Death And Parenting - Talking To The Kids And Planning Ahead

**Collaborative post**

Ok, so this is not exactly a cheerful topic, but it really is an important one. As parents, we have a lot to focus on and it is all about new life, from the moment we find out about our baby right through until they graduate or get their first job and onto having their own kids and leave home. Our focus is always on them and quite rightly so, it’s about their life and their happiness to a larger extent. But, what about our own mortality, sadly we will be shuffling off this earth at some point (that’s a given) and when we do how will our kids deal with it and sort it all out?

The question is, do we talk about it, plan for it or just ignore it?

Table of Contents

Taboo?

There is a growing trend these days to really take the taboo out of death. It is a really hard thing to do, it’s scary! Regardless of what you may believe about what happens after the whole concept has caused us all to focus on it more, especially with recent news and health concerns/isolation fears we are all worried about currently.

With the current fears of viruses, people stockpiling food and fears they will be isolated for up to a month, getting away from the news is rather impossible – we hear it in the playgrounds, it’s all over social media and everyone is talking about it. We can try to keep our kids protected from the news but should we?

Removing the stigma of death overnight won’t be easy but it may well be a very important thing to do. At what age you start dealing with death is a really big question and not one that will be answered here but it suffices to say that having pets at a young age can really help kids understand death. There is certainly a consensus that suggests trying to shelter them from it for as long as possible is not a healthy thing to do, especially if something happens out of the blue and they are totally unprepared to even begin to cope with it. When we lost my Mother-in-Law, I sheltered the children from it – our emotions were all over the place and I really thought it was the best thing to do, especially as Emmy was only 5 at the time and Harry around 2 and a half. I thought as they were so young it was best but looking back now they suffered from her loss far greater than I realised and I should have spoken with them more about what was happening and talked them through in an age-appropriate way.

So talking about death may well be a good thing. Joking about it is probably even better. Making light of the fact that one day we all pop our clogs is a great way to deal with it and comedians have been helping us cope with death for a long time. I’ve been joking around with the kids that when I am old, grey and immobile they will have to wipe my bum and clean up after me – they really aren’t that keen on that idea (and nor am I).

Plan

Sorry to say but the right thing to do is to plan for death in a number of ways. It is depressing, it is heartbreaking but it is important.

But what do you need to plan?

Life insurance/Family Income Benefit

This is something we often never think about, it will never happen to me…..but IT WILL. We all die, that’s a fact, and not thinking ahead to our children’s futures is actually a scary thought. How will they cope financially if we were to pass sooner rather than later before they’ve secured a future for themselves and before we’ve paid off our mortgages? We all hope that we can give the children an inheritance – they could live in their family homes, or sell it and use the money but it doesn’t always work out that way.

Life insurance is a way in which we are able to provide that security for them. LifeSearch, one of the UK’s leading life insurance brokers. LifeSearch is a company with an award-winning team dedicated to protecting the people we love and allowing them to continue living the lives that they love.

Family Income Benefit is one of LifeSearch’s most popular products, it is a bit different to other life insurance products in that it doesn’t pay out a lump sum to your loved ones should you pass away, but instead provides the beneficiaries with regular, tax-free income – either monthly or quarterly, to help cover household and living costs when the main earner isn’t around anymore.

When you take out a Family Income Benefit policy, you choose how long you want your term to last. For young families, this could be until the children are financially independent and would no longer need the income payments. For example, if you choose to have a 23-year term. If you died a month into this term, the payments would begin from the date of death all the way through to the end of the term – for 23 years, minus a month. If you died 20 years into the term, the payments would again begin from the date of your death but only payout for 3 years, because this is what is left of the term.

It’s perfect for new parents with young children looking for that extra peace of mind and protection. The regular payments, as opposed to a lump sum payout, means that no one is left to deal with a large, overwhelming sum of money, such as with a traditional Life Insurance policy. Losing a loved one is hard enough, without then having to suddenly deal with a huge amount of finances. This way, the money is made manageable and budgeting becomes simple.

Funeral Planning

This is a twofold thing and it is really important to understand what it is. A funeral plan is a financial product where you pay money in like an insurance policy and when you die your funeral is all covered and paid for. But these also include the actual plan of the funeral and your wishes. So, they are a great way to help either your partner or loved ones to be able to do it as you wanted it. They mean the whole thing is organised and paid for and your children no matter how grown-up, they are not going to have to worry about it.

Wills

OK, this is a big one. Again, no one wants to think about it but everyone should really be getting a will sorted when they get married or buy a house with someone but to not have one when you have kids is a big deal. It is really important to set down in a legal document how your possessions and money will be shared out but that is just a tiny bit of it. The real issue for parents is setting down who will look after the children. A lot of people are unaware that when it comes to unmarried couples the father does not automatically get the kids if the mother dies. A will is super important when it comes to child care as well as the money they get. We wrote our Wills a few years ago, and if anything happens to us my best friend gets the kids – isn’t she lucky? Don’t worry, she is well aware.

Ignoring It

Let’s just assume you wish to totally ignore dying completely when it comes to your kids. The result of this could be nothing at all or at least very little. You may live a very long time and your kids may well earn lots of money so your funeral when it does come will be easily affordable. But even so, they will still be very upset and may find it hard to cope because they didn’t know what you wanted for your sending off! Also, with no will, everything you own will have to be split up in a complex way that can be very stressful and cause a lot of family arguments. But if you pass away in an accident earlier then everything can go really wrong. Failing to talk about death, to approach it and allow it to be discussed can really make things tough.

No will, no funeral plan and no childcare provisions just leave an even darker situation.

As parents, it is our duty to look after our kids and this should also be thought of as something that continues when we are gone. Talk, joke, laugh but ultimately…plan for it because it will happen just like paying our taxes (we don’t like that either but it has to be done).