When a person or pet dies, most adults instinctively try to protect children from the details. However, grief specialists agree that children can cope with what they know; what they can’t cope with is what they imagine. This guide aims to answer the questions children actually ask about cremation and ashes, in simple words you can use at the kitchen table, in the car, or at bedtime, when the questions tend to arrive.
According to Winston’s Wish (now part of Child Bereavement UK), more than 100 children are bereaved of a parent every day in the UK, which is a staggering 41,000 every year. Lots of families, like yours, are trying to work out how best to guide their child/children through this experience. You aren’t alone.
When talking to or answering a child’s questions, try using these simple rules:
Use real words, not euphemisms
Say 'died' and 'dead', not 'passed away', 'gone to sleep', 'departed', 'over the rainbow bridge' or 'lost'. Adults use softer, gentler words to be kind, but children quite often take language literally. A child told that Grandma is lost may wonder why nobody is out looking for her, or if Grandad ‘went to sleep’, they may become afraid of bedtime.
Follow the child's lead
Answer the question they asked, simply, then stop. If they want more detail, they will ask more, especially once they learn you are someone who answers them honestly.
Expect them to dip in and out
Children grieve in bursts; you may even hear the term ‘puddle jumping’ to describe it. A child can ask a serious question about death and then ask what is for tea in the same breath. This is completely normal and does not mean they are unaffected.
Here are a few answers to questions around cremation and ashes
What is cremation?
A simple explanation that works for most ages:
"After someone dies, the body is taken to a crematorium. Inside the crematorium is a room that gets hotter than any oven, and that heat turns the body into ashes. The ashes are then returned to the family in a box, and they can then decide what to do with them next.”
If a child asks directly whether the body is burned, the honest answer to give them is ‘yes’, and honesty here matters more than comfort. What reassures a child is not avoiding the word but removing what frightens them about it: there is no fire like a bonfire, no smoke, and no pain, because the person has died and cannot feel anything. Most children who ask are not being morbid. They are checking that the person they love was not hurt. Answer that question and the rest usually settles.
Older children may ask how it works or why people choose it versus other options, and you can add detail gradually, following their questions.
Does cremation hurt?
This is the question underneath most of the others, even when a child does not say it out loud. The answer is simple and worth saying clearly:
"No. When someone has died, their body cannot feel anything anymore. Nothing about cremation hurts them."
If your family has religious or spiritual beliefs, this is a natural place to include them, for example that the person's spirit or soul is no longer in their body.
What do ashes look like?
Children often imagine fireplace ash or something frightening. The reality is gentler. Cremated ashes are dry, pale in colour and more like coarse sand than the ash from a fire.
How much ash comes back?
Less than most people expect, and children are often reassured to know the amount in advance rather than being surprised by it.
For an adult, the ashes usually weigh around 2 to 3 kilograms, about the same as two or three bags of sugar. Scientists have measured this: a study of more than 750 cremations published in the Journal of Forensic Sciences found the average was around 2.7 kilograms. The amount depends mostly on a person's bones, so a tall grandad leaves more ash than a small grandma, and how heavy someone was in life makes surprisingly little difference.
A child may ask why there is not more. The honest answer is that the heat removes everything else, and what is left is the mineral part of the skeleton. Some children find comfort in knowing that this mineral, calcium phosphate, is the same one found in chalk, coral and seashells.
How much ash comes back for a rabbit, cat, small and large dog or horse?
The bigger the animal, the more ash comes back. If your child is asking questions about a pet, here are the approximate amounts of ash you can expect to receive after cremation:
Rabbit 75 grams, a small egg
Cat 150 grams, a medium apple
Small dog breed, 200 to 300 grams, a block of butter
Large dog, 600 grams, a pint of milk
Adult human, 2.5 kilograms, two and a half bags of sugar
Horse 23 kilograms, a full holiday suitcase
How do the ashes come back to us?
In the UK, ashes are usually returned in a paper or plastic bag, which is neatly wrapped and placed within a box. The box is often handed over to the family in a bag from the funeral directors, vets or pet crematorium. If the family has arranged it, the ashes may be returned in an ash scatter tube or in an urn or casket.
Telling a child this before they ever see an urn or scatter tube removes a great deal of fear. What they can picture accurately makes it a lot easier to get their head around when the day comes.
Can my child see or touch the ashes?
This is entirely up to you and the child. Some children may want to look, others may want to gently touch it, and some may want nothing to do with the ashes at all. All of these are quite normal, and the same responses apply to adults.
If a child asks to see the ashes, it usually means one of two things: they want proof that this is real, or they want to know where the person is now. Both deserve a calm, honest response rather than a change of subject. You might say:
"Yes, you can see them if you would like to. They look like coarse sand.”
Never insist that a child look at the ashes or that they stay away. Let them decide. Be with them if they do decide to look, so you can answer any further questions.
Should children come when we scatter the ashes?
Children who are included in saying goodbye generally cope better than children who are excluded and left to imagine what happened without them. Bereavement charities encourage involving children in funerals and ceremonies in ways that suit their age: choosing a song, reading or poem, drawing a picture, decorating the coffin or ash scatter tube, or simply being there.
Scattering ashes is no different. If a child wants to come, prepare them first: explain where you are going, what the ashes will look like, who will be there and what will happen. Give them a role if they want one. Some children like to scatter a small handful themselves, some prefer to read a few words or place a flower or scatter some flower seeds, and some just want to hold a hand and watch.
If you are planning on scattering or interring the ashes, our guides on what to say when scattering ashes may help.
Can a child keep something?
Yes, and there is good evidence that it helps. For most of the twentieth century, people believed grief meant learning to let go. British culture was built on a ‘stiff upper lip’ and firm belief that emotions should be swallowed and kept in private. A 2023 systematic review published in the journal Death Studies concluded that maintaining a bond with the person who died is a normal and often comforting part of grieving, helping the bereaved find meaning, comfort and personal growth. Psychologists call these continuing bonds, an idea first set out by Dennis Klass and colleagues in 1996 and now supported by decades of research.
2019 research specifically on bereaved children and young people has found that physical mementoes are one of the main ways they keep that sense of connection. An object gives a child somewhere to put their love: something to hold on the hard days and a natural way to start talking about the person when words are difficult.
The value of memory boxes and the objects within them for children
Memory boxes are widely used in children's grief support across the UK. Balloons, our local child bereavement charity for Exeter, East and Mid Devon, provides more than 120 memory boxes a year in its one-to-one work with children. The Harvey Hext Trust, a national Bristol-based charity founded in memory of nine-year-old Harvey, creates and supplies personalised wooden memory boxes and memory bears for children whose brother, sister or parent has died.
Decorating the box matters as much as what goes inside it. Child bereavement counsellors often build sessions around both, because decorating it, holding and talking about each object gives a child a natural way to speak about the person or pet who died, a little at a time, on their own terms.
A memory box does something else too: it keeps the person close. The relationship does not end when someone dies; it changes. A box of their things, kept where the child can reach it, is a quiet, everyday way of saying that the love is still there and always will be.
The Harvey Hext Trust provides boxes to families directly. Children supported by Balloons make & decorate their own in sessions. And you can simply create one at home. Let the child choose how to decorate and what goes in: photographs, drawings, a ticket stub, something that smells of the person, a note in their handwriting. The box belongs to the child, and they decide when it comes off the shelf.
Some families also choose to include a tangible memorial of that person or pet. A small amount of the ashes can be made into something lasting that a child can keep and hold. This could be a piece of jewellery or a smooth, Afterstone ash-into-stone solo pebble, heart or teddy bear that lives on a bedside table, sits inside the memory box, or comes along in a pocket on difficult days.
Whatever form it takes, the principle is the same: a child who has something tangible has somewhere to put their love.
What if they keep asking the same questions?
They will, and this is healthy. Children revisit death as they grow, because their understanding of it grows with them. A question answered at five years old will be asked differently at eight and again at twelve. Each time, the same rules apply: real words, honest answers, follow their lead. Also, and this is important, as a parent, you do not need to have all the answers; none of us do. "I don't know, but I wonder about that too" is an honest answer, and children respect it.
Where to get further child bereavement help?
If a child in your life is struggling with grief, expert help exists:
- Balloons offers free one-to-one grief support, advice and information as well as activity days and group work for children and young people aged 5 to 25 in Exeter, East and Mid Devon. Visit balloonscharity.co.uk.
- The Harvey Hext Trust provides personalised memory boxes and memory bears for bereaved children across the UK. Visit harveyhexttrust.com.
- Winston's Wish offers free bereavement support to children and young people across the UK. Call 08088 020 021, 8am to 8pm on weekdays or visit: https://winstonswish.org/
- Child Bereavement UK offers free, UK-wide support for bereaved children and young people up to 25, and for the adults supporting them. Visit childbereavementuk.org.
- AtaLoss helps anyone bereaved in the UK find the right support near them. Visit ataloss.org.
