Children, Adolescents, and Death

Questions and Answers

Robert G. Stevenson, Gerry R. Cox, Robert G. Stevenson, Gerry R. Cox

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781351969536
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Psychotherapy
• Index: Psychology

The topic of death and related issues (such as grief) often begin with questions. When the questions come from, or are about, children or adolescents, they bring an additional component…the fear some adults have of giving a "wrong" answer. In this context a wrong answer is one that can cause more harm than good for the child or adolescent who asked the question. This book provides information that can be used to address the death-related questions from children and adolescents. It also looks at questions from caring adults about the way children or adolescents view death and the grief that follows a death or any major loss.

Children, Adolescents, and Death covers topics that start with early studies of childhood grief and progress to expression of grief in cyberspace. There is no one answer to most of the questions in this book. There are contributors from a number of continents, countries, cultures, and academic disciplines, each of whom brings a unique view of the topic issues they discuss. There are presentations of practical interventions that others may copy, upon which they can build. There are a number of chapters that look at death education in both family and school settings. This work contains ideas and techniques that can be of value to parents, educators, counselors, therapists, spiritual advisors, caring adults and, of course, will be of the most benefit to those who ask the most questions…the children and adolescents themselves.

Section 1
Knowledge of Death

This section contains chapters that can help to answer the following questions:

• What do children know about death and grief?
• When and how do they learn this?
• What are things children “need” to know about death and grief?
• What impact can this information have on the lives of children?
• When are children “capable” of experiencing grief?
• In what ways do the expression of grief by children and by adolescents differ from that of adults?
• What are the latest findings about children and teens and their computer activities that relate to grief and loss?
• To what extent do children and adolescents use social media and computer-related communications and activity to communicate about and to learn about death?
• What are the least understood aspects of childhood grief and trauma?
• What do grieving and traumatized children need?
• What are the key aspects of the “Infinity Model” of bereavement counseling?
• How is the grief of children and adolescents different after a death caused by traumatic means?
• What specific things can help facilitate a child’s expression of grief?

Chapter 1
Children and Death: What do they Know and when do they Learn It?

Robert Stevenson

The title of this book refers to the fact that the topic of “children and death” has long produced more questions than answers. What do children know? When and how do they learn it? What particular things do children “need” to know? What is the impact of such knowledge on the lives of children? These questions have now been openly discussed and, at times, heatedly debated for decades. These discussions/debates started primarily in the United States, Canada, and Europe, but increasingly the points they raised are being examined in countries and cultures throughout the world. This chapter will focus on early studies as a starting point. The bulk of my experience comes from working with children in the United States and Canada, and with the staff of Merimna, an agency that works with bereaved children and their families in Greece. However, to see this as a topic that impacts only children in North America and Europe is a mistake. That is why I will refer to studies from around the world. Perhaps the best source for such information is the 5-volume series from Baywood entitled Death and Bereavement Around the World. This series is cited throughout the chapter.

Adults like to see childhood as an idyllic time, filled with joy and innocence. While this mental image may be well intentioned, the reality of life for most children is quite different. Life brings changes to every child and many of these changes involve loss. The most profound loss a child must face is the death of someone they love. Because some adults try to maintain an image of innocence and joy, they want to believe that children do not need any special knowledge about death and grief. This is especially true in the United States and Canada. However, such a belief can leave children isolated and forced to cope on their own when a death occurs.

The First Question

Why? The first question children most frequently ask has been and continue to ask is, “Why?” When it follows a death it is most poignant. Why did he/she die? Why do things like this happen? When adults attempt to answer these questions, other questions arise—more “whys.” If the questions are asked in a school, a new question arises. Why tell children about this before they need to know it? All of these questions are legitimate and reflect concern on the part students, educators, and parents. They are important to the young person asking the question. They deserve honest answers.

In 1972 I developed the first high school course on death and grief in the United States. I then taught the course for 25 years until I retired from secondary school teaching. Our knowledge about children and death has come a long way in the decades since the start of that course. We certainly know more now than we did in the early 1970s. Research has been more widespread and more countries are actively involved in providing answers. However, there are still disagreements, and despite the efforts of international associations, not every country is at the same point in understanding the needs of, and developing a response to, the needs of children.

What do Children Know and when do they Know It?

The earliest answers to these questions come from England (Sylvia Anthony) and Hungary (Maria Nagy). Sylvia Anthony’s seminal work, described in two books—The Child’s Discovery of Death (1940) and The Discovery of Death in Childhood and After (1972)—found that before age 2 a child does not understand the meaning of death. Anthony (1940, 1972) stated that after age 2, children think often of death. She identified a “magical” component in much of this thought. Anthony believed that much of a child’s thought about death was connected to aggressive impulses. This and “magical” thinking created a situation in which the child believed his or her thoughts to be a factor that could actually “cause” death. This led some to experience feelings of guilt for having had thoughts of death. The result was that children tried to avoid thinking of death, but found it was something that could not be avoided. When children asked questions about death and saw anxiety in adults, or found them reluctant to answer their questions, this also fed feelings of personal blame and guilt. Worse, it also caused some children to avoid asking their questions about death, especially at home.

Maria Nagy identified three stages in the child’s understanding of death. Her work, conducted through the 1940s in Hungary, was brought to a wide audience by Herman Feifel’s work The Meaning of Death (1959). Nagy said that an infant has no concept of anything beyond itself, certainly not mortality. If the child experienced anything when a death occurred, it was a feeling that something the child wanted or needed was “absent.” This feeling does not really constitute a conscious “understanding” of death.

By age 3, the child understands that there is a thing called death. This is the first stage in a child’s “understanding” of death. Children have seen death. For most, it is a pet or animal, but for others, the sight of death means dead people. These are children who have seen people torn apart by cruelty and war or delivered by death from the suffering of disease. These children have seen death, but from about 3 to 5 or 6 the child believes that death is a type of separation. Death can be seen as “diminished life” from which one can return. It is “reversible.”

In the second stage, from 6 or 7 to about 10 years of age, the child makes the abstract idea of death into a concrete person, place, or thing. Children may see death as a “deathman” figure in black or as a cemetery, a weapon (such as a gun or knife) or most commonly a dark place. It is a big part of the reason for the fear of the dark that so many children experience.

The child reaches the third stage by about age 10. The child takes on an “adult” understanding of death. Death is seen as final, inevitable, and will one day be personal. This adult understanding means that death is

• Universal: All things that live will one day die, even the child himself/herself.
• Irreversible: People who die can no longer return.
• Nonfunctioning: The body no longer functions at any level. Death is not a form of diminished life. There is no life left.

For over 70 years, the work of Nagy has held up well. Her work was with children in an Eastern Europe that was torn by war. Direct exposure to death in a wartime environment may accelerate the process and dispute the approximate time frames given by Nagy, but most still develop from ignorance about death to knowledge of death through a similar developmental process. There is a belief that these three points are necessary for a child to reach an “adult” understanding of death. More recently than Nagy, Stephen Gullo also described the three parts of an adult understanding of death as knowing that death is “final, personal and irreversible” (Gullo & Plimpton, 1985). Age ranges, rather than stages, now describe how children understand and cope with death. However, it is important to remember that an individual child’s concept of death is a function of that child’s developmental level more than a function of the child’s chronological age.

With a basic understanding of the way children come to find a meaning for death, there are questions that logically follow. What experiences do children typically have with death? What questions do children ask about death? How can their questions best be answered? Who is best to answer these questions? Should they be answered by parents, by guardians, by educators (including spiritual advisors), or by all of these people working together?

The Child's Experience of Death

Edna St. Vincent Millay, in her well-known poem, described childhood as “The Kingdom Where Nobody Dies” (1997). However, the actual experience of children shows that it is not the case. They see death in the body of a dead pet or in that of a wild animal. They see a passing funeral procession. They learn of death through their stories and games. They see death whenever they watch television. And for many children, they see human death firsthand. The children of Northern Ireland, Bosnia, Israel, Palestine, Rwanda, Afghanistan, and Iraq know of death because many have see it so often. So too have children in the wake of a tornado, hurricane, flood, or other natural or man-made disaster. However, there are different ways in which adults respond to this reality and there are differences for children as well.

In the United States, through the second half of the 20th century, there were attempts to shield children from the knowledge of death. This paralleled the separation of old age, dying, death, and funeral rituals from the home. The rise of the nuclear family limited the child’s contact with older adults. The rise of the funeral service profession and separate funeral “parlors” sought to take death and mourning out of the American home. It then became possible to exclude children from the rituals that accompanied a death. One study found that children ages 8–12 thought about death and, at the same time, were afraid to talk about it (Zweig, 1983). This was said to be a result of the mystery that adults imposed on death.

During the last quarter of the 20th century, as children returned to greater participation in funerals and the rituals that follow a death, they became more willing to ask their questions and to discuss their thoughts and fears about death. Zweig noted cultural differences among American children. African American children were more likely than Caucasian children of the same age to think of death as “transitory” and to see death as a person, or “deathman.” Caucasian children did “personify” death, but were more likely to see it connected to a place or thing. (Stevenson, 1984). African American children were also more likely to attribute the cause of death to some form of aggression. Studies by Sigel (1970), and Carter (1971) also found this association of death and aggression by African American children. The automatic connection of death and aggression appears to diminish as children enter their teens.

One of the greatest differences among cultures involves funeral rituals. In the United States there is disagreement as to whether or not children should be allowed to attend funerals. European American families at first had children present but established a pattern that eventually isolated children from wakes, funerals, and if possible, from grief in any form.

Jewish traditions have been modified and now combine traditional observances with new findings about childhood grief. Ronald Trojcak states that

Although children who have not reached the age of mitzvot—twelve for girls and thirteen for boys—are not obligated by any of the mourning rules, the tendency in most instances of a child suffering a loss of a parent or sibling is to involve her to the extent possible in the rites. Although it used to be common practice to shelter children from death and cemeteries, mental health profes sionals now consider it far better for a child to attend the funeral, watch the burial, rend her garment, sit shivah, and even recite kaddish for her parent or sibling. Children, too, need opportunities to express their love and grief openly, and Jewish mourning rites offer that to them. (2002)

Native American traditions differ in their practice regarding their children and their involvement with, or isolation from, rituals connected to dying and death. Among the Apache, the fear of death was communicated to children at an early age. Traditional Apache practice did not allow children to be around the dying or even view the dead and prevented children from associating with other children who were grieving. Children would seldom be around a dying person or at a funeral, since the Apache generally feel that children are to be protected from the ravages of illness and death (Cox, 2002). Unlike the Apache, the Lakota want the children to be present. However, death by suicide is viewed differently. In such cases, the death is not to be discussed near children and they are excluded from any rituals. Native American culture places much value on children. Prayers and rituals were performed to give health and life to children (Cox, 2002). Throughout the 20th century, African American children have been likely to attend wakes (the traditional watch over a dead body) and funerals (Zweig, 1983). The ability of children to play a role in funerals and grief rituals exists in many cultures. In the Hindu tradition of India, children are permitted to attend funerals. They are not shielded from witnessing death or even attending a cremation.

In Greece, there is an even split about whether children should have contact with dying people. According to tradition, parents are supposed to protect and shield their children from death. Young children are not allowed to attend the funeral or visit the gravesite during the memorial services. The children are perceived as vulnerable and are thought to be unable to deal with the grief and loss directly. Greek parents are not to show their grief openly when their children are present, regardless of the age of the child. Clearly, this is changing. Today more Greeks believe that children should take part in funerals, and most would allow children an active role in mourning (Papadatou & Iossifides, 2002).

In Eastern Europe, Polish children were allowed by more than half of the parents to observe a dead body. About half (45%) believe that children should not know much about death and should avoid contact with dying people, and almost the same number of people think they should be allowed to do so. More than 90% believe that children should take part in funerals (Rogiewicz & Ratajska, 2002). In Russia, the problem of children and death, whether the death of a child or a death in the family, is also not openly handled. Typically, adults in these cases tend to shield children from the death experience, so losses, even of close relatives, are concealed from children. Russian researchers found that children become aware of death and its inevitability even if they have never witnessed dying. However, because it is not discussed, children end up trying to cope with their fear of death alone (Artemieva, 2002).

In Japan and Korea, it is expected that people will, whenever possible, die at home. Of necessity, children will be present and have some part in rituals. It is believed that, “if a person does not attend, it is considered a very shameful act and in fact, a great sin. Moreover, dying away from home should be avoided as the soul of deceased cannot be comfortable” (Kubotera, 2002).

The differences regarding children attending funeral rituals can become emotional. However, it may not be as important an issue as some have believed, since it is less a factor in the child’s view of death than the ability of the child to discuss death openly.

The Role of Parents

In most cases, childr...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Foreword
• SECTION 1 Knowledge of Death
• SECTION 2 Coping with Death at Home and at School
• SECTION 3 Death and the Family
• Appendix: Questions and Answers
• Contributors
• Index