Funerals and Children

Families are usually at a loss when it comes time to bury a loved one as to what to do with the kids. They often feel the need to shield tender young individuals from death. Babysitters or other friends and relatives watch over the kids at home while the adults tend to the tasks of attending viewings, funerals and burials. Sometimes the children want explanations as to what is going on, and are given outlandish but well intentioned phrases such as "Well, Aunt Mary went to sleep." Parents feel that all the activities surrounding death are just too traumatic for the young ones. But I have quite a different view of this.

Let us begin right away with the above mentioned phrase. Please do not tell your kids that loved ones have "gone to sleep" when they have died. The next question sure to follow is, "Mommy, what do you mean they are never coming back?" And when that little child goes to bed at night, do you really want them to have an unresting fear that they too may not wake up? Of course, this advice in and of itself, can not stand alone. There has to have been an honesty about the subject of death from the start.

I have raised three children, one to adulthood, one to the age of almost 16, and one who is the still very tender age of 5. I have always presented death for what it truly is: the end of life. Like a plant that springs from a seed at the start of the warm weather, grows to maturity as the season passes, then withers and falls again into the earth, the lives of our loved ones are so much the same. Many parents are simply so uncomfortable with death themselves, that to begin to explain it to their offspring is just an insurmountable task.