5 year old has presented some awkward information

osprey

My 5 year old was told directly by another adult, a story that I had no control over him hearing as I was not there. In his own words "xxxx friend made a suicide, he drank poison and wrote a letter to his mummy and daddy". Needless to say I am absolutely outraged at this situation. I played the card pretty well at the time so as not alarm him that this was an awful thing to have been told. Ultimately the moment passed and it was back to fun and football. I've been racking my brain over what to do about this, I know the person responsible, albeit not personally. The way I see it, my 5 year old is a big believer in magic and father christmas, there's no room for darkness in his world, not for a long time yet.

Rubberchikken

i would imagine most of it went over his head.
i know ikt's upsetting, we want to keep them innocent as long as possible.
it was unfair and thoughtless of the adult to speak to a 5 yo like that, but it's done now.

if he does ask any questions about it in future, you know the way they can bring up something waaay later, then just answer in an appropriate way and let it go.

and keep him away from this adult, if you can:)

uck51js9zml2yt

Talk to the adult concerned and register your feelings about what transpired

seamus

Yeah, I'd talk to the person first about it. You don't know how this conversation transpired. It's possible that your son inadvertently heard or overheard talk about someone committing suicide, and suddenly started asking a lot of questions.

This person may have just been doing what they thought was the best thing by answering some questions in the simplest terms possible.

I wouldn't go in all guns blazing to immediately assume that they decided to just land your son with this.

skallywag

I would tend to agree with Seamus.

All in all though once kids hit school age one tends to be pretty helpless anyway at safeguarding from such things, it's amazing what you will hear even kids so young talking about, the saving grace is that it flies right over their head 99% of the time.

IvyTheTerrible

My brother killed himself several years ago. My OH's nieces and nephew (between the ages of 5 and 8 at the time) started talking to me about it, and they knew a lot more detail about it than would have wanted them to know. I spoke to their parents about it and said how I felt uncomfortable discussing it with them in detail and if they could refrain from over discussing it with their children, that sorted it out.

I agree with Seamus.

(Actually one of the big things that bothered me about them knowing a lot of details was that there have been two significantly more violent suicides in their family, but the children have never been told about that, but their parents think it's ok to tell everything about something in my family).