saquigley@watmath.UUCP (Sophie Quigley) (08/02/84)
}>Children might be more ignorant than adults, but they are certainly not stupid }>and are usually very interested in having things explained to them, so why not }>do it? it's not that hard. } }Alright, explain to a child what happens when a parent (grandparent, etc) DIES. }To tell a child "You will never see <name> again because (s)he died" *must* be }difficult for a child to understand -- what about emotional trauma? Even many }adults have trouble understanding death, maybe another reason for religion? First of all, this conversation was about communicating with children about social interractions rather than more concrete events like death, so if you are trying to be argumentative for the sake of it, you should know that you are off-topic. How would I explain death to a child? I guess it would depend greatly on the child and what s/he wants to hear and what s/he is able to handle emotionnally. Overall, it seems to me that being honest about your own beliefs and feelings about death while pointing out that death is a big unknown and that there are many different explanations for death is probably the best approach but this might be too much for many children, which might not be either ready to face such things yet or interested in philosophy. Again I don't think there is a universal answer, what is more important is knowing the child well enough to be able to explain things in a way that will be possibly upsetting but not traumatic. From my recollections of my own childhood, I remember being much more terrified at the idea of one of my parents dying rather than about dying myself. I don't know if this is universal or not, but it is probably a good idea to find out somehow what worries the child most about death. Apparently a lot of children feel very guilty about death (or divorce) thinking that they are somehow responsible for it (by having wished that the person died at one point) and it might be a good idea too to discuss those feelings. I know that I felt very guilty for many years after my grandmother died because of something I had refused to do for her a bit before her death, and it would have helped a lot if my parents had pointed out that it was not important, but of course they were too busy dealing with their own feelings of guilt over other more important things THEY had failed to do to worry about mine. That's life. Another possibly good idea would be to talk about death with a child before the death of a close person actually occurs. Animals dying, friends of friends dying are good opportunities. If children already have an idea of what death is about when the death of someone close occurs, it might be easier for them since they would have to deal simply with the sorrow rather than with the sorrow along with existential questions. I don't have really any answers that are more precise than this as I don't have any children and my own childhood is blurry on these matters and as I don't really believe that there are answers anyway. I'd be curious to hear what other parents might have to say about all of this. Sophie Quigley ...!{clyde,ihnp4,decvax}!watmath!saquigley