How Children View Death
It is the parent’s feelings and fear about death that are often transferred to his or her children. Treating death as a part of life is hard. But it may help ease some of the fear and confusion linked with it among our children.
Among children, past experiences with death, as well as age, emotional development, and surroundings are what most influence a child’s idea of death. Early experiences of death may involve a family member, a friend, or a pet. An early lesson in understanding death is that functioning stops with death—typically of an inanimate object (a toy, a clock, a watch) and once-living things, like a flower, a leaf. Functioning stops with death, and it is final. In “A Child’s Concept of Death,” Stanford Children’s Health traces the understanding of death of children across the different ages and stages of emotional development.
Babies have no concept of death, seeking only a consistent routine in their care. From the age of eight months, however, infants develop what Piaget calls “object permanence.” They begin to develop a “mental image” of the person who has died and have a sense of “missing them.” Give them lot of reassurance by keeping consistency with their routines.
For toddlers, death is not a permanent condition; it is temporary and reversible. They may ask, “When will my mother be home?” without understanding the concept of irreversibility, that death is permanent. They do not understand “death,” “forever,” and permanent.” They typically start learning irreversibility with the death of a dear pet. When a parent or relative dies, it is not advisable to say, “she has gone to sleep,” “went to heaven,” or “Jesus took her” because these may cause the toddler to be angry at Jesus, afraid of sleep, and puzzled about an abstract heaven. Avoid explanations of death as “lost” or “gone away” that may cause misunderstanding and confusion. Young children interpret what they are told in a very literal and concrete way.
In early childhood, children may feel that their thoughts or actions have caused the death and sadness of those around. With this “magical thinking,” they fail to grasp the concept of causality, or the causes of death. He may say, “It’s my fault. I was mad at my mother once and I told her I wish she would die and then she died,” as quoted by Salek and Ginsburg (2014). Because of this way of thinking, he may have feelings of guilt or shame. They may even think that they are the cause of the illness and death of a sibling. Before age 9, they may think that getting seriously sick is a punishment for something they did or thought about. And they do not understand how their parents could not have protected them from this illness. Salek and Ginsburg in “Children’s Developmental Stages: Concepts of Death and Responses,” (vitas.com) write about the characteristic grief responses across the stages of childhood.
At school age, death is seen as permanent and irreversible. Death has finality, but it happens only to old and very sick people, and children can escape it somehow through their own efforts at eating and keeping healthy. At this age, death is personified as an angel, skeleton, or ghost. This stage heralds the height of fear of ghosts, ghouls, and evil spirits. Older children start to view death as permanent, and they become curious about the physical process of death, and what happens after. The main sources of anxiety and fear about death are the fear of the unknown, loss of control, and separation from family and friends. There is a strong tendency towards denial.
They may act out their anger and sadness or be unable to concentrate at school. Others may act jocular or indifferent, or they might withdraw and hide their feelings. There may be shock, denial, depression, and changes in their eating and sleeping patterns, and regression. They might fantasize how they would have prevented the death as a way of gaining control over the situation. With difficulty expressing feelings verbally, they might play-act through video games, war games, or other activities.
Adolescents may say, “None of my friends could ever relate to what it’s like losing their dad.” For pre-teens and teens, death is viewed abstractly and subjectively, while thinking of themselves as immortal. Their subjective curiosity makes them pose philosophical questions such as, “What is the meaning of life? What is my special mission?” Death may be romanticized as beautiful and tragic, paradoxically a gesture or statement that will somehow endure. Loss experienced through death is easier to deal with due to TV and the movies.
Early teeners cover their feelings so as not to appear “different” from their peer group. Expressing sadness is seen as a sign of weakness, so they seem removed and indifferent. Teeners display uncharacteristic expressions of grief, like anger outbursts, irritability, bullying behavior. They exhibit physical symptoms, moodiness, changes in sleeping and eating patterns, indifference toward schoolwork, or isolation from peers. They worry about practical issues, like how will the household survive without the deceased or how they will be taken care of. They might also have questions about religious and cultural beliefs about death.
What children need most is support and someone who will listen to their thoughts and reassure them to ease their fears. Children’s lack of understanding of death affects their ability to process what happened and cope with their feelings. From “How Children Understand Death and What You Should Say,“ healthychildren.org writes on some practical things you can do to help our children:
- Remind your child that not everyone who gets sick will die.
- Reassure him/her of your health.
- Let her know how many people in her life care for her.
- Support children to do things to reduce their anxiety and be sensitive that they may not want to talk or think about the deceased because it is too painful.
- Take care of yourself and make sure you have support.
Your child is watching you closely. When he sees that you are ok, he becomes more comfortable.
Sources:
https://umb-eap.org/wp-content/uploads/pdf/DeathByAgeGroup.pdf
www.medicine.yale.edu/childstudy
How Children Understand Death and What You Should Say
Salek, E.C. and Ginsburg, K.R. (11 September 2014). “Children’s Developmental Stages: Concepts of Death and Responses,” vitas.com
