How to Discuss Death With Your Children

Dr. Tali Shenfield | September 14, 2017

No matter how much parents try to protect their children from the reality of death, most children gain an awareness of it by the time they reach school age; they witness it in fiction, by seeing dead insects, birds, and other animals, or through catching it depicted on television. While very young children may not fully understand what death means, there is no question that a concept of it is forming in their minds and that they are being exposed to the fact that it exists.

Fortunately, there's no need to panic about this; through communicating with your children about death, you can provide your sons and daughters with the information they need to both process the concept healthily and to handle a crisis should one arise. Likewise, discussing death with your children can prompt you to take a second look at your own feelings and beliefs so that you may be open, honest, and comfortable when talking about them with your children.

Of course, sometimes this is easier said than done; death is a difficult subject to confront, after all, regardless of a person's age. By understanding the challenges which may arise when you try to discuss death with your children, you can prepare yourself in advance and put strategies in place for overcoming these difficulties.

 

Hesitating to Express Yourself

Many people find it difficult to talk about subjects that upset them, parents included. This problem can become particularly acute if one has had a close personal experience with death, such as through losing a parent or spouse. It may become tempting to say nothing and to tell yourself that doing so is for the best.

Children are, however, more observant than many adults realize; just because you choose to avoid a topic, does not mean that you are not communicating with your children. Instead, they will read your facial expressions and body language and almost always get the gist of how you really feel - only they will imagine it to be even worse than it really is.

Your children will then experience anxiety knowing that they cannot talk about the subject and assuming that it must be incredibly worrisome if even their mother and father cannot handle discussing it. Silence has, in essence, the opposite effect of the one intended; rather than protecting children from the ugly truth, it often propels them to feel more frightened of it than they would otherwise.

This does not mean, of course, that you should bluntly deluge your children with information about death; you should merely remain open and receptive, striking a balance between gently bringing the subject up and then letting the child indicate what he or she wants to know (try your best to give honest answers and not shut your child down when this happens, e.g. by saying “You're too young”). If your children don't yet seem ready to handle the topic, don't push them to talk about it.

If your children are very young, rather than invalidating their questions, try to keep your answers brief and simple; this will affirm that you value your children's thoughts and feelings without overwhelming them. Try to stick to concrete and familiar concepts and examples, such as by explaining that a dead person no longer breathes, talks, hears, or feels. Avoid using euphemisms like “Grandma has gone to sleep forever now” as such statements can make little children fear that they, too, may go to sleep and not wake up. Likewise, don't go into death being a consequence of illness if at all possible, as the child may be unable to comprehend the fact that he's unlikely to die if he gets sick.

If you are uncertain as to whether or not your young child has understood your statements, ask; it's better to make sure than to leave him with needless confusion and anxiety.

 

Worries Over Not Knowing All the Answers

Being a parent involves a great deal of responsibility; your children look to you for everything, and as such, you feel like you ought to be able to provide them with all of the knowledge they need to feel safe and secure. When confronting death, the “great unknown”, many parents therefore become very uncomfortable; unless they have a very strong religious belief, they usually feel like they cannot say with certainty what happens after death, opening their children up to years of wondering—and worrying.

What parents need to understand is that coming to terms with death is a lifelong process, and as such, the sooner children are introduced to the concept, the more time they will have in total to become “okay” with the fact that death is a part of life. Under no circumstances should parents lie to comfort their children; body language and subtle cues will make the lie obvious and children will only worry all the more. It's better to state simply that you don't know what happens after people die, and then perhaps introduce your child to some of the common beliefs held by people around the world, allowing him or her to begin the long process of making up his or her own mind.

If your children are very young, it can be helpful to get to the root of why they are asking the questions after you introduce the topic of death; for example, a blunt inquiry such as “When will you die?” might be the child needing reassurance that you will not be leaving him or her any time soon. Once the child is told that Mommy or Daddy is not going anywhere, he or she will often go to bed at night feeling safe and secure, regardless of the fact that the concept of death has been introduced to his or her world.

 

Overcoming the Idea That Death is a Dirty Word

In ancient times, people were far more comfortable with death; animals had to be killed regularly for food, relatives were often buried close to the family home (or, in some cultures, even below the home itself) in order to keep them near to the living, and the possibility of witnessing a sibling or parent passing away was much higher. Death was an everyday reality, not a distant eventuality.

By contrast, today we live in a culture which worships youth and which has made death something of a taboo subject, to the point where even those with a strong sense of faith often avoid it. Death frequently happens behind closed doors, in hospitals or nursing homes, and loved ones may or may not be there when it occurs. As such, the concept of death is so far removed from our everyday lives that many of us fear it to a greater degree than our ancestors likely did.

It's important not to perpetuate this mystique around death; it does neither the living nor the dying any favours as it increases loneliness, stress, and anxiety for everyone in the family. By opening the lines of communication with your children, you help to ensure that events such as relatives passing away are not needlessly shocking nor isolating for anyone involved, and you allow death to be approached with the strength of family unity and compassion.

 

Not Knowing How Your Child Will React

Research has revealed that how children handle the concept of death varies depending on which stage of development they are in. In general:

- Pre-school age children will usually view death as impermanent, impersonal, and reversible; the archetype of the cartoon character who dies several times per episode only to miraculously come back to life very much plays into the small child's concept of death and dying.

- Elementary school-age children (5-9 years of age) generally have some idea that death is permanent and inevitable for all living things; however, they often believe that it will somehow not apply to them, that they will manage to escape it. Children in this age group often personify death (seeing it as a skeleton or the “angel of death”, for example) and may begin to have nightmares in which this figure plays a role.

- Preteens and adolescents (from the age of 9-10 and upwards) come to a full understanding of death, including realizing that their own is also inevitable. While this is frightening, it usually leads these young people to start to develop their own ideas and philosophies about life and death. In rarer instances, adolescents may attempt to deal with their fear of death by taking needless risks so as to assert their own “immortality”.

- Children will, of course, not respond identically; the above is meant merely as a guideline. You should pay attention to how developed your child seems vs. her peers when trying to anticipate her reactions; if your child is ahead of her years, she may reach a more profound understanding at an earlier age and therefore require more intensive parental support.

            Be prepared for your child to react in ways you might not expect, such as not seeming to comprehend the loss of a relative but being deeply saddened by the loss of a pet, or not seeming to understand death when it is brought up but acting it out often in his or her play. Regardless of how, where, and when your child begins to process the idea of death, he or she will need you to respond in a way that is sympathetic and non-judgmental.

 

Being Unsure of How to Handle the Topic of Religion

If religion has always played a large part in your family’s life, discussing it with your child when the topic of death comes up will be natural, expected, and harmless (so long as you do not pressure your child to agree with all of your own beliefs). If, on the other hand, religion has not played much of a role in your child's life, suddenly introducing it to discussions about death can be shocking and confusing (e.g. blurting out “Grandpa is with God now” or “God said it was Auntie's time to go to heaven”). Children who are not familiar with God will begin to fear him as a powerful being who swoops in to snatch people rather than seeing him as a benevolent creator who welcomes the departed.

Most children simply cannot comprehend the mixed messages inherent in parents claiming that death is a happy event, one where the departed has gone to a blissful paradise with a divine being, while being obviously overcome by grief. Indeed, even if faith is a strong part of your family life, you will still often need to explain that you're crying because you will miss the departed relative, even though you know he or she is safe with God. Affirm that this grief is normal; you are, after all, experiencing the complete loss of someone's physical presence. Not only will this clarify what you're going through, it will show your children that it is okay to express their own feelings of upset and loss.

 

Being Unsure of When to Bring Up the Subject of Death

It is better to introduce death in small doses, rather than waiting for children to confront it through losing a relative or beloved pet. For example, starting to explain the concept of death using dead flowers or dead insects is often helpful, as it is less fraught with emotion than the passing of a person or pet. Allow your child to ask all the questions he needs to, even if they seem morbid to adult sensibilities; your child likely has no personal concept of death, so he is simply trying to learn about the process in the impersonal manner he has available to him. This may take the form of asking about the physical changes that happen after something dies, or wishing to examine the dead plant or insect very closely.

It can be helpful to explain to your child that if things did not die, the earth would run out of room, and there would be no space available for new life. If your child has further questions, try to keep answering them as honestly and unemotionally as possible; young children often react more to emotions and facial expressions than the actual words we say, so by treating death frankly and calmly, you show that it is not something to fear or become upset about.

Don't expect your child, if he is very young, to understand the concept of death right away; if he shrugs and says, “Well, it won't happen to me,” let him believe that. Young children can only process small amounts of information at one time, and it's vital that you do not overwhelm them when introducing such a serious topic. Let your child return to you when he or she is ready to re-introduce the topic; it's bound to happen eventually.

Sometimes we have to introduce the topic of death because a child has witnessed it on television, either through a report on the death of a prominent person or through news of a violent attack somewhere in the world. In the case of the former, you can approach death in the frank and unemotional manner outlined above, but in the case of the latter, your child might need some additional reassurance that he or she is safe. Children who are exposed to the idea of violent death may begin to imagine that there are dangers all around them unless they are reminded that most people are basically good, and that there are a lot of people (friends, family members, the police, the army, etc.) working to keep them safe.

 

What to Expect if There is a Death in the Family

No matter how well we prepare our children to accept the concept of death, the passing of a close relative (particularly a brother, a sister, or a parent) will still usually turn a child's world upside down. He or she may feel guilty, more so than an adult would, due to the tendency of children to take things extremely literally (e.g. believing that their angry thoughts during an argument, or their bad behaviour, actually caused the person to die). If this is the case, you must assure your child that he or she is still loved, and that the death had nothing to do with the child (in this situation, explaining the circumstances of the death may actually be helpful).

Children are also likely to become angry, and they may misdirect this anger by becoming angry at the person who died for “leaving” them. Alternately, like adults, they may become angry at the doctors or nurses for not saving the life of the person they cared about. Be prepared for your child to express any and all of these feeling more openly than an adult would; while it may be hard for you to hear it, it's important to show your child unconditional love and acceptance, knowing that anger is an inherent part of grief.

Some children appear to handle the death quietly at first, then go on to develop more serious problems owing to repressed anger and sorrow. These emotions may manifest as depression, anxiety, or behavioural problems; if this happens, and your child does not recover within a period of several months, it's essential to seek out professional help before the child's issues become more severe.

About Tali Shenfield

Dr. Tali Shenfield holds a PhD in Psychology from the University of Toronto and is a licensed school and clinical psychologist. She has taught at the University of Toronto and has worked at institutions including the Hospital for Sick Children, Hincks-Dellcrest Centre, TDSB, and YCDSB. Dr. Shenfield is the Founder and Clinical Director of Advanced Psychology Services.

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