My grandmother died about 3 months ago of breast cancer and it was the first time my little girls had to deal with a person's death.

When someone you're close to dies you're definitely not in the best place yourself, and trying to help children come to terms with

• Taking children to the hospital - When I was growing up, we were not allowed to see people when they were ill because it might upset us.  All it did was make things more scary and unknown.  We took our kids to see my grandma in hospital when we could.  We kept it to short visits for my grandma's sake (she loved seeing her great-grandchildren, but they can get pretty tiring) and took toys and other things to keep them amused.  They understood that she was very sick, but also that she still loved them.
  
• Not using euphemisms for death - We never talked about my grandma "passing away" or "going to a better place".  We just said that she died.  We did run into one problem in trying to explain what death was.  We told the kids that G-G (short for "Great-Grandmother") had died and gone to be with Jesus.  My eldest daughter - who seems to have a very profound understanding of Christianity - then pointed out that Jesus was alive again and that means G-G is alive again too.  It took us some fast talking to explain that Jesus might be alive again, but it didn't work that way for ordinary people. 
  
• Letting them see a viewing - I understand that people will have different views on this, and there are circumstances where it won't be appropriate to see the body of loved one.  But in our situation, my grandma died in one of the bedrooms in my mum's house and was still there a few hours later when my girls arrived.  We told them G-G had died and asked them if they wanted to see her.  They said yes, and ran into the bedroom.  They just looked at her and my youngest said "She's dead.  She don't talk."  We agreed with her.  Then they asked to watch Care Bears.  They just took it all in their stride.  A week later, before the funeral, the girls came with me to the official viewing to say good bye.  Again they just took it in their stride.  It really occurred to me that once upon a time, death was a normal part of existence for kids.  Now we sanitise it so much, it can be hard to see the reality of it.
  
• Let them see your emotions - This was probably the hardest part because seeing me upset was the hardest for my kids.  But it also meant we could talk about death being sad, and missing the person.
  
• Let them be part of the funeral - All the grandkids were the pall-bearers for my Grandma's coffin, and my girls walked with us as we went down the aisle.  I also took the girls to a florist before the funeral, and they each chose a flower which they put on the coffin at the crematorium.   They really liked that.

I couldn't help comparing this to my own first experience with death as a kid.  It was my great-great-uncle, who I'd known quite well.  We were not allowed to go to the funeral or the wake and not only did I feel like I wasn't included, but I also felt like I wanted to understand what on earth was going on.  I didn't feel I could accept he was gone cause I didn't get to say goodbye in any way.   I really hope that by including the kids in things and explaining it to them that they have a better understanding and acceptance of the situation.