What to say to 4 year old???

[ksdedee74]

I noticed that some of you had been through miscarriages also.

When we had our miscarriage, we tried to explain to our 4 year old son that the baby was in heaven now with Jesus and that it probably had some problems. That is the short version but covers most of the conversation.

About a month after that in his bedtime prayers one night he asked Jesus to send his baby brother back from heaven because he wanted to play with him. (we didn't know if it was a boy he had just decided this.)

Then last night after prayer time he started bawling saying he didn't want to go to heaven and leave me. He only wanted to stay with me. This was out of nowhere and I have no idea what was going through his mind he was very tired. I said some thing to the point of He wasn't going right now but that mommy was going someday and she hope he wanted to go too. I really didn't know what to say and really tried to comfort him rather than talk to him. 1 because of not knowing what to say and 2 because he was so tired I am not sure he would even hear anything I said.

Ok so here I am today hoping that some of your can give me some wisdom about how to talk to him about this. Thanks!

 

[gracepaints]

There's a great book called 'Empty Arms' by Pam Vredevelt that you might want to pick up. It has a chapter on how to talk to your children about miscarriage.

Here's a quote I think might be relevant:

Simply explain what happened to the baby after it died. If you are a Christian, this part of the conversation can teach your child spiritual truth that will bring great encouragement. You might want to say something like this, "Susie, when you were born into this world, you were born into a body and your person lives inside your body. Your body is just a shell or an outside covering for your person on the inside. You have a healthy shell or a healthy outside covering. When Shelly was born (or concieved) she didn't have an outside healthy body. But she was still a person on the inside. Shelly's body died, but her inside person is in heaven now. The Bible teaches us that when our outside body dies, our inside person goes to be with God in heaven. And that's where Shelly's inside person is now...We all miss her, we'll all get to see her in heaven.

It is wise to guard against saying such things as, "God took the baby to heaven." In a child's mind, that might cause unnecessary fears about the possibility of God taking mom or dad (or the child himself) to heaven now, too.

Hope it helps.