How Do You Tell a Child......

I dont have a special needs child, but I can offer some info on how I explained the death of a grandfather to my child. I told them that when people got old or sick sometimes their body stopped working, kind of like when a toy's batteries go out and the toy no longer works. And that heaven was a place kind of up in the sky above the clouds where that person gets to live with God, it's a happy and fun place where he gets to look down on us like being on the top of a tall building. And even though we can't see him anymore he can see us and he watches over us. Good luck, teaching about a abstract thing like death and heaven are really tricky!

Depends on the child and exactly how they are special needs. What their maturity level is etc.

My mom passed away when I was 19 very young. When I had my daughter I always talked about how Gramma was in heaven and my daughter had a pretty good grasp of things as early as 2-3 years old. She LOVES to go visit Gramma's grave and bring flowers. It's amazing if you don't make things negative or really push it how well kids adapt. My daughter is now 7 and extremely comfortable with wakes,funerals,death. I've always included her whenever someone died. My daughter use to talk to my mom at around 4 years old. She would have full blown conversations kinda freaked me out. I think kids adapt to things fairly easily it's all about how you approach the situation. If your upset,mad,sad, happy, they read into that follow your lead.

I have had a similiar situation in the last week, except instead of a family member, it was my best friends dad (my son is VERY close to her), and he is not special needs. What are the special needs of the child? In that situation, I might talk to a doctor for advice, or even go to a counselor to talk about it to make sure they understand and can get through it with as little stress as possible.
My son is 4, and I took him to a wake last Sunday. I wasn't sure about it, but I didn't think keeping him from dealing with it would be the best for him in the long run either, so I brought him. He has been asking questions about death for months now, so much that one time we were in line at Target and there were long lines all around us, and out of nowhere, he loudly asked "Mommy, when are all these people going to die?" I was very embarassed and just told him we would talk about it when we got in the car. It is a hard subject for kids to understand, and in my situation, it helped him a lot to go to the wake. He was very curious in seeing, he had a lot of questions, and we just stood there with him and answered them and then asked if he had any more questions. He learned a lot and actually understands what death is now. We told him that your soul leaves your body and goes to heaven with God (being in a christian daycare really helped with that part), and just gave him the best answer we could to every question he had. He was very serious the whole time, and really seemed to get it. Then we went home and as he was going to bed he was telling me that God was going to make him again tomorrow (he didn't get that it was permanent), so I explained that it doesn't work that way, he got scared and started to cry so I explained to him that Heaven is a very happy place because you get to be with God and he loves you, and from Heaven you can look down and see everyone that is still alive, and that someday we will die too and go to Heaven and see the people we have lost, and he really liked that, I was afraid of nightmares that night, but he slept great and so far has not seemed scared of death since. The best way for him to get his questions answered was to see it, and to know what it means when I tell him that you aren't alive anymore and can't talk or breathe or do anything (he didn't really understand what that meant until he saw it). I know this is a hard thing to deal with. Hard enough to deal with yourself, and making sure a child has the best experience possible is hard to do while grieving. I hope everything goes well, if you need to talk I am here.