I had the unfortunate experience recently of having to explain death to my daughter. Back when she was 6 years-old I had to tell her about the parent of one of her friends passing. I was very matter of fact about it – can’t help it, it’s my personality, and all I told her was that he had been ill and passed away. For a few months afterwards, I remember how she was afraid of dying every time she was sick. So lesson learned and I needed a new approach.

This time I told her that the person went to heaven. That immediately brought on the questions about what heaven was like, did she now have wings, does she hang out with the angels, etc. I answered as many questions as I could and eventually referred her to her trusty Bible.

In terms of the Haitian culture, there are various ways parents handle telling children about death. Some ignore it completely thinking that the child will eventually forget about the person. Others announce the news indirectly by their own grieving or overheard conversations. I was about my daughter’s age (8 years-old) when my mother first started telling me about people going to heaven. Since I have no recollection of being scared afterwards, I think it was the right time.

My daughter handled this sad news pretty well. She told me she felt sad and later drew a picture of the person in heaven dancing on clouds. I’m going to assume for now that this approach was more conducive to her personality

How do you handle talking to children about death? Do you have any cultural norms or have you developed your own? Do you remember the first time you were told about death?

There’s a saying that anything causing you stress right now will be irrelevant a year from now. Anyone close to me has most likely heard me dole out these words of encouragement whenever they’re telling me about a difficult situation. I also try to remind myself of this when I’m starting to feel overwhelmed by the every day.

I’ve decided to test this theory by looking back (as well as my memory serves) at the problems that I had last year to see if they have any relevance now.

Haiti’s earthquake: I can’t say that this is completely irrelevant now, but a lot of the things I was worried about last year have sorted themselves out. We were very fortunate to have not lost any friends or family and no belongings sustained any damage. It was a question of waiting to hear about people every time we heard about an aftershock. By April, we started to hear less about the earth shaking and people started getting back to their routines.

Housing: Last March we were really looking into moving from our first apartment. We were having a difficult time because housing prices had doubled since my husband arrived 6 months prior. To top it off, there weren’t a lot of options in the area. I recall finding one we really liked even though it was a little far from stores, the kids school, etc. and the landlord pulled out at the last minute. At that point, we decided whatever will be, will be. Within a month, we found the apartment that we currently live in which is much more conveniently located and cheaper. So, this one gets a check…

Employment: One of my biggest concerns before moving here was whether or not I’d be able to find work in my field. I was assured by many that I would, but my gut was telling me otherwise. Well, by this time last year I started to realize that my gut was right and it would be a long road to full-time work. Well, I’m still unemployed, but the difference is I’ve completely accepted that it’s not going to happen here and have since come up with a plan (which will be revealed at a later date ). I’d give this one a check, as well.

Learning Spanish: I wasn’t stressing myself a whole bunch about this last year, but I knew I wanted to feel a lot more comfortable going out on my own. I didn’t see much improvement by simply immersing myself and was always getting tripped up on grammar. I eventually found this course at the French Alliance and May will make it one year. As I mentioned, we’ve shifted into intensive format and I’m amazed at how much progress I’ve made (yes, I’m patting myself on the back). Even though this is a work in progress, it definitely gets a check!

So what, that’s 3 out of 4 – not bad. What do you think about this theory? Have you found it to be true for your stressful phases?