Helping Children Understand Death

Dear Parents,
This week in the playground we discovered a dead sparrow. This prompted a lot of discussion and some negotiation about what we should do with it.
The children decided that the bird had not been killed by a hunter or a cat because there was no blood. They thought he looked like he was asleep and that perhaps we should pop him up on the fence so that he could fly away when he woke up. Some children felt that because he didn’t move when he was poked with the spade that he was dead and wouldn’t wake up.
One child suggested that the bird should be put in the bin by the teacher but most children agreed that dead things didn’t go in the bin, instead they should be flushed down the toilet like a fish. The Teacher asked if the bird was a fish, and if not, what should we do with it instead? Finally it was decided that the boys would dig a big hole in the garden and that we should bury the bird. This was a big process with lots of boys wanting to participate in the digging of a little hole! Finally the bird was gently nudged into the hole and covered up with a vigorous pat. One child felt that we should put something special there so that people would not forget the bird. So he colored in a picture of a chicken and taped a pop stick to the back of the paper to make a sign. He asked the teacher to write the following words “The children buried it because it was dead. The bird was nice looking, It was lovely”
We followed this experience up the following day with a book by Mem Fox called “Tough Boris” about a pirate who feels sad when his parrot dies. The children were eager to talk about some aspects of death and parents may find that some children have questions or want to discuss the concept of death at home. This is never an easy discussion and some parents feel a little uncomfortable or get upset by their own past experiences. Below we have given some tips that may help you in dealing with your child’s questions if they have any. We hope they help.

*Be matter-of-fact: don’t make death more airy fairy than it is.
*Answer your child’s questions: You don’t need to tell them everything you know, just answer their questions, if they have others they will let you know. Don’t be afraid to tell your child that you don’t know the answers to all the questions.
*Be honest: The truth is that we don’t know what happens when we die. Telling children that a pet who has passed away has gone to live on the farm simply strings out the child’s desire to see their pet because there is hope. It also passes up a wonderful opportunity to begin to deal with death before it becomes a more confronting issue.
*Help allay children’s fears: Children can get anxious and feel under prepared as they begin to worry that it might happen to them. Reinforce that people only die for three reasons:
-when they get really, really, really, really, really, really, really old,
-really, really, really, really, really, really, really sick
-or their body gets really, really, really, really, really, really, really broken (Specialist in the area recommend that you use at least 7 “reallys” so that children understand that you don’t die because you have a cold, because you are over twenty or because you broke your arm!) It can help children’s understanding to explain that when one of these three things happens that your body is not a nice place to live anymore so you leave it behind.
*Help children understand deaths place in their world: Talk about people they know or people that were important to you, how it made you feel and what happened after. Eg: “I felt sad for a while after my Nanny died but now I just think about her every now and then and remember some happy things about her. The blue teapot in our kitchen came from my Nanny’s house and reminds me of her, it’s very special to me”
*Help children understand the permanency of death: Reinforce that once people die they never come back to life. We get to remember them in special ways instead.
*Encourage children to express their growing understanding and communicate their ideas: Let them talk and draw pictures, you will find that this lets you know what’s going on in your child’s head.
*Encourage children to express their feelings: Sometimes when people die it’s Okay to feel a little bit lonely or sad and it’s definitely Okay to cry.