Talking to Kids when Someone They Love Dies

Discussing death with young children, though a scary prospect, is alsoa very good opportunity for teaching, bonding and providing skills for thefuture. Being gently honest about everything the child wants to know, even ifit's an "I-don't-know-but-let’s-learn-about-it-together" provides a basis foremotional health. The young child’s world revolves around themselves. Ifthey are left to their own imagination, fear of the unknown can and oftendoes "act itself out" in ways that seem unrelated such as clinging to aparent, not wanting to go to sleep or becoming aggressive or just an unusualchange in the way they respond to their environment.I worked with children for over fourteen years in bereavement careand intervention through a local funeral home from 1987-2001. I found thatin a majority of cases when children don't understand what the adults aretelling them, they make up their own explanations which are often worsethan the actual circumstance. They often blame themselves for the death insome way wrongly thinking that somehow it was their fault.Begin with the most basic facts; death occurs to everyone andeverything. When a person dies, their heart stops beating, they don'tbreathe any more and their brain stops working. The life that was in them isno longer there. To die means that everything in the body stops. Everythinghas a beginning and everything has an end. As parents, we need to teach ourchildren what the word death means, just like you explain other words thechild does not yet understand. A comforting thought for the bereaved isthat love never dies even though the body does.I like to use a puppet to illustrate death with small children. When Islip my hand into the puppet, I provide “life” for the puppet. I can make thepuppet move as if it is alive but when I remove my hand from the puppet it isstill and “life-less”. In much the same way when a person dies, the life ofthat person leaves the body in a mysterious way no one understands. What isleft is a body that looks like the person who died but has no life in it anymore. So the person’s shell, or body, does not feel anything anymore. Deathdoes not hurt because the body is empty of life. It is important to note,never allude to the dead as asleep. When we sleep we wake up. A goodillustration is the time a mom shared with me the strange change in her ninemonth old child. She became almost hysterical when put to bed. Mom was