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How would you accurately explain death to a toddler? It is a good analogy that takes the toddler's feelings into account. Daddy ran out of Legos but he loves yo

How would you accurately explain death to a toddler? It is a good analogy that takes the toddler's feelings into account. Daddy ran out of Legos but he loves you. Quite beautiful actually.

anexprogrammer 11y ago
downvotes? I'm not sure how this rates those. Accuracy isn't really helpful to a five year old who doesn't yet have all the concepts needed. The tooth fairy isn't accurate either. Accuracy will get you an endless cycle of "but why dad?"
- TeMPOraL 11y ago
  That's called being a responsible parent. It's either that, or your child's future partner will have to deal with them losing faith in their parents, after so many things they were told turned out to be bullshit said to shut them up.
  - emodendroket 11y ago
    If you'd resent your parents for explaining death to you when you were five by an analogy without technical accuracy you probably have other issues.
    - cname 11y ago
      Right. Issues that were caused by people distorting the truth instead of giving it to you straight.
      - emodendroket 11y ago
        That's not what I meant but I think you know that.
- aninhumer 11y ago
  > Accuracy will get you an endless cycle of "but why dad?" So keep answering until you can't, and then say "I don't know". Curiosity is something to be fostered, not shutdown with lies.
  - anexprogrammer 11y ago
    Have you had an inconsolable five year old who lost a close relative or even pet? I prefer to use analogies and explanations they can understand and accept to help them understand the reality. It's not the same as presuming they have no concept of death. That's a very long way from shutting them down with lies, avoiding the topic, or "protecting" them from it. It's trying to be age-appropriate. I make no claims to be a perfect parent however. When they're a little older and have more capacity to understand a fuller, more accurate, discussion is possible.
    - asimuvPR 11y ago
      I lost a brother who has two girls. They were very young when it happened. It was a sudden death. Gone in less than a day. You never get an answer to the why. The Lego analogy works because it tells the child that life ends. It doesn't explain why. Just the fact. And that's ok. Why did my brother die? Everyday I ask myself that very same question and have yet come to an answer. His daughters have asked me why too. I never answer and hug them. Life is but a gift. It's not logical. But makes sense in a way. Worth living and worth dying for. Only thing I can come up with is to wish everybody health and a long life.
      - aninhumer 11y ago
        >It doesn't explain why. The aspect of it that people are objecting to is that it does try to explain why. It says "Your father needs to go back in the box so we can make other people", which simply isn't true.
        asimuvPR 11y ago
        I do understand that and I'm not making a religious statement. Merely stating facts with Legos. The matter we are made up of are the Legos. We are the sum of the parts. When we die those parts go on to be part of other things. Now why that happens is that science has not yet caught up :)
- EugeneOZ 11y ago
  Maybe they want to explain their kids all details of the illness, all details of dying and suffering - maybe they think it's acceptable for toddlers. Or maybe they are just too young/stupid/naive to understand it.
alsomaht 11y ago
Accurately: Our bodies undergo wear-and-tear, like the mailbox we had to fix last week. Only, in the case of our bodies, we don't yet have a way to fix or replace most of our parts. After a while, too many parts get worn down until they are no longer able to continue, and everything about us - the parts that allow us to think, the parts that allow us to feel - just stops. Sadly, fixing our biology is harder than fixing mailboxes, and while we're learning more and more about how to do it every decade, we won't be able to fix everything for the foreseeable future. --- Too accurately: So why aren't we trying harder to fix it? You see, son, society has been dealing with death for many thousands of years, and people have developed coping mechanisms to deal with its apparent inevitability. The majority of people simply don't think about it. Public figures have even rationalized death as a good thing, and boy have they said the darndest things. For example, I've recently read of someone comparing our bodies to legos in a fixed sandbox - as if people literally need to be disassembled before others can be born - and no one bats an eye! Another person pointed out that scientific progress would be slowed down without the older generation of scientists dying - sure, billions of non-scientists may die every few decades, but hey, science is a bit faster as a result! The point is, society has created a culture of either ignoring or accepting death, and it shapes the very way we think. Sure, that culture might have been harmless back when we really had no chance of combating problems like old age, but now? The vast majority of researchers, of funders, don't even bother to think about what should be some of the most important problems of our generation. Until we have progressed to the point where it becomes blatantly obvious that the technology to combat old age exists, it is unlikely anyone will even notice it. In other words, we're all screwed and you were born a few hundred years too early.
- Neslit 11y ago
  Ha :/ Too real. > we're all screwed and you were born a few hundred years too early. It's not a great option, but cryonics seems way better than nothing. (Under the assumptions that the preservation is reasonably high-quality, the storage facilities stay operational, humanity doesn't destroy itself, and advanced medical technology gets developed; see waitbutwhy.com/2016/03/cryonics.html ) An example of someone who wanted to live a long time but was genuinely screwed and was born a couple hundred years too early: The rapid Progress true Science now makes, occasions my regretting sometimes that I was born so soon. It is impossible to imagine the Height to which may be carried, in a thousand years, the Power of Man over Matter. We may perhaps learn to deprive large Masses of their Gravity, and give them absolute Levity, for the sake of easy Transport. Agriculture may diminish its Labor and double its Produce; all Diseases may by sure means be prevented or cured, not excepting even that of Old Age, and our Lives lengthened at pleasure even beyond the antediluvian Standard. O that moral Science were in as fair a way of Improvement, that Men would cease to be Wolves to one another, and that human Beings would at length learn what they now improperly call Humanity! -Benjamin Franklin

How would you accurately explain death to a toddler? It is a good analogy that takes the toddler's feelings into account. Daddy ran out of Legos but he loves you. Quite beautiful actually.

anexprogrammer 11y ago

downvotes? I'm not sure how this rates those. Accuracy isn't really helpful to a five year old who doesn't yet have all the concepts needed. The tooth fairy isn't accurate either. Accuracy will get you an endless cycle of "but why dad?"

TeMPOraL 11y ago
That's called being a responsible parent. It's either that, or your child's future partner will have to deal with them losing faith in their parents, after so many things they were told turned out to be bullshit said to shut them up.
- emodendroket 11y ago
  If you'd resent your parents for explaining death to you when you were five by an analogy without technical accuracy you probably have other issues.
  - cname 11y ago
    Right. Issues that were caused by people distorting the truth instead of giving it to you straight.
    - emodendroket 11y ago
      That's not what I meant but I think you know that.
aninhumer 11y ago
> Accuracy will get you an endless cycle of "but why dad?" So keep answering until you can't, and then say "I don't know". Curiosity is something to be fostered, not shutdown with lies.
- anexprogrammer 11y ago
  Have you had an inconsolable five year old who lost a close relative or even pet? I prefer to use analogies and explanations they can understand and accept to help them understand the reality. It's not the same as presuming they have no concept of death. That's a very long way from shutting them down with lies, avoiding the topic, or "protecting" them from it. It's trying to be age-appropriate. I make no claims to be a perfect parent however. When they're a little older and have more capacity to understand a fuller, more accurate, discussion is possible.
  - asimuvPR 11y ago
    I lost a brother who has two girls. They were very young when it happened. It was a sudden death. Gone in less than a day. You never get an answer to the why. The Lego analogy works because it tells the child that life ends. It doesn't explain why. Just the fact. And that's ok. Why did my brother die? Everyday I ask myself that very same question and have yet come to an answer. His daughters have asked me why too. I never answer and hug them. Life is but a gift. It's not logical. But makes sense in a way. Worth living and worth dying for. Only thing I can come up with is to wish everybody health and a long life.
    - aninhumer 11y ago
      >It doesn't explain why. The aspect of it that people are objecting to is that it does try to explain why. It says "Your father needs to go back in the box so we can make other people", which simply isn't true.
      - asimuvPR 11y ago
        I do understand that and I'm not making a religious statement. Merely stating facts with Legos. The matter we are made up of are the Legos. We are the sum of the parts. When we die those parts go on to be part of other things. Now why that happens is that science has not yet caught up :)
EugeneOZ 11y ago
Maybe they want to explain their kids all details of the illness, all details of dying and suffering - maybe they think it's acceptable for toddlers. Or maybe they are just too young/stupid/naive to understand it.

alsomaht 11y ago

Accurately: Our bodies undergo wear-and-tear, like the mailbox we had to fix last week. Only, in the case of our bodies, we don't yet have a way to fix or replace most of our parts. After a while, too many parts get worn down until they are no longer able to continue, and everything about us - the parts that allow us to think, the parts that allow us to feel - just stops. Sadly, fixing our biology is harder than fixing mailboxes, and while we're learning more and more about how to do it every decade, we won't be able to fix everything for the foreseeable future. --- Too accurately: So why aren't we trying harder to fix it? You see, son, society has been dealing with death for many thousands of years, and people have developed coping mechanisms to deal with its apparent inevitability. The majority of people simply don't think about it. Public figures have even rationalized death as a good thing, and boy have they said the darndest things. For example, I've recently read of someone comparing our bodies to legos in a fixed sandbox - as if people literally need to be disassembled before others can be born - and no one bats an eye! Another person pointed out that scientific progress would be slowed down without the older generation of scientists dying - sure, billions of non-scientists may die every few decades, but hey, science is a bit faster as a result! The point is, society has created a culture of either ignoring or accepting death, and it shapes the very way we think. Sure, that culture might have been harmless back when we really had no chance of combating problems like old age, but now? The vast majority of researchers, of funders, don't even bother to think about what should be some of the most important problems of our generation. Until we have progressed to the point where it becomes blatantly obvious that the technology to combat old age exists, it is unlikely anyone will even notice it. In other words, we're all screwed and you were born a few hundred years too early.

Neslit 11y ago
Ha :/ Too real. > we're all screwed and you were born a few hundred years too early. It's not a great option, but cryonics seems way better than nothing. (Under the assumptions that the preservation is reasonably high-quality, the storage facilities stay operational, humanity doesn't destroy itself, and advanced medical technology gets developed; see waitbutwhy.com/2016/03/cryonics.html ) An example of someone who wanted to live a long time but was genuinely screwed and was born a couple hundred years too early: The rapid Progress true Science now makes, occasions my regretting sometimes that I was born so soon. It is impossible to imagine the Height to which may be carried, in a thousand years, the Power of Man over Matter. We may perhaps learn to deprive large Masses of their Gravity, and give them absolute Levity, for the sake of easy Transport. Agriculture may diminish its Labor and double its Produce; all Diseases may by sure means be prevented or cured, not excepting even that of Old Age, and our Lives lengthened at pleasure even beyond the antediluvian Standard. O that moral Science were in as fair a way of Improvement, that Men would cease to be Wolves to one another, and that human Beings would at length learn what they now improperly call Humanity! -Benjamin Franklin