Kiddipedia
As a psychologist, I am used to fielding ‘big life questions’ from clients who are contemplating leaving relationships, unsure of their purpose, questioning their sexuality, or facing their own mortality.
However it is in my role of a mum of 2 when these kind of questions really catch me by surprise. Often they are being asked while I am draining the hot pasta over the sink, about to walk out of the kindy to start my work day, or one step away from their room after I have said ‘goodnight’.
Will you and Dad die?
Can I marry my cousin?
Why don’t we give our money to John (the homeless man that sleeps rough at our local footy oval) so he can buy a house?
Usually I start by buying myself more time. ‘Good question. What made you ask that?’, but often they see through it, and in repeating it, demand more answers!
Often parents ask me whether they should answer these questions. The answer is yes, but how to answer them is less straightforward. It will depend on your child’s age to begin with. What is appropriate for a 9 year old is not necessarily appropriate for a 3 year old. You will have to take into account how much they can process, which is often a lot more than we think. Every child has a different temperament, a different set of life experiences, and their stage of cognitive development is not as clear cut as their jumper size.
Sometimes they are asking to stall bedtime, but often it is because it is the time when they get to process things at the end of a busy day (sound familiar?!). It may have been on their mind for a while, or it may have just occurred to them. It is ok to say ‘hmm, good question. I need to think more about the answer. Let’s make a time to talk about it tomorrow’. The important thing is that they know that you heard them and that you want to discuss it with them. Sometimes it will feel safer to them to bring it up at the eleventh hour oe when they know you are too busy, knowing you won’t be able to answer straight away… A bit like how clients will often wait until the 48th minute of our 50 minute session to casually mention that they started an affair or are planning to quit their job.
Parents often want to be honest but are worried about scaring or scarring their children. Questions about death often fall into this category. Again while there is no hard and fast rule, I recommend being honest, offering reassurance and then checking in with your child. It might sound like this ‘yes, Dad and I will die one day. Usually people only die though when they are really, really old which is a loooooooong way away. I know that might feel scary. What do you think about that?’. A large part of these conversations is managing our own anxiety! Try to breathe slowly, and stay calm and present. If you are feeling very anxious, it’s likely that your child will pick up on that, and they may interpret it as you not feeling safe which will feel frightening to them, or that you are trying to hide something from them which will also feel scary to them.
Recently my daughter’s kindy teacher pulled me aside at pick up. She said that the class had been talking about kangaroos at group time and my daughter had said that her grandfather died after his car hit a kangaroo. The kindy teacher told me that one of the children had been upset and for a moment I felt guilty. Then I thought about it. My child had asked me how her grandpa had died and, not satisfied with ‘car accident’, she had wanted to know why the car had crashed. I had gone with my gut and had chosen to mention the kangaroos on the road. I said that usually the road was clear, that kangaroos normally move out of the way of cars, and that even if people do have an accident, they are usually fine. I said that it had just been really, really unlucky. We had spoken about it several times since and while sometimes it came up in games, she had never shown any anxiety on our many long road trips or given any indication that she was afraid or worried. I know it’s not the decision that every parent would make and that is perfectly ok, but I do think that it is important not to avoid these hard topics. Our job is to be there for our children when they have hard feelings and to help them make sense of them, not to avoid them altogether. I appreciate it wouldn’t have been easy for the kindergarten teacher, but I suspect that it won’t be her last conversation about life’s big questions either.
Whenever I get stuck, as many parents do when it comes to questions about big topics like religion or why people are mean to other people, I remind myself that I can give my children a range of answers and leave it to them to decide for themselves. After all, we get better at making decisions and forming opinions by, well… making own our decisions and forming opinions, not by being told what to think. For example, when my daughter asks about why some people eat meat and others don’t, I explain that some people believe it is cruel to eat any meat, other people think it’s ok to eat free range meat some of the time, some people hate the taste, and some people only want to eat meat. After we talk about it (at length), I ask her what she thinks. If she asks how I feel, I tell her, but I emphasise that it is up to her to decide what she thinks, and that it might change over time.
Ultimately, there is no one right way to answer if there is only one God, or if there is a heaven. But being honest in an age appropriate way, managing our own feelings, and sitting with our children’s emotions when they are upset or need to process life’s big questions seems like a good place to start.
Paige is a psychologist and mum of two on a mission to help women really enjoy parenting babies and toddlers, without getting lost themselves. She runs a private practice in Melbourne and runs online groups for women who want to have the best possible relationship with themselves, their children and their partners. Paige loves carbs, reading, broccolini and running, mostly for a sense of freedom during lockdown.
