The Grieving Child: Part Two
Continued
How to help your child during this age. Because until the age of six, many experts believe that children conceptualize death as temporary. It is as if the person who has died has gone away and they are waiting for them to come home. At this age it's important to use precise terms when talking about death. People typically say things like "you've lost a loved one." A child may interpret this literally and assume the person can be found. At this age children engage in magical thinking and believe that their thoughts and wishes can affect reality. This can either cause them to blame themselves unnecessarily or believe if they are "good" enough perhaps their parent will return. Often at this age, children will exhibit nightmares, confusion, revert to an earlier stage of development or even seem to be unaffected by the death.
Ages 7 to 8: Here a child will begin to see death as final. They may have lost an animal at this point but they usually don't think about it as happening to them. They see it more as something that may occur in an accident, like a car accident or only in old age. They may show an unusual interest in knowing the details surrounding death, begin asking what happens after death, or again act as if nothing has happened. Social development is occurring during this stage so they'll watch how others respond and may even want to know how they should act.
Ages 9 and up: By now the child understands that death is final and irreversible. They not only know it could happen to someone else but also that it could happen to them. At this age, they may exhibit a wide range of feelings. Their reactions begin to be much more like an adult except they may also act out their grief by behavioral changes at home or school
Explaining death to a child.
Many people worry that children can be too young to learn about death. It is better for them to learn what death means from a supportive parent, family member or counselor, rather than allowing them to form their own view of death. From about eight on, a child has usually had some experience with death. This may be the death of a pet or something that they saw on TV. But it is still important to explain that being dead means the body has stopped working and it cannot be fixed. It no longer feels cold or gets hungry, but the positive side of this is that it doesn't hurt or feel pain.
Reassure the child he or she is not to blame for the death. Help them understand that no behavior or lack of it is the reason the person is no longer living. Two things happened to me in the invisible world of grieving children, 39 years ago. The first is that a little girl I knew died two days before my father did.
|
E-mail this article
Printer-friendly version
Return to Grief Library