I feel rather guilty

[Miss Chicken]

A friend and his little girl (aged 7) were visiting me today. The little girl is animal lover so she was asking me to look for photos of various animals on the web while her father was outside smoking and talking to my son.

She asked me to show her spiders, snails, sharks etc Now when we were looking at sharks she was talking about how sharks could kill people. She then asked me to look for a picture of a stingray so I did.

We talked about stingrays and I mentioned it was a stingray that had killed Steve Irwin. A look of absolute shock came across the child's face. It seems she adores Bindi and Steve Irwin and had no idea that Steve Irwin was dead. She was a bit confused how Steve Irwin could be dead and still be on TV all the time.

I apologised to her father but she was still upset when she went home.

I now feel guilty because I broke this 'news' to the child.

On a similar note, I once saw my former sister-in-law at the shopping centre and asked how my former father-in-law was and she told me that he had died almost a year ago.

 

[Deranged Nasat]

Oh, I know how you feel, Miss Chicken. I live in mortal dread where young children are concerned; fear that I'll say something that will shatter some illusion and upset them or their parents. At least my youngest cousin just found out Santa isn't real- so I can relax this Christmas .

 

[Jadzia]

That's nothing to feel guilty about. The child has to learn to deal with death. And being upset (or shocked) is perfectly natural when it's a figure we care about. I think it would be worse for information like this to be deliberately withheld for so long.

 

[Deranged Nasat]

That's nothing to feel guilty about. The child has to learn to deal with death. And being upset (or shocked) is perfectly natural when it's a figure we care about. I think it would be worse for information like this to be deliberately withheld for so long.

I agree, but many people don't, which is why I dread being in the situation. I would say something as an unthinking natural response and then I'll upset someone who doesn't see things that way.

 

[Miss Chicken]

I certainly would never had kept such information from my children when they were young which is why I didn't think that this girl wouldn't know.

 

[Locutus of Bored]

Eh, she'll be fine. She would have found out about him dying eventually, and it's better coming from you than some kid who might have said something worse along with breaking the news.

But, now that you've told her that, you might as well go for the hat trick and tell her about Santa and the Easter Bunny too.

 

[Deranged Nasat]

^ The Bunny is in shock, that's all! He's stunned, not dead. He'll get up soon...right? Right?

 

[Miss Chicken]

On one other occasion I had another little girl and her brother visit my home. The little girl is about 5 years old, her brother a year or so older.

The little girl saw that a had a small meerkat ornament. She told me that she loved meerkats and asked if I watch Meerkat Manor on TV. I said yes and asked her which meerkats she liked. She said to me her favourite was Flower.

I asked her if she had seen the last episode with Flower in it. She said yes, and it was so sad, becauise Flower had been killed by a snake. She told me she had cried and cried.

I wonder why I was careful when I talked about Flower but didn't take the same care about Steve Irwin.

 

[Deranged Nasat]

On one other occasion I had another little girl and my brother visit my home. The little girl is about 5 years old, her brother a year or so older.

The little girl saw that a had a small meerkat ornament. She told me that she loved meerkats and asked if I watch Meerkat Manor on TV. I said yes and asked her which meerkats she liked. She said to me her favourite was Flower.

I asked her if she had seen the last episode with Flower in it. She said yes, and it was so sad, becauise Flower had been killed by a snake. She told me she had cried and cried.

I wonder why I was careful when I talked about Flower but didn't take the same care about Steve Irwin.

Flower is cute, Steve Irwin isn't?

 

[iguana_tonante]

Nothing to feel guilty about. The parents, on the other hand, should be ashamed of making her child live in a fake world (strong wording, I know, but just to make my point). Children should never be shielded from reality: they need to learn, and learning with the help of a parent is the best way to deal with the worst aspect of reality: death, loss, pain, illness, etc.

I never understood about all this talk about "protecting a child's innocence": children are not innocent, just ignorant and oblivious. Even when I was a kid, I wanted explanations. The world was never a magical place of candy sweets and fluffy bunnies, it was a weird and strange place full of things that I didn't understand.

I was befuddled about how could Santa Claus enter my house since we had no chimney, and when I realized my parents made it up, I felt disappointed. Not because Santa wasn't real, but because my parents felt the need to lie to me to make the world "better" from what it really was.

I live in mortal dread where young children are concerned; fear that I'll say something that will shatter some illusion and upset them or their parents.

I just refuse to go with it. I will not actively reveal informations (not my kids, not my rules), but if asked, I won't lie. If you don't want your kid to be exposed to reality, keep them locked at home. The burden is all on their parents' shoulders, not mine.

 

[Deranged Nasat]

I live in mortal dread where young children are concerned; fear that I'll say something that will shatter some illusion and upset them or their parents.

I just refuse to go with it. I will not actively reveal informations (not my kids, not my rules), but if asked, I won't lie. If you don't want your kid to be exposed to reality, keep them locked at home. The burden is all on their parents' shoulders, not mine.

A good way to approach it. Unfortunately, I've never had the courage. People will get aggressive with you if you dare to reveal things they don't want revealed. In theory, however, I agree with you entirely.

 

[Amaris]

Not to worry, iguana, Santa Claus is real. Me!
Now, granted, I don't do many of those things in the stories, but then things get embellished quite a bit anyways.


J.

 

[trampledamage]

On one other occasion I had another little girl and her brother visit my home. The little girl is about 5 years old, her brother a year or so older.

The little girl saw that a had a small meerkat ornament. She told me that she loved meerkats and asked if I watch Meerkat Manor on TV. I said yes and asked her which meerkats she liked. She said to me her favourite was Flower.

I asked her if she had seen the last episode with Flower in it. She said yes, and it was so sad, becauise Flower had been killed by a snake. She told me she had cried and cried.

I wonder why I was careful when I talked about Flower but didn't take the same care about Steve Irwin.

Because the conversation about the meerkats came from the direction of her being a fan of the show. You weren't having a conversation about Steve Irwin when you mentioned his death, you were talking about stingrays.

 

[Miss Chicken]

Once my son came home from kindergarten upset. He said another child had told him Father Christmas had died. I said "Well if Father Christmas has died it will be on the news". So we watched the news and there was no announcement of Father Christmas's death so my son decided that he was still alive.

Because the conversation about the meerkats came from the direction of her being a fan of the show. You weren't having a conversation about Steve Irwin when you mentioned his death, you were talking about stingrays.

Good point.

 

[JustKate]

Because the conversation about the meerkats came from the direction of her being a fan of the show. You weren't having a conversation about Steve Irwin when you mentioned his death, you were talking about stingrays.

Yes, and also because Steve Irwin has been dead for more than three years, and unlike Flower's death, his death was relentlessly and repeatedly covered by all the major media. I cannot imagine how her parents managed to keep it from her this long, and like other posters, I think it was a bad idea for them to even try.

 

[Deranged Nasat]

Once my son came home from kindergarten upset. He said another child had told him Father Christmas had died. I said "Well if Father Christmas has died it will be on the news". So we watched the news and there was no announcement of Father Christmas's death so my son decided that he was still alive.

You see, that's what I mean. I hate the idea of lying to my children, but if I don't, they'll spoil it for every other child they meet, and all those parents will turn on me. It's quite a problem.

 

[Miss Chicken]

Once my son came home from kindergarten upset. He said another child had told him Father Christmas had died. I said "Well if Father Christmas has died it will be on the news". So we watched the news and there was no announcement of Father Christmas's death so my son decided that he was still alive.

You see, that's what I mean. I hate the idea of lying to my children, but if I don't, they'll spoil it for every other child they meet, and all those parents will turn on me. It's quite a problem.

The thing is I never once told my children that Father Christmas was real. I always left it up to them to decide. They put their pillowslips on their bed for Father Christmas to fill and it was up to them to decide just how much of the story was true.

I treated God in the same way.

 

[trampledamage]

Because the conversation about the meerkats came from the direction of her being a fan of the show. You weren't having a conversation about Steve Irwin when you mentioned his death, you were talking about stingrays.

Yes, and also because Steve Irwin has been dead for more than three years, and unlike Flower's death, his death was relentlessly and repeatedly covered by all the major media. I cannot imagine how her parents managed to keep it from her this long, and like other posters, I think it was a bad idea for them to even try.

I suppose it depends on when she became a fan. If she's only 7 now then it's possible she didn't actually start watching the shows until after his death, in which case it would be more of a case of the subject not coming up rather than actively not telling her.

 

[Deranged Nasat]

Once my son came home from kindergarten upset. He said another child had told him Father Christmas had died. I said "Well if Father Christmas has died it will be on the news". So we watched the news and there was no announcement of Father Christmas's death so my son decided that he was still alive.

You see, that's what I mean. I hate the idea of lying to my children, but if I don't, they'll spoil it for every other child they meet, and all those parents will turn on me. It's quite a problem.

The thing is I never once told my children that Father Christmas was real. I always left it up to them to decide. They put their pillowslips on their bed for Father Christmas to fill and it was up to them to decide just how much of the story was true.

Interesting

 

[JustKate]

I suppose it depends on when she became a fan. If she's only 7 now then it's possible she didn't actually start watching the shows until after his death, in which case it would be more of a case of the subject not coming up rather than actively not telling her.

That's true. I can't tell from Miss Chicken's OP if they deliberately kept it from her or just never thought about telling her. But of course, if it never entered her parents' heads that this might be a problem, then certainly Miss Chicken shouldn't feel bad because it never entered her head, either.