You did the right thing.

Oh how I know that feeling. We lost one of our two black Labs suddenly in January. She was there, lying next to my 3-1/2-year-old when he went to sleep. A midnight run to the vet by my husband, and in the morning when he woke up we had to tell him she was dead. It broke my heart to have him going through the house looking for her.

My five year old was awake for the midnight departure. She asked me if Cody was going to die, and I made the mistake of telling her a firm "no." Because I so desperately wanted to believe it myself.

They both still have problems going to sleep -- afraid that the other dog will be dead when they wake up, or that Mommy or Daddy will be. And no easy answers to the "Where is she now?" question. Strictly speaking, she's ashes in a box on our mantle.

I think you handled a difficult situation as well as you could. I believe that it's important to teach children about death when the need arises, to the best of their ability to understand it. Talking about grief not only helps normalise it, but also teaches her that it is alright to feel sad. Frances is a remarkably sensitive and mature little girl and I have no doubts in her ability to handle this information, or your ability to help her understand it.

What a sweetheart. And you did the right thing, in telling her the way you did.

April's preschool teacher lost her mother last week to cancer, and so the teacher has been out. We received a note from the director telling us they had not told the children, and directing us to use our best judgment how and how much to tell our children. The consensus was that we would just say D was spending time with her family and would need lots of hugs when she came back, because you can't tell one kid without all the other kids finding out, and some parents aren't ready to deal with that issue.

It's a slippery slope; dear Frances is starting it out with Lexi, and this will prepare her for the more difficult transitions with others she holds close to her heart. But it's never easy.

Thanks, everyone.

Wow, Mary, what a tough situation for you. I hope all the kiddos (and the teacher) navigate it well.

good for you, for being honest and using real words in age appropriate terms.

It is amazing to me the disservice so many people do (with the best of intentions, usually) by using cutesy little euphemisms or figures of speech that a kid just can't grasp.

I just came home from work, in Hospice, where it seems daily I am helping family members figure out how best to explain illness/death to their children and grandchildren. All week I've been with an adult child with a developmental disability talking to her about her dad dying....and realizing that she understood so much more than her family was giving her credit for, and yet, weren't giving her the language to make it real.

Glad to hear your dad is doing ok.

It's so strange. We have had a number of losses in our family lately and we've been speaking very matter-of-factly to our daughter about it. That death is what happens when a body stops working and different people believe different things about what happens to the person inside the body but all we know is that we can't speak with or be with that person in the same way anymore. And it saddens her, but she's developed - over the last few months - a morbid fascination with it. The most frequent question is when we're all going to die.

I find we have very different approaches to that question. Joe says, "Not for a long, long time." And I say, "We don't really know." I tell her that I hope it will be a very long time from now but that no one ever really knows, and that I kind of like it that way. I also reassure her that there will always be someone who loves her very much to look after her, no matter what. None of these conversations have happened at bedtime, though, and I probably would have done the same in your situation.

The thing that has her crying at bedtime is that she doesn't want to be a teenager. Go figure.

She has such a sweet spirit!

What a lovely and thoughtful girl you have.

Oh, so difficult...and yet I can't think of a better way to tell your dear girl than the way you did. And oh my goodness, she is a lovely soul.