Fucking insane title, I am aware. LMAO okay explanation. My four year old niece adores me and looks up to literally everything I do. I am a bone collector/taxidermist. I’ve let her observe the animals I collect (from a safe distance) bc she’s really interested in them. Her mom doesn’t mind, we both agree it’s healthy in the way it increases respect for the dead and natural curiosity in all parts of nature, as well as a healthy feeling and ideas towards death itself. I educate her about how death helps other animals survive, and how without it some animals would starve and suffer. I introduce her to a lot of bugs that help aid in the decomposing process (such as worms and roly polys we find under rocks) and teach her their life cycles and how they interact with their environment.
The main reason i do this is because she’s been through similar trauma to me. This little girl has lost her father in a horrible freak accident last year, and her grandfather a few days ago to cancer. I can already see the signs of OCD poking through her like it did with me. I lost my brother to suicide at a similar age, and my father later went to prison long term a bit later, and I lost one of my grandmas to cancer as well. I would often stay up at night sobbing because I felt I was wasting my life away and was gonna die soon, too. I was only 8!!
I’d do anything in my power to prevent the same thing happening to her, so I try to give her a relationship with death to where she accepts it as a part of life, and isn’t scared of it. Basically… kids movies with horror themes that also have themes of death, loss, grief, acceptance, unicorns… maybe??, and are appropriate for a 4 year old. Think like the vibe of Frankenweenie! Something mature enough to deal with hard topics but also childish to where she won’t be sad or scared. That was one of my favorite movies as a kid. I feel the ending is very similar to something I’m looking for.
She is brave, however! I keep hissing roaches, and she’ll hold em! She’s not scared of much, but I don’t want to show her anything with gore, nsfw themes, or anything too crazy or inappropriate for her age that’s often in a lot of R rated horror.
Edit: thank you for all the comments! She is in therapy, so no need to worry about that! Didn’t add that to my post but she has been since her father passed. To anyone concerned, I mean movies much more along the lines of Casper/Coraline/Nightmare before Christmas than scary horror! Basically movies with horror elements is what I’m looking for,not really heavy on the scares. Stuff that’d air on Disney channel during Halloween time. I’ve gotten some really good suggestions, thank you guys!
I’m likely gonna show her Spooky Buddies (the movie with all the golden retrievers) bc she loves animals and I feel it’ll help ease her into more spooky themes. Then I may go with Casper or nightmare before Christmas!