A Conversation with Parents of Pre-Schoolers

How do children learn about death? How do they develop an attitude which allows them to acknowledge that people die and that feeling sad is an appropriate response to this loss? I wish that I had an easy answer to these questions.

I was recently asked to lead a discussion with parents in my grandsons' pre-school. The parents who came were interested in knowing more about how to talk about death with their children. They talked about the death of a pet, the death of grandparents and one family talked about the death of a child. Only one parent came who had not had a recent death in the family. He was interested in finding a way of responding to his children's questions, when and if they asked about people dying. In the school the teachers have a policy of using the word "dead" if children see things, for example, flowers, insects and animals that have died. Giving what they see a name seems to be sufficient. The children rarely asked for a further explanation.

In this community in the Southwest, they had just celebrated the Mexican festival, the Day of the Dead. The school set up an altar, not focusing on any particular religion and the children made, little skulls out of sugar, to put on the altar. They brought in pictures of people in their families who had died. This included pictures of pets that had died. The children were excited to see their projects on display but said little more about it. They seemed to take all this for granted.

What was the impact at home of this activity? No one did a survey to ask. However, I know my grandson asked his father if he was going to die? My son-in-law wisely said yes, but he hoped it would be a long time from now. This seemed to satisfy my 4 year old grandson and ended the conversation. It is important to keep in mind that at this age children do not understand that we will all die some day, nor do they understand its permanency and finality. They still expect that the dead will return. We call this magical thinking. I suspect there are remnants of this kind of thinking in all of us.

What were the parents concerns? One parent talked about the death of his first born who would have been 5 this year. He died 3 days after his birth. They still honor his brief life. Their now 3 year old son wants to know why he didn't get to know his brother. This couple are criticized by many people for still being involved with their child. I talked about continuing bonds and how people do stay involved. This was reassuring to this father and other parents commented on beginning to see how important remembering and talking about the dead can be.

One mother talked about her child asking about his grandfathers, both of whom had died before he was born. He said he had one grandfather who was in a wall (where his remains rest) and another in a grave in the cemetery. His question was most interesting. He wanted to know who they couldn't have waited to die, so he could have known them. We begin to see the sense of order and time that three and four year olds have. They also seem to think that the deceased chose when they would die.

My conversation that evening reminded me of a project my daughter participated in when she was in kindergarten, almost 30 years ago. In the classroom they hatched duck eggs and raised the ducks. Unfortunately one duck died. The teacher, with the class, planned a funeral for the duck, sending home notes to the parent about what would take place. One parent took her child out of school for the day. She was indignant that any such thing should be planned and that children should be exposed to this kind of experience, i.e the death of the duck and then the funeral. I wondered what she accomplished by keeping her child at home. Would the same thing happen today? None of the parents in my grandsons' pre-school expressed any concern about what the celebration of the Day of The Dead, meant to their children.

The conversation at a pre-school continued for several hours. These parents saw this opportunity to talk with me, as a beginning to help their children feel comfortable with this fact of life. As we talked about our awkwardness in talking to our children about this. I shared my own experience talking to my children. In spite of the fact that I was working with the bereaved, I wasn't sure how to talk to my son when he asked about what happens to people after they die. I learned that in spite of my stuttering, once I could say I don't know and that there are many different answers, which I listed for him, he was content. He recently told me, as we talked about his questions when he was 8, that as an adult he still believes that the spirit lives on.

How does this impact on raising grieving children? When a parent or a sibling dies the impact on the surviving family is much greater and more real. The fact that the dead will not come back has an immediate impact. Children have to process and it can take them many years before they begin to understand the finality of it all. There is a critical empty space that will not be filled. However, I think that if parents are comfortable with helping their children understand that death is part of life, and who do not worry about protecting their children from this new reality, may have an easier time recognizing their children's grief and include them as mourners.

This discussion, at the pre-school, also reminded me of a reaction to something I had written, from a colleague in Florida. She read the first book I wrote on children and death in which I reported on the experience of children in Boston. I wrote that most of the children in the Harvard/MGH Child Bereavement Study went to their parents' funeral. My colleague told me that this would not be true in her part of the country. Parents still felt that children should not come to funerals regardless of who died. I hope that some of my work and writings have helped change these attitudes. Perhaps one of the first things we need to pay attention to is that the word death becomes a natural part of a child's vocabulary. As they grow and are able to understand the fuller meaning of a death, they are, to some extent, prepared. They will learn that it is alright to feel sad and to cry when someone dies. Parents also need to learn that when they try to protect their children from the reality of the death of a parent, a sibling, a grandparent, or a friend, they in fact protect no one. Instead they leave children confused and feeling very alone and isolated, as if something is wrong with them.