How Children Deal With Death Essay Research

How Children Deal With Death Essay, Research Paper

How Children Deal With Death

Death is hard to deal with for everyone, but for children

especially; they view death in various ways at different ages.

At these ages children need help and guidance from their parents.

The first step is to help them feel a part of the whole

experience, doing this will allow them to deal with the death.

The rest is counciling and (quick step number two;) the parent?s

main part should be to listen while the child talks, doing this

is very helpful for understanding the child. This is also very

benneficial because it gives the child a chance to get his/her

feelings off, this relieves certain tensions. So in order to

help children get through the grieving process age and maturity

level of the child must be concidered, and council should be

centered around the limitations of those statistics.

Infants are one group, with no real understanding of death

but they can react to the way their parent/s react/s to loss.

When the physical love that a parent can provide is suddenly

missing, the child does have fears of separation. Infants are

also very tuned in to their parents? feelings of stress and

sadness. In relation to these feelings there might be noted

physical expressions such as: crying, crankiness, rashes and

clinging. How one can handle this is to talk with others about

one?s concerns with family members, or even the funeral director;

he/she has a good chance of knowing what to do. Seek support and

help from family and friends. Parent/s should try spending more

time each day with the child to ensure a secure feeling for the

child. (Wolfelt) I have learned on the Discovery channel that

children who are physically touched develop better and more

fully, so loving them patting them and holding them often does

worlds of help. (experiment covered by the Discovery channel)

For children ages two and a half to five; this is the stage

at which the child is likely to confuse death as a reversible

event like sleeping. Or the death of someone close to them could

be viewed as punishment for something they have done; make sure

they know this is not so. Children of this age are egocentric

and believe everything that happens to be caused by them or that

they will ?catch? death and die as well. A child might also

believe death to always be result of violence, this belief might

have come from what they see on TV. Behaviors to look for are:

the child showing little concern for favorite TV shows, going

back to bedwetting, thumbsucking, baby talk or fear of the dark.

These actions may be signs of/ or warn of depression. (Vogel 16)

It is a good idea for the parent might want to explain to

the child how life might be different, daily routines stopped,

parents/family grieving, funeral arrangements, and a house full

of people. Terms such as dead and death should be used to

explain to the child why he won?t be seeing the dead person

anymore. Try and avoid euphemisms they can often mislead, best

use the word dead this is to the point and truthful and will not

lead to conflicts in the future. Reassurance to the child that

death doesn?t hurt is benneficial, the person will always love

the child, as well as: ?we will always remember him?; these

phrases are comforting to hear. Consider the way the child will

act and be ready for any moving(if not disturbing) questions.

(Vogel 16)

For children ages five to nine death is only a possibility

for others, that they are invincible. Whereas those of age nine

to eleven; are more understanding of death, that it is not

partial to anyone, that even they too could die. When there is

death in the family the child may question the biological and

physical aspects of death, or be interested in the funeral

arrangements. If there is a death close to the child

(relationship wise) his/her behavior may include crying, anxiety,