This morning, some of the good folks on OGrownups are discussing the best ways of helping children understand and deal with death. The discussion is quite excellent, and here’s my small contribution, in response to a question about how to help kids overcome worry about the death of their own parents:

It might be helpful to tell you children what would happen to them if you died. Your kids are utterly dependent on you — and they know that. Unless you tell them, they might suppose that they’d need to somehow fend for themselves — or do something equally unrealistic. They might be worried about what would happen to the family pets, or whether siblings might be split up. However, if they know that they (plus the cat) would all go live with nice Uncle Bob and Aunt Judy, that might help alleviate some of the worry.

In essence, some of the anxiety might be more about themselves than about you! That’s all well and good, of course. They should be thinking about their future.

If you’re interested in these kinds of discussions, come join OGrownups! You need to be an Objectivist to post, but not to lurk.