integrate that loss into their life experience as well. And they are much more resilient than your brain might be worried that they are. So we want to be honest. So we’re going to be grounded, we’re going to be honest, we’re going to be available. Again, not about perfection, just about showing up as the kind of parent that you want to be for your kids.

So that’s what I have for you this week. I hope that helps you. Remember, I love you. You’ve got this. Take care and I’ll see you next week. Bye-bye.

If you like what you’ve been hearing on this podcast and want to create a future you can truly get excited about even after the loss of your spouse, I invite you to join my Mom Goes On coaching program. It’s small group coaching just for widowed moms like you where I’ll help you figure out what’s holding you back and give you the tools and support you need so you can move forward with confidence.

Please don’t settle for a new normal that’s less than what you deserve. Go to coachingwithkrista.com and click Work With Me for details and next steps. I can’t wait to meet you.