I am not a child psychologist; however, I was a teacher of children for 40 years, raised a child of my own, and helped to raise my two stepkids from an early age. I think I have a bit of a grip on how children think. I actually was one, myself!
I know that there are some tricky topics that parents dread talking about with their children when smaller. Personal safety is one; sexuality is another; and finally death. Religion works into the equation. What to say or not to say becomes the question. We don't want to terrify our children with more details than they need, but neither do we want to send them into the world unarmed. The only one of those three topics that is finite and unchangeable is death. So many horrible things show up in the news these days that parents need to be prepared with how to talk with their children about it when it pops up in conversation.
Children (and adults) of every age have one basic emotional need: security. When something bad happens, 100% of people will think, "What does this mean to me??" Where will I go? What will I do? Who will take care of me now? Children are particularly vulnerable to this because they know they are flawed by their own immaturity. ("You can't go on that ride. You're too little." "You can't go in the pool if I'm not there. You're too little." Etc.) We can't even promise that we won't let anything bad happen to them. Sometimes, we aren't even present when the stuff hits the fan. And it will. As hard as we try to protect our children from the ugly sides of life, sooner or later, they will see it and start asking questions.
Back in the 50s or later, it was deemed wise for terminal patients not to be informed of their looming mortality. Doctors and families were trying to keep things upbeat for the patient. It was a very bad practice. It robbed patients of making end of life decisions based on the truth. Fortunately, that quickly changed. Children, however, are in a different realm.
I'm not sure there is an age at which young children actually understand death. Consider these examples:
1. Before I was born, I had two sisters. One was 4 (the eldest) and one was 15 months. My parents were teaching then, so my grandparents were babysitting. I think the eldest (Shari) was going to pre-school daily (then called "nursery school) while the youngest (Barbara) was in the care of the grandparents during the day. A tragic home accident involving Venetian blind cords hanging within reach of my toddler sister in her crib. She got tangled in the cords, lost her footing, and died of strangulation while supposed to be taking a nap. (1945.) My parents and grandparents were grief stricken...then they had to pick up Shari from pre-school. Shari instantly noticed that Barbara wasn't with them. She asked, "Who's caring of Barbie?" My folks told her that Barbie had gone to Heaven to live with God. Shari kept asking, "But she didn't die, did she??" (Or so my mother told me.) I'm not sure that the dying part of the question was ever sufficiently addressed for Shari, so thereafter, Shari refused to sleep alone for a long time. Her mind must have thought: Barbie was here in the morning but forever gone by the afternoon. If she can just disappear like that, I could, too. I'm not at all sure how my parents could have handled that better. They were already devastated.
2. My daughter's first brush with death came at age three. We hadn't ever really talked about it, but her great-uncle Mack McKamey died. so it came to the fore. Mack was the husband of one of Megan's paternal grandmother's sisters, Mary. We didn't see Mack and Mary often, but Mary was the sweetest woman on the planet, and Megan loved her.
When Uncle Mack's funeral was set, we trekked to Indiana from Illinois to attend, with all three of "our" children--my two stepchildren and Megan. I had already coached the children in the car about what to say to Aunt Mary, if they weren't sure. Something like..."I'm so sorry about Uncle Mack." Meg must have been listening. We had decided that we'd take toddler Megan to the funeral home for Mack's visitation, but found a babysitter for her for the actual funeral service.
Meg was an active kid. She didn't just walk places....she fairly danced. When we got to the funeral home on the night of Mack's visitation, she was dancing between her father and I, until we got to the viewing room. She stopped abruptly in view of the casket from a distance. When she spotted Aunt Mary, she went over to her and was stammering to speak. I think she wanted to say, "I'm sorry about Uncle Mack", when Mary thwarted the deal. "Are you hungry, Sweetie? There are cookies in the back room...." That broke the spell.
That night, as I was tucking Megan into bed, I was explaining what she could expect the next day...how we would be taking her to a babysitter, etc. The conversation went like this:
Meg--What will you be doing? Me--Going to Uncle Mack's funeral.
Meg--Is that where they will put him in the ground? Me--Yes, they will put him in the ground.
Meg--(tearing up) Then Aunt Mary will be all alone. Me--She will still have us. We can go and visit her whenever you want.
Meg-(brightening and smiling) Yes, she'll still have us!
I have no idea how she knew about burial or anything else related to death at age three, but she understood aloneness. We might have visited with Aunt Mary once or so after Uncle Mack's death, but that doesn't matter. What does matter is that what I told her that night was enough. It was all her toddler heart needed to be satisfied, No more, no less. (Whew!)
3. When my grandchildren were very young and still lived in the area, my daughter and I would take them on Memorial Day excursions to Putnam County (the next county west of here), to do cemetery runs for Meg's paternal ancestors. She was big into genealogy and had done a bunch of research. We toured some nine cemeteries each trip! We did that for two or three years or so. At least one of the children was still in diapers, so we packed up snacks, a blanket, diapers, etc., and headed out to visit their ancestors. It took all day, and every trip was an adventure. (I've written about these before.)
On one of these trips, while we were walking around through the gravestones looking for names, little Ryan, who couldn't have been more than three, gestured toward the stones and casually said, "At least we aren't trapped." I wasn't sure I heard him right, so I asked him to repeat what he said. Yep, he really did say "at least we aren't trapped". I ciphered on that for a bit. I could only conclude that all of the people whose names we were looking for were, in his mind, trapped in the tombstones. I was so stunned, I don't remember trying to correct his assumption at all. He did grow up without being spooked by cemeteries, however, so I guess we didn't warp him too much.
4. My students were also affected by death in different ways:
Two lost mothers and sisters to separate car accidents at different times, and had to finish growing up without parents because the fathers were not in their lives.
One's mother was shot and killed by her boyfriend while she was holding him as an infant.
One's boyfriend committed suicide in front of her while they were together.
Two kids were killed and one seriously injured in a flaming car collision with a tree.
One went with his dad to visit one of Dad's friends, and found him hanging from the neck on his refrigerator.
There were others outside of my current memory, but these were CHILDREN, anywhere from 4th grade through high school. They were, in each instance, subject to seeing things no child should ever have to see. I don't know many adults that can handle these things well, but you can bet that PTSD follows. No amount of talking, soothing, counseling can erase those visions from their minds, to follow them for the rest of their lives. And now, here in the US, we are raising a generation of children whose very lives are at stake when domestic terrorist shooters with a grudge against the world enter schools and take aim. So...how do we help them?
In the United States, after 9/11/2001, many parents were asking how to talk to their children about the lost lives, inhumanity, fear that it could happen again, and so forth. First Lady, Laura Bush, was telling parents to talk to them age appropriately. Fred Rogers, from the children's TV program Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood, advised that parents should stay focused on the positive in a nasty situation: Think about the people who helped. Both are true and necessary.
My own little bit of wisdom is that children look to their parents for security. It's best to stay steady. Keep things as normal as possible without denying sadness or fear. If parents fall apart in front of their children--if their whole routine becomes disrupted--the children will be afraid because they will no longer know what to expect. We can't promise them that everything will be okay because sometimes bad things do happen, but we can promise them that there will always be someone to take care of them. (Then plan accordingly!) I strongly believe that how well parents deal with trauma to the child absolutely determines how well the child gets/stays emotionally healthy through life. I also recommend seeking professional help any time it is needed. ANY TIME.
My heart breaks when bad things happen that affect children. I was so very protected from adult things until I was in junior high, but that was long before disgruntled people began to wreak vengeance on the world by killing random targets. If the news on TV is all bad, turn off the TV. Try to comprehend what is worrying the kids when they ask questions about death, and only answer to that particular worry.
And good luck!
