It's often the permanent
losses children face, such as death or traumatic loss, that challenge our
practices. What are we to do? What are we to say?
What do children really understand about death?
Although we are not experts, there are things to think about in supporting children's grief
and understanding of death. We know from research
that within the first 24 hours of life, a child
knows their mother's voice from all other voices.
Any human that has the capacity to love,
and a child has that in 24 hours,
of seeing the difference between the loss of an adult.
When you and I sustain a loss, we can develop a
feeling and hold on to a feeling about anything
for as long as we live. Young children don't have that capacity.
It's why they're so buoyant and so
delightful to be with. It's because they can be sad one minute
and happy and laughing the next.
We know about early childhood that their attention span is short.
Their feeling span is also short.
They could never have a sustained conversation like you and I are having
just because that their feeling span is so short.
They may be playing at the sandbox, at the water table,
and say my dad died and that's the end of it.
They don't expand on it. That's why when you
hear those words, or you see behavior
that's indicating
that they're hurting, why it's important to bring up the issue
and say I know your dad died
and that is such a sad time for you and your family.
And I'm feeling sad because your dad
died. I think in that connection
that's where the child
begins to heal.
In the book "Explaining Death to Children", Dr. Earl Grollman suggests helping children
understand death by explaining it in terms of the absence of
a familiar function or functions. For example:
when flowers die, they don't bloom anymore. When people are dead, they no longer
breathe, eat, talk, think, or feel anymore.
When you talk to young children or they ask a question, I always say
just answer it simply,
briefly, and without detail.
They don't have a sense of time,
so they don't understand the permanence of loss.
When we say Daddy's gone, you shouldn't use
those kind of words, or that you lost your
dad, because young children are so literal
he might start looking for dad if you use the word
lost. It's best to use the words death,
dying, and dead because they'll learn what those words mean.
Children need to be involved in an honest,
reassured, developmentally appropriate way. As we carefully listen
and observe, children will teach us about their grief and what they understand about death
which is very different from adults.
Honesty is always important because
children will know that something is happening. They
will know that you are upset. They will know
that families are upset and so it would be a
combination of honesty and reassurance.
Because of developmental abilities and
cognitive limitations, young children do not fully understand death.
To support a healthy grief process or what some call "good grief",
children will need to grow in their understanding, grieving, and commemoration
of the death. Of course we've been through a lot of different pets
and I've tried to do my science inquiry,
and let's watch this dead fish. This fish is dead.
What should we do? What will happen next?
The fish is dead and we're watching it for the longest time and the
children will really persist in believing that we can bring this fish
back to life again. Maybe if we just give him a little more
food. Let's put him in some fresh water and
see. They really do persist in believing
that death is reversible,
in the face of all evidence. If you've ever watched...
children often like to pretend that they're dead. They'll play dead. They'll fall on the ground
and I'll say, oh my goodness what has happened, but they will always come back
to life again. Sometimes you will
give them the information. I don't think this
bird is going to come back to life again, but I will always listen to their
ideas as well. What do you think will happen. We have different
ideas and you can have your ideas and I can have my idea and
I feel comfortable with that. Rituals and commemorations
may help children work through grief, but should be appropriate and by choice.
The National Association of School Psychologist reminds us
that talking to children about death must be geared to their developmental level,
respectful of their cultural norms, and sensitive to their capacity
to understand the situation. So there are many different traditions
for everyone to participate in remembering.
If you're near Mexico, there are Day of the Dead
celebrations, if your here there are Memorial Day celebrations and so
that's once place where children become part of the traditions
of our culture of understanding death or of
remembering people who have died. Always you respect
the diversity of families expressions about things.
Always the explanation to children is:
some families believe one thing and some families
believe another. You will usually believe what your family
believes. So some children will talk about he's in heaven now.
Somebody might dispute
that and you will say well, this family believes that
they're in heaven and different families have different ideas about these things.
You'll usually believe what your family believes.
As in always you take your cues from what
the children say and what the children are interested in.
You answer questions honestly, but you don't
take it beyond whatever they're
expression or interest is, or not far beyond
that. So if they talk about someone who died
then you would quite honestly talk about someone dying.
You tend to mirror their language about it.
Children can grieve when the adults around them can
provide an environment that's safe enough
for them to feel and show those feelings.
If the adults around them are uncomfortable talking
about death or showing their feelings around death, then
children will say, this doesn't look like a very good thing
to talk about right now and they'll tuck it away until they find
someone with whom it seems safe to share
those feelings of grief. So there is often a
feeling among adults, oh look they've forgotten it
already, when actually what's happened is
it doesn't quite feel safe enough to share.
It's not about fixing the grief or even taking away the pain,
but rather it's about being present and mindful of the grief that is
uniquely individual to the child.
Visit Better Kid Care www.betterkidcare.psu.edu
We care, because you care.