Children often have difficulties managing the death of their loved ones. Although few little ones can handle such tragedy on their own, most fail to understand how to cope with the situation. Therefore, they need help to overcome the effects of such misfortune. Various factors contribute to such differences in their potential to deal with the death of their loved ones. Thus, the knowledge about the management of children’s experience with such tragic situations is relevant to parents, guardians, and counselors when they help bereaved children to overcome such situations. This information would also prevent them from hurting the children more as they attempt to help the children. This paper intends to discuss the perception of death by bereaved children, factors affecting the understanding of death by children, impacts of the death of loved ones to children, and the possible ways of helping bereaved children.
Children’s Understanding of Death
Children can think of death as a biological process. According to Bonoti, Leondari, and Mastora (2013), most of them demonstrate this thinking when requested to make drawings of their understanding of death. Basing on the Tamm and Granqvist system, such situations would result in more children drawing scenes that describe violent death scenes, accidents, shootings, murder scenes, and a dead person’s grave (Bonoti et al., 2013). Furthermore, such children argue that the body shuts down and stops functioning when most the body parts malfunction, just like in machines (Slaughter, 2005). Although they demonstrate such an understanding of the concept of death, a majority of them fail to understand that the process is irreversible. Thus, these situations prove that the children still need assistance to understand every aspect of death, both the mechanism and irreversibility of mortality.
Furthermore, children from different societies share the concept of death as a biologic phenomenon. These communities include both people from the east and the west. For instance, Japanese children believe in the folk theory about the biologic concept of death by the age of six (Slaughter, 2005). Although this approach is popular among the children, they still demonstrate variations in their understanding of the whole the theory of mortality. Similar studies in the western countries such as the United States of America still demonstrate a limited understanding of biological concepts of death. Furthermore, the studies suggest that the children who were adopting this concept formed 76% of the all the children between seven to eleven years (Bonoti et al., 2013). Such scenarios of children with a limited understanding of the biological phenomena of death further prove the essence of parents, guardians, and counselors in assisting the children to understand death.
Moreover, they can also think of the process as a psychological process. Bonoti et al. (2013) state that asking children to draw images of their understanding of death will result in the little ones projecting their psychological sufferings. Bonoti et al. (2013) also argue that approximately 8.5% of children will draw figures that depict sorrow, 4.2% of them will draw pictures showing their mental imagery at the thought of death, while another 4.2% will draw images describing the emptiness in them. Basing on Tamm and Granqvist’s criterion, all these children understand death as a psychological process. This figure is an overall amount that represents all the children between the age of seven and eleven. A more detailed analysis of the children indicates that the number of youngsters adopting the concept increases from 7.6 % when they are at seven years to 22% at eleven years (Bonoti et al., 2013). This increase in the number of children thinking of death as a psychological process warrants the need for parents, guardians and other counselors to assist them through the process.
Besides, they can also think of death as a metaphysical process. Particularly, this concept is more familiar to the children who are at the age of nine than those who are at the age of seven and eleven (Bonoti et al., 2013). Media influence from televisions and radios explain the high number of minors believing in this concept at age nine (Sconce, 2000). This influence results because they often watch a lot of media content at this age that promotes the idea and they are still immature to dispute the concept. Later, they drop the idea for other explanations such as the biological and psychological concepts. Thus, fewer children at age eleven still think of death as a metaphysical process. The number drops from 18% at the age of nine to 9% at eleven years (Bonoti et al., 2013).This decline happens because the children are maturing and adopting a more realistic understanding of death (Corr & Balk, 2010). Therefore, the concept of mortality as a complicated process forms the least popular understanding of death among children due to the limited exposure of the children to the concept and their maturity.
Factors Determining Children’s Understanding of Death
Children’s age has a significant impact on their understanding of mortality. The effect manifests in the difference in the number of children adopting different concepts of death at different ages. For instance, the number of children embracing the idea of mortality as a metaphysical process drops from 18% to 9% as the children grow from nine years to eleven years (Bonoti et al., 2013 ). Instead, they adopt more practical concepts of death such as the idea of death as a biological process or death as a psychological process. This change is attributable to the maturity that comes with age. According to Hunter and Smith (2008), the older children adopted more practical concepts of death after understanding their details such as the universality and irreversibility of death in the biological concept of mortality. Therefore, the maturity that comes with children’s increased age has a significant impact on their understanding of death.
Additionally, children’s cognitive ability affects their understanding of mortality. Although most children develop their cognitive abilities as they grow older, their cognitive ability is independent of the children’s age (Hunter & Smith, 2008). This independence is due to the failure of a section of children to demonstrate maturity despite their age. For example, a part of children fails to understand the universality, inevitability, irreversibility and then finality of death despite being ten years old. This underdevelopment proves the independence of cognitive ability from age since such children are expected to have conservations skills to help them understand death between the age of five and seven years (Hunter & Smith, 2008). More exposure of the children to various events would assist them to improve their cognitive ability and maturity. Eventually, the children with immature thoughts about death would develop the mature understanding of the concepts of death due to the improved cognitive ability.
Nevertheless, their prior experience with situations that involve death improved the children’s ability to understand death. Hunter and Smith (2008) poit that their experience during the grieving process helps them to understand the associated pain, how to cope up with the situation and how to help their peers who are grieving. Unlike these experienced little ones, the ignorant ones are still insensitive with the matter and treat the subject casually. For instance, the majority of the children between six and eleven years complain of feeling lonely and rejected by their classmates since they cannot understand their intense grief after losing their loved ones (Hunter & Smith, 2008). Moreover, the experience has more impact on the children if the departed is a close and familiar relative as compared the cases when the deceased is a distant or unknown relative (Hunter & Smith, 2008). These cases show that the bond created between the children and the departed is responsible for the effects of the consequences of the experience to the children.
Besides, parental competence determined the children’s ability to understand death. Those minors whose parents openly talked about death had a mature understanding of mortality as compared to the ones whose parents avoided talking about death or death related topics to their children (Hunter & Smith, 2008). The conversation gives the youngsters the exposure they needed to develop a mature understanding of mortality. Although there was a relationship between the parental discussion about death to their children, the factor is of less statistical significance than other factors such as the children’s age, their experience with death situations and the cognitive ability of the children. This insignificance is due to the small sample size that is an underrepresentation of the role of bereaved parents to their children (Hunter & Smith, 2008). Thus, a study with a bigger sample size would provide a more important confirmation of the factor role in children’s perception of death.
Impact of Death on Children
Death affects the psychological well-being of children. The impact of such tragedy is significant to them as compared to older people due to their immaturity (Church & National Professional Resources, 2010). According to Akerman and Statham (2014), this disturbance in minors’ psychological well-being results in the change of their behavior from their typical behaviors to behaviors such as anxiety, anger outbursts, fear, depression, and somatization. For instance, 20% of bereaved children present with clinical symptoms that extend for more than a year since they lost their loved ones (Akerman & Statham, 2014). Furthermore, clinicians record a higher number of clinical symptoms from the children of the families that are in bereaved services as compared to the children from other families with no tragedy (Akerman & Statham, 2014). This increased incidence of disease symptoms in the bereaved children shows the significance of the effects of the tragedy to the children. Thus, the knowledge of children’s perception of death is essential to protect the bereaved children from hurting to these extents.
Additionally, death affects the children’s educational outcomes. Their school performance in various activities drops after the death of their loved ones. They performed poorly in those subjects that require a lot of concentration. Akerman and Statham (2014) state that such effects are due to the children having distress and difficulties to concentrate when people or events in school evoke the memories of their dead parents. Furthermore, the children miss school for a long time as they struggle to cope up with the tragedy. This absenteeism derails their academic progress since the others learn a lot in their absence (Akerman & Statham, 2014). Since they will take a longer time to catch up with the rest of the class, the bereaved children perform dismally from the time they return to the time that they move on. The children’s’ poor concentration in school and the long duration needed for them to catch up with the other students are the main reasons behind their poor academic performance after their tragedy.
Furthermore, the tragic incidences reduce the children ability to secure their future. Regardless of the gender, the impact of the death of parents or other loved ones lasts longer and results in troubled future for the children (Akerman & Statham, 2014). For instance, most male children end up being unemployed, or they take low-paying casual jobs when they grow up (Akerman & Statham, 2014). The high number of male minors dropping out of school after the death of their parents or guardians explains this finding (Abt Associates, 2002). Comparatively, the female students also become unemployed, engage in risky behaviors and remain depressed for a long time after their parents’ death (Akerman & Statham, 2014). Proper guidance and care from counselors or any available guardian could prevent such effects from happening to the bereaved children (Thompson, 2009). Hence, the role of the knowledge of children’s grieving process and role in preventing their suffering warrants the need to acquire the skills.
Contrarily, a section of the bereaved children uses the tragedies to help themselves succeed in their lives. Akerman and Statham (2014) assert that the experience helps the children to find a way of changing similar experiences toward positive outcomes. They use the experience to struggle to achieve their life course. Often, they realize this after getting help from professional counselors through attending a series of therapy sessions (Giant, 2014). For instance, the bereaved children become more aggressive to find work or become successful after the death of their parents. This increased aggression can be due to their desire to change their current living standards or provide better life opportunities for their children (O’Reilly & Benson, 2009). Eventually, this aggression results in lifestyle transition from a previous inferior social class to a later superior level. Although the experiences ultimately help the children to be stronger in life, realizing the achievement takes time and requires help.
Management of Bereaved Children
First, the parents can introduce the children to the reality of the death of their loved ones. Although the parents would feel that the children need to grow older first, hiding the truth from them is dangerous. Such secrecy would expose the children to more serious consequences. For instance, they would be more hurt if they learned of the tragic incident from their peers and friends first before they learned the tragedy from their parents (Fitzgerald, 2003). Their friends and peers would have different versions of the stories behind the departed. If the bereaved children’s parents inform them of the tragedy early enough, they would believe in their parent’s version of the story. This openness would protect them from potentially bad stories from their peers’ and friends’ account about the deceased, regardless of the validity of their stories.
Besides, the parents can prepare the children for the funeral activities in advance. They can do this in person or through a friend, relative or a professional counselor (Fitzgerald, 2003). First, the parent can explain to the children about the events that are expected to occur at the funeral service. This step would help the children to make an informed decision about attending the funeral service (Fitzgerald, 2003). According to Fitzgerald (2003), the activities that occur in the funeral or the sight of a loved one’s body in the casket can traumatize children if the had no prior information about what to expect in the funeral. Thus the parents need to prepare their children to avoid such impacts during and after the event.
Contrarily, the parents can prevent their children from attending funeral services. Notably, the minors should avoid the funeral services if they are still emotionally unstable due to the death of their loved ones. The parents should protect them from revitalizing their grief to prevent them from hurting more (Fitzgerald, 2003). Alternatively, they can distract the children by involving them in other activities to help them recover from their loss. These measures would cushion the effect of the tragedy to the children and assist them to recover quickly.
Later, the parents, guardians, and counselors should help the children move on with their lives. They should monitor the children’s progress after the event for situations where the children are facing challenges due to the effects of their loss (Fitzgerald, 2003). For instance, the parents or guardians could take their children to therapy sessions for the children to get professional help (Fitzgerald, 2003). Nevertheless, they could encourage the children to share their emotions through drawings, puppets or writings (Fitzgerald, 2003). They would then monitor the progress of their children’s recovery from the artwork to help them accordingly. Thus, the children would learn to use techniques such as art in managing the challenges.
Besides, the society can also help these minors to move on with their lives. According to Akerman and Statham (2014), institutions such as schools, churches and non-governmental organizations in the society could organize programs that care for the bereaved children. For instance, schools can start intervention programs that would help the children adjust to the new reality. This include programs such as pastoral support for the bereaved children. Alternatively, the schools can also train their staff to handle cases of bereaved children or cover topics of death and bereavement in the curricula (Akerman & Statham, 2014). These steps provide a preventive approach to the management of related cases.
Conclusion
Children have a different understanding of death. A majority of them think of death as a biological process while the others think of death as a psychological or a metaphysical process. The difference is due to factors such as their age, experience with death situations, cognitive ability or the competence of their parents parenting skills. Regardless of the factor, they tend to adopt more practical concepts of death as they mature. Although a section of the children uses the experience to motive them into succeeding, the experience negatively affects their educations, psychological well-being and the also limit their chances of having a healthy future. These adverse effects warrant the need for the children’s parents, guardians and counselor to guide the children through the grieving process and help them move on.
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