Include the children in the grieving and sadness
Gary A. Emmett, M.D., director of hospital pediatrics at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital, wrote this for the "Healthy Kids" blog on Philly.com and Inquirer.com.
This month, I spent a lot of time with my three young grandchildren (a 3-year-old girl, and 15- and 18-month-old boys). My mother-in-law died at 90 after a long decline and a short illness. The three children, all dressed up and doing their best to sit still, had everyone smiling at the funeral.
Still, I was saddened thinking about how some children endure more stress when a loved one dies because they are left out or too much is expected of them.
Now people die in hospitals, which often bar children. The patient is hardly recognizable, pinned under tubes and machines keeping them alive. Their bodies are taken to funeral homes and burial without the child's seeing them.
The child can get confused. They feel deserted and sad without the rituals that help adults. Fred Rogers once said: "Young children don't know that sadness isn't forever."
Yet children can add so much. My granddaughter did not understand what was going on at first, but then she told my wife with great empathy that "my mommy says that your mommy died, Grammy." She did not understand death, but she sure knew how awful it was to lose your mother.
No matter a child's age, be honest. You do not have all the answers. If you believe in life after death, then telling a child that Grandpa went to heaven is fine, but if you believe death is final, say: "He will always live in our hearts."
Children under 7 are very literal, as are some older children. If you say, "Granddad will always be looking down at you from heaven," 5-year-olds may get scared each time they make a mistake.
Young children do not grasp that death is final, so don't get annoyed as they repeatedly ask when the dead person will return. If they ask why Grandmom had to die, say her body got old and the doctors could not fix it so her body stopped working.
Avoid euphemisms since children may take you literally. I have seen many children have horrible behavior problems at bedtime after someone told them that Auntie "went to sleep," and now they are afraid to go to sleep.
School-age children (ages 6 to 12) may know death is final, but may think in terms of a "boogeyman," and can get very scared. The horror shows on TV do not help. These children also think magically and may feel guilty because they said to the deceased, after not getting their way, "I wish you were dead." And then that person dies, and they think they caused it.
Finally, a teenager, who understands that death is final, may think "it cannot happen to me or my friends." When it does, as in a car crash, they can get depressed, wrestling with such questions as "Why do bad things happen to good people?" If you can get teens to share feelings without obsessing, that is the best you can do.
Death is part of life. Have children visit the ill, go to funerals, if they want to, and ask that they tell stories about the deceased. The more comfortable they feel, the better they will do.
Read more at http://www.philly.com/philly/health/20140126_Include_the_children_in_the_grieving_and_sadness.html#BSOC2JzHTcrfk4o4.99
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