Your guide to activities and fun things to do with your preschoolers, toddlers and kids in kansas city, KS

Tough stuff: Losing a family member

by Jenny Meade

August 17, 2009

So, you know how last week I was on vacation? At the beach? And then we were going to come home and scramble aorund for a couple of days and then school starts? Well, as it turns out, my grandfather died on Thursday morning. We got the call while we were sitting on the beach, and I spent a very peaceful afternoon thinking of him while listening to the waves crash and the seagulls cry. It had been a long time coming, and it's good for him to be free.

Considering that my children are only nine and almost seven, they've known death kind of a lot. I guess it just happens more in some families than others, and part of it is because so many people in my family have lived a good long life into their 80's and 90's that my kids have been able to know, at least for a little bit, great-grandparents and great-aunts and uncles. Some of our losses have been family, including the family dog (don't discount the loss of a pet as being less important than a person, it isn't so to children.)  Some have been family of close friends, and one heartbreaking loss in particular was even a little friend of theirs, only eight years old himself.

It doesn't really matter how close or how far, children don't necessarily line up their emotions to how well they knew someone who dies.  They tend to line up their emotions more with how old someone is, and how that person's death could be like their own.  That is, generally speaking, children understand that old people get sick and die. 

Eight year old neighbors who once played dress-up in your playroom but are lost to cancer are less understandable. It's not okay. And children tend to think, could that happen to me?

The key for children to deal with these things is honesty, as much as you can bear, and as much as you, the parent, think they can handle. I've been preparing my boys for the loss of their great-grandfather for some time now, as he's been ill, and they've seen his health change in the recent years. When our old dog got sick, and I knew we had a problem, I started dropping little hints to them that she was pretty sick, that she might not recover, that she might die soon. When she died I did not tell them that I held her head and kissed her nose while the Vet put her down, it was too much. I told them that I rushed her to the doggie hospital but that she didn't make it.

The second key is to let them grieve. Let them see you grieve, if you can. It's okay to feel sad, it's okay to miss someone. It's okay to have bad dreams. They fade soon enough.

It's also okay if, after telling your children that someone they love has died, they simply ask if they can go back to playing in the ocean some more. And maybe, can they have a lemonade snocone from that guy over there with the umbrella?

Yes, yes they can. 

All work and no play makes Mommy and Daddy crazy.

by Jenny Meade

May 11, 2009

Recently my husband and I came the conclusion that we're both behind the curve, on pretty much everything in our lives. We're both behind at our jobs. We're both behind at home. The house is a mess, the laundry sits on the floor in our bedroom separated by clean and dirty piles. Whereas we used to have the weekends to recover and catch up from the work week, we now need an extra day between Sunday and Monday in order to catch up from our weekends of soccer, baseball, soccer, swimming, and occasionally mowing the grass. (That which is seen by the neighbors inexorably gets done, which is why the laundry still sits on the bedroom floor.) It's just that time of year - so much to do, so little time. 

I think all parents go through this. I have to admit, before I had kids, I thought the hardest part would be doing the new mommy thing. All the books you read set you up for this - the constant crying, pooping, feeding and laundry cycle with variable sleep patterns thrown in for good measure is supposed to make you lose your mind, right?

Nobody tells you that is a walk in the park compared with driving and dropping off and picking up and feeding on the run and driving some more, and cleats and soccer balls and mitts and baseballs that get lodged under the seat where nobody can reach them. No one mentions the part about how all that seemingly endless laundry you did over and over to wash the spit-up out of those wee little rompers? That is NOTHING compared with big kid laundry loads of towels and sheets and ketchup stained T-shirts, and baseball pants and soccer socks and the clean and sterilized rubber mulch that constantly clogs up the lint filter in the dryer.  

Also? You have to actually parent them, not just rock them to sleep or stick a nipple in their mouth. Who knew.  

I am telling you, here and now: Babies? Babies are easy. Kids are hard. And the work is never-ending.

On Mother's Day, while I tended to some church commitments, my husband and the boys stayed home and played Monopoly.  The house was still a mess when I got home. There were dishes in the sink, the same piles of laundry on the bedroom floor, the same dog staring at his empty water dish and whining. But my family was having some quiet fun together. And I realized I missed it.  We need to do it more often. 

People, let yourself have some fun on the weekends, or wherever you can. The laundry can wait. Besides, after a while they figure out how to sniff their own underwear to see if it's clean, anyway.  Call it a Rite of Passage and let it go.

The Big Picture: 5 Big things that matter to preschoolers; and 5 little things that don't.

by Jenny Meade

January 06, 2009

Way before I had kids of my own, I taught preschool and daycare and nannied back in college. I learned a lot from the experiences that really came in handy once I did have kids of my own, mostly because I had seen pretty much every kind of toddler personality, every kind of tantrum, and even every kind of virus. It wasn't that these experiences made me feel like I knew what I was doing once I  Read more...