There are some conversations we wish we could protect children from. Death is one of them. But children often cope better when we give them honest words and somewhere safe to bring all the feelings and questions that come with them.If someone is really old, sick or nearing the end of their life, we can be gentle without avoiding what’s happening:“Their body isn’t working the way it used to anymore, and soon their body might stop working. When someone’s body stops working, they die.”We don’t need to give children every detail at once. Let their questions lead the conversation and answer what they’re actually asking. They might want to know what happens when someone dies, whether it hurts, where they go, or whether someone else they love is going to die too. It’s okay not to have every answer. “I don’t know” can be an honest answer too.And then come the feelings....They might cry, get angry, feel frightened or confused, ask the same question over and over, or listen to everything we’ve said and then ask what’s for dinner.Children need to know that sadness is allowed. Missing someone is allowed. Being angry that it’s happening is allowed. Laughing and playing five minutes later is allowed too. We don’t need to hurry them through any of it or make the sadness disappear. We can help them understand that big feelings are a normal part of loving someone and losing them, and that they won’t have to carry those feelings alone.And death doesn’t have to mean the relationship disappears.We can keep talking about them. Tell their stories. Cook the food they loved. Write them letters. Keep a special treasure box. Plant something for them. Look for them in the stars, the butterflies, the birds that visit the garden, the rainbows that appear at just the right time, or those little moments that just feel like them.We don’t have to tell children exactly what to believe. We can leave room for wonder.Death will always carry sadness because someone we love won’t be here in the way they were before. But alongside that sadness, children can grow up knowing that love, memories and connection still have somewhere to go.We can keep saying their name, talking about them, writing them letters and finding little ways to feel close to them.

This question has a habit of arriving when we’re least prepared for it - in the supermarket, halfway through dinner or five minutes before we need to leave the house.Before we launch into the full birds-and-bees documentary, children are usually only asking for the next little piece they don’t understand yet.So let’s just fill that gap:“Babies grow inside a special place in the body called the uterus.”And naturally, the next question might be:“What’s a uterus?”“It’s an organ inside the body where a baby can grow. It starts very tiny, and as the baby grows, the uterus stretches and makes room for it.”That might be enough. Or we might get the inevitable:“But how does the baby GET in there?”This is where we can answer honestly without giving a five year old a biology lecture they never asked for.“A baby can begin when a tiny cell called a sperm joins with a tiny cell called an egg. The egg comes from one body and the sperm comes from another. When they join, they can begin growing into a baby.”If they want to know how the sperm and egg meet, we can keep following their questions and use proper names for bodies and body parts. There’s no need for one giant Talk. Children can learn about bodies, reproduction and sex gradually, with more detail added as they grow and ask for it.And if they ask something that catches us completely off guard, “That’s a really good question. Let me think about how to explain it” is a perfectly good answer. We’re allowed a minute. :)These conversations don’t need to feel secretive or embarrassing. When our kids learn early that their questions about bodies are welcome, they learn that their body isn’t something they need to be ashamed or embarrassed to talk about, and that we’re a safe place to bring their questions.

Money questions have a habit of arriving loudly, publicly and while a child is holding something they absolutely need from the middle of Kmart.But underneath “Why can’t we afford that?” there can be another question:Are we okay?Children don’t need the weight of the family finances, but they can understand that money has jobs and we have to decide where it goes.Instead of “We can’t afford that,” we could say:“That’s not where our money is going today.”“That would be cool. If it’s something you really want, we could work out how much we’d need to save.”Or:“Nah, not today mate. Our money’s got other jobs.”Because it does.It keeps the lights on, puts food in the fridge, gets us where we need to go and pays for swimming lessons, school trips and the internet. Rent, food, power and petrol somehow get first dibs, despite being significantly less exciting than whatever is currently being held hostage in the Kmart aisle.Talking about money this way gives children a different message. It’s not always we have money / we don’t have money. We decide what matters, what needs paying first, what we can save for and what we're happy to leave on the shelf.And when money genuinely is tight, we can still be real about that without handing children the worry.“We’re broke.”“We can’t afford anything.”“I don’t know how I’m going to pay for this.”Those might be words we throw out after checking the bank account, but a child doesn’t have the same understanding we do. They can hear something much bigger.Are we okay? Are we going to lose our house? Is there enough food? Should I stop asking for things?That’s the bit we want to keep with the adults.We can say no. We can tell them something costs too much for us right now. We can save for things, change our minds, choose something cheaper or decide we actually don’t need another bloody squishy. Kids can know money has limits without growing up hearing that there’s never enough.The words we use around money become part of how they learn to think about it.

Children can ask this years after a separation, even when living between two homes is all they’ve ever known.And sometimes what they’re really trying to work out isn’t why.It’s where do I fit in all of this?We don’t need to give children the full history of an adult relationship. They don’t need to know who hurt who, who left, who was right or what happened behind closed doors. That belongs with the adults.What they do need is a version of the truth that makes sense for their age.“Mum and Dad decided we’re better at being your parents when we live in different houses. We both still get to be your family - it just looks a little different.”Or it might be:“Sometimes two people can really care about each other and still realise they’re not happy living together anymore. That was a grown-up decision, and it had nothing to do with you.”Because that last bit matters.Children are incredibly good at putting themselves in the middle of things. Was it because I was naughty? If I behave better, will Dad come home? If I hadn’t yelled that day, would Mum have stayed?Even when they've never said those things out loud, it can be worth making clear:“There is nothing you did that made this happen, and there’s nothing you need to do to fix it.”And then there’s the tricky bit when feelings between the adults aren’t exactly warm and fuzzy. Children don't need us to pretend everyone is best mates. But they also shouldn't have to carry our anger towards the other person.They’re allowed to love Mum.They’re allowed to love Dad.They’re allowed to miss the other house when they're with us, have fun there without worrying about hurting our feelings, and come home excited to tell us about it.A child shouldn't have to shrink their love for one parent to protect the other.Families can change shape. There might be two houses, new partners, step-siblings, different Christmases and a calendar that occasionally requires the organisational skills of an air-traffic controller.But underneath all of that, children just need to know....You still belong. You are still loved. And the grown-up stuff is ours to carry, not yours.

This one usually arrives at 8:17am when everyone needs shoes on and nobody has the emotional capacity for a philosophical discussion about the purpose of education. But it’s a fair question.Especially when a child is finding school hard.Our first instinct might be:“Because you have to.”And some mornings, honestly, that might be all we’ve got. But if the question keeps coming up, it’s worth getting curious about what sits underneath it.“You’ve asked me that a few times lately. Is there something about school you’re not enjoying?”Because “Why do I have to go?” might actually mean I’m lonely at lunchtime. The classroom is too noisy. The work feels too hard. I’m bored. Someone keeps picking on me. I hate getting things wrong. I’m exhausted.Or maybe they’d just genuinely rather stay home in their pyjamas watching Bluey. Also fair.We can explain school without pretending every child is going to love every minute of it.“School is one of the places you get to learn things, spend time with other kids and figure out what you’re interested in. Some parts you’ll probably love, some parts you might not, and some days will just be a bit rubbish.”And we can acknowledge something children already know:Learning doesn’t only happen at school.It happens while building something, cooking dinner, arguing over the rules of a game, climbing a tree, asking approximately 847 questions in the car and trying something for the sixth time because the first five attempts were a disaster.School is part of their education.It isn’t all of it.And if a child keeps telling us they don’t want to go, we don’t have to immediately assume they’re being difficult or trying to get out of something.Sometimes “I don’t want to go to school” is information.Our job is to listen long enough to find out what they’re trying to tell us.

This question can arrive VERY loudly in a supermarket queue while the person they’re asking about is standing approximately 40 centimetres away. 😂Children notice difference. That isn’t a bad thing.They notice skin colour, hair, bodies, accents, wheelchairs, birthmarks and anything else that looks different from what they know. We don’t need to shush them or quickly change the subject as though noticing someone is rude.We can just answer.“People have different skin colours because our bodies make something called melanin. Some people’s bodies make more and some make less, which gives us lots of different shades of skin.”For a younger child, it can be even simpler:“Yep, their skin is darker than yours. People have all sorts of different coloured skin. Beautiful, ay?”Then carry on buying the bread. Because children aren’t only listening to the answer. They’re watching how we respond to the question.If we panic, whisper “Don’t say that!” or look embarrassed, children can start learning that difference is something uncomfortable to talk about.It isn’t.As they get older, these conversations can grow too. We can talk about culture, whakapapa, where our families come from, and why people can look different even when they’re from the same family.And eventually, children also need to understand that while different skin colours are completely normal, people haven’t always been treated equally because of them. Racism is part of our world, and pretending children don’t notice it doesn’t prepare them to recognise it when they see it.But we don’t need to fit the entire history of racism into an awkward conversation beside the Weet-Bix. Start with what they asked. Answer without shame and let them know they can keep asking.Children are going to notice that people are different. What they learn from us is how we see those differences too.

Children can ask this with the same casual curiosity they use for “Why is that dog wearing a jumper?” Meanwhile, we’re suddenly deciding how much of love, relationships and sexuality we need to explain before we’ve even made it through the car park. Usually, the answer can be much easier than we make it.“Because they love each other. Some men love women, some men love men, some women love women. Families and couples can look lots of different ways.”For many younger children, that’s genuinely enough.“Oh. Okay.”And off they go to ask why birds don’t get electrocuted sitting on power lines. Children aren't born thinking there’s anything unusual about two mums, two dads or two people of the same gender loving each other. A lot of what they come to believe about difference is picked up from the world around them — including us.So our response matters.We don’t need a big serious voice or a special sit-down conversation. Love between two men or two women doesn’t need to be explained as though it’s more complicated than love between a man and a woman.If they ask how two mums can have a baby, or whether two men can get married, then we answer that question too. One question at a time. We don't need to hand them the entire encyclopedia of relationships because they spotted two people holding hands outside New World. And if our child has heard something unkind from someone else, that opens another conversation.“Different families believe different things, but in our family we treat people with kindness and respect. Who someone loves doesn’t change that.”Children are going to grow up alongside people with all sorts of families, relationships and ways of living.They don’t need us to make every difference a big deal.Sometimes they just need the answer to the question they actually asked:“Yep. They love each other.”

Periods have somehow managed to become one of those completely normal body things that generations of people learned to whisper about. Children don’t need the awkward version. If they ask what a period is, we can just tell them.“Inside the uterus, the body makes a soft lining each month in case a pregnancy begins. If it isn’t needed, the body lets that lining go. It comes out through the vagina as blood. That’s called a period.”If that gets a blank stare, we can make it easier to picture.“It’s a bit like the uterus getting a room ready every month. It makes everything soft and cosy just in case a baby needs somewhere to grow. If no baby is coming, the body goes, ‘Righto, don’t need this then,’ clears it out and starts again.” Honestly, bodies are pretty clever.And yes, the word blood may immediately cause concern.“Is she bleeding?! Does it hurt?!”We can reassure them:“It’s not bleeding because she’s hurt. It’s something the body naturally does. Sometimes periods can make your tummy or back ache, and sometimes you might feel tired, grumpy or a bit emotional too.”They might ask who gets them.“People who have a uterus can get periods, usually once their body starts going through puberty. They normally begin sometime as you’re growing up, but everybody’s body has its own timing.”We can talk about what people actually use too. Pads, period underwear, tampons or menstrual cups. Let them see what these things look like and explain where they go and why someone might choose one over another.There’s no reason the first time a child sees a pad needs to be the day they suddenly need one. It doesn’t need to live in a secret drawer of mysterious products nobody talks about.And this isn’t just a conversation for girls either.Boys need to understand periods too.When something is treated like secret “girl stuff”, it becomes incredibly easy for embarrassment, teasing and shame to grow around it. Knowing what a period is means a child can be the kid who quietly passes someone their jersey instead of being the kid who laughs because there’s blood on somebody’s uniform.That matters.Periods are ordinary. Bodies are ordinary. Asking questions about either of them should be ordinary too.The less weird we make these conversations when children are little, the less weird they have to feel when they’re living them.

This might be one of the hardest questions children ask because, honestly, war is difficult to explain in a way that makes any logical sense.“Why are they hurting each other?”Sometimes the most truthful answer is:“I find that really hard to understand too.”Wars can begin over land, power, resources, safety, beliefs, history or decisions made by people in power. There are explanations for how wars begin, but that doesn’t necessarily make the idea of people hurting and killing each other easier to understand.And maybe we don’t need to pretend it does.Children spend so much of their childhood being taught to use their words, keep their hands to themselves, listen to each other, share, apologise and find another way when they disagree.Then one day they discover that adults haven't exactly mastered that themselves.“But why can’t they just stop fighting?”It’s a fair question.We can explain that once conflict becomes this big, there can be years of history, fear, anger, loss and decisions made by people with enormous power. There are also people working incredibly hard to stop wars, protect people and find peaceful ways forward.But we don't need to defend something that feels indefensible just because we're the adult and feel like we're supposed to have an answer.We can say:“There are reasons wars start, and we can learn about those. But I still don’t think hurting people is a good way to solve problems.”Children may also need to know that the people living through a war are not the war.They’re children who want to play with their friends. Parents trying to keep their families safe. People who had homes, jobs, pets, favourite foods, birthdays and completely ordinary Tuesdays before their world changed around them.Most had absolutely no say in the decisions that put them there.And if our children look at all of that and think this makes no sense, maybe that isn’t something we need to explain away.Maybe we let them keep questioning it.Because growing up shouldn't mean becoming so used to the way the world works that we stop wondering whether we could do better.

This question often comes after someone has actually been mean to them.A kid at school didn’t let them play. Someone laughed at them. A friend said something that hurt. And now they’re trying to understand why someone would choose to make another person feel bad.The tempting answer is:“They’re probably just jealous.”Sometimes maybe. But people are a little more complicated than that. Someone might be having a terrible day. They might be trying to impress their friends. They might feel left out themselves. They might be angry, embarrassed or insecure. Maybe nobody has ever taught them a better way to deal with those feelings.Sometimes hurt people do hurt other people.But this is the important bit for children:Understanding why someone behaves a certain way doesn’t mean we have to be okay with how they treat us.We can have empathy and boundaries at the same time.“Maybe something is going on for them that we don’t know about. That might help us understand why they acted that way, but it still wasn’t okay for them to speak to you like that.”That’s a pretty powerful thing for a child to learn.Because we don’t want them growing up believing everyone who hurts them is simply a “bad person”. People are rarely that simple.But we also don’t want them becoming the person who explains away every shitty thing someone does because “they’ve probably been through a lot.”Both things can be true.Someone can be struggling and their behaviour can hurt us.Someone can have a reason and we can still say no.We can care about what might sit underneath someone’s behaviour without volunteering to be the place they dump it.And sometimes, after all that thoughtful parenting, the answer really is:“I don’t know why they did that, mate. That wasn’t very kind.”We don't always have to find the hidden reason.Sometimes our job is just to believe our child when something hurt, help them decide what to do next and make sure they know that being understanding never requires them to keep standing somewhere they’re being treated badly.Kindness includes how we treat other people. Boundaries include how we let other people treat us.