How children learn about death I think depends on the society and culture that they are brought up in. For instance those that grow up in a country with high poverty rates and a society stricken with disease and death are more used to the idea and have probably have more exposure to the subject. Versus a society that is not often stricken by poverty and disease, the exposure to death in these societies is very small compared to other countries.
This is how I see my exposure to death. I can’t say I really learned about it. I was never really sat down and told this is what death is, or this is what happens when someone dies. Growing up in a pretty religious house I learned a little bit based on the bible, but had no real experience of someone dying close to me until my junior high years. I also had questions about where we went or what would happen to us but a solid answer was never given. Not that I am saying people skirted around the issue with me because they didn’t think I could handle it, I just think people didn’t want to tell me at such a young age. It seems like it would be hard to explain to a child. I think that is why a lot of people don’t dive right into it with children. Most I think like me aren’t exposed until someone close to them has passed. I defiantly was when my grandma passed in 2007. 4 months later my other grandma had passed. They were the only two grandparents I had left, in a matter of 4 months they were both gone. It was a whirlwind activity flying between Calgary and Toronto. Having gone from attending no funerals to going to two in a small amount of time. They were both extremely different funerals and events leading up too. I had a lot of questions for quite a while and was scared to approach anyone about them because it was so fresh. Knowing now the relationships that both my parents had with their moms helps me understand that I probably could have asked them questions, that may have helped them heal a bit more as well.
I am getting away from myself, back to the reason I am blogging. I defiantly think that the exposure to death has an affect on the children and how they learn and deal with death. Many different societies are exposed to it all over the world and are okay with it. They all have traditions and rituals that take them through the burial of the dead as well as the healing process. I think that Western Society has put a negative spin on death through many different events in our history. Death has been seen as a topic that many people don’t talk about openly, an issue that is skirted around often by families and our society. Our exposure to death is very individual but collectively we are not open about the topic. Our society is not as exposed as others are due to our level of development.
I am not sure if our opinion of death as a society has changed overall or not. I think if it has it will have only changed a little bit. Events in our history every time something happens changes the way in which we look at death. This has an affect on our opinions and exposure to death as a whole. The more I think about it we have been changed by events in our history, but have our children, do they know what is going on???
So I ask this, how would you expose your child to death??
Would you wait for something to naturally happen and
then go from there or would you just jump right into it???
Annie! I actually just commented on someone's page about this. But anyway, I want to say it again here. I feel like having pets as a child gave me invaluable skills to deal with major death in my life. Every time a pet died was an opportunity to revisit the concept of death, and my parents always jumped right in there and tried to comfort and teach me.
ReplyDeleteAs a parent, I would love to provide support to my child and be open to talking about death with them. It would be so hard to talk about it without making them feel doomed, but helping them to see the balance of life and death could be one of the most valuable lessons of their life.