Okay so I’m a mortician-in-training and, right now, I’m taking the required thanatology class which is all about death, dying and bereavement. Our most recent readings were all about children and how to help them make sense of the loss and separation of a loved one. Apparently, most adults seem to think children don’t grieve but they do. Children essentially have seven stages of grief: shock, alarm, disbelief, yearning, searching, disorganization, and resolution. Their grief is harder to understand and assess because they have neither the vocabulary nor life experience to easily express their feelings and needs. A child’s belief structure and how they respond to death is determined by their age/developmental level, the manner of the death, and their relationship with the deceased.
Birth - 2 yrs: only non-specific distress reactions
2-5 yrs: don’t understand the permanence of death; concerned about physical well-being of deceased; not capable of cognitive reciprocity; may want to see and touch deceased’ repeatedly asks same questions about deceased; may act as if death never happened or in a regressive manner; may experience guilt (like, if they once said something like “I wish so-and-so would go away forever, they might think they caused the death)
6-9 yrs: more complex understanding; realize death is irreversible and that its universal; find it difficult to believe that death will happen to them (believe it happens only to older people); death can be personified and this allows them to run and hide from it; tendency to engage in “magical thinking” (don’t let them do this, its as bad as you lying to them; keep them grounded in the reality of the death), have strong feelings of loss but have extreme difficulty expressing it; often need permission to grieve
9-12 yrs: have cognitive understand to comprehend death is a final event; can understand and accept a mature, realistic explanation of death; short attention spans (they could be sad and grieving one moment and laughing joyfully the next, and someone could see that and negatively comment on it. Like, “how can so-and-so be acting like that?” This can intensify their already fluctuating emotions and present feelings of guilt and low self-worth); their vocabulary is advanced enough to express their feelings but they may not want to talk about what’s bothering them (they’ll let it build up and manifest in behavioral problems); interest in the physical aspect of death and what happens after; may imitate decreased’s mannerisms
13-18 yrs: understand the meaning of death; realize its irreversible and happens to everyone; normal puberty will intensify grief by adding to already conflicting emotions; often put in position of being the protector, comforter, caregiver (feel they must comfort others t their wen emotions are suppressed; they’ll look find on the outside but be falling apart inside); experience conflicting feelings about death (try to overcome fears by confirming control of their mortality; risk taking behavior); males are more likely to express grief in aggressive behaviors while females need comfort, to be held and reassured
There’s basically 10 rules:
Tell them ASAP: its important to start with what they know about death and then expand on that; be gentle and trustful; tell them in a comfortable, safe and familiar place and make sure its in language they’ll understand; never assume they understand the way you do
Be truthful: kids can sense dishonesty ok?! So don’t create lies to protect them; don’t make up stories that’ll have to be changed later on cause that only confuses them and promotes emotional instability; don’t withhold information either (within reason, see #3), place emphasis on the facts, and avoid euphemisms (i.e., “passed away”, “departed”, “went away”, “got sick” (they’ll associate illness and death go hand-in-hand and may think a common cold will kill them), etc)
Share only details they’re ready to hear: truthfulness should be balanced with their readiness for details (like, tell them someone died in a horrible auto accident but maybe not say they were decapitated and their head flew off down the highway in the process); children with actualize a crisis like an adult; its not uncommon for them to ask about a death later in life and that provides the opportunity to deliver info that wasn’t previously shared (i.e., the decapitation)
Encourage expression of feelings: a child will experience stages of grief very similar to those of adults (adults typically follow the Kubler-Ross 5 stages while kids have 7, seen above) and they rely on adults for permission to “feel” loss; best way is for them to learn is to hear and watch adults because they get their understanding of grief through their senses; its not unusual for them to go up to people and just make a statement like “My dad died” cause they want to see how that person will react and give them a clue as to how they should react, so its important for adults to “feel” their grief in the presence of the child; explain why you’re sad and reassure them that its okay for them to feel sad and cry and that its okay if they aren’t
Take child to the funeral: seeing is believing; they should be given the option to view the body but don’t force them; a funeral can be a positive experience but their level of involvement in the funeral process should be their individual decision; give them the choice as to the extent of their involvement
Take child to the cemetery: it can be comforting to them to know where the body is buried and how it got there; it can also help them direct their grief at an appropriate object (this lessens emotional disorganization), and it lessens the child’s chances of denying or avoiding the death
Let them tell others about death: adults “talking over” kids creates anxiety; when the child can explain it to another person, in their own words, they feel more in control and have a greater understanding; let them speak!
Encourage talk of the loss: this allows feelings to be expressed and incorrect ideas about any aspect of the loss to be corrected
Be available to answer questions: you need to answer each question as sincerely and accurately as possible; understand that some can’t be answered but simply being available is important; and be patient cause they will ask the same question repeatedly
Never tell them how they should or shouldn’t feel: you don’t like it when people do it to you, so don’t do it to kids; they should be encouraged to express any feeling and they should feel accepted for it; being told “not to feel” a certain way leads to emotionally “playing dead” and that’ll create repression, which creates interpersonal conflicts in later life due to inability to communicate emotions
