Children & Death...
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This booklet is meant to help younger children cope in healthy, intelligent ways with the shock of a loved one’s death. The questions and answers it contains are cast in language most youngster can understand, and the concepts covered are well within most children’s grasp.
Much has been published on the need for educating children about death. Experts concerned with the subject agree that there is every good reason to guide youngsters gently and honestly into an early understanding of this puzzling aspect of life; and that to avoid answering questions children ask about the subject is a harmful mistake.
Children are not as vulnerable as most of us adults take them to be, according to psychologists who have studied children’s responses to the death of a loved one. But they are subject to fears and traumas that grow out of well-intended attempts to shelter them from learning about death. Countless youngsters have cultivated irrational fears about God, doctors and hospitals, sleep cemeteries, even about forming deep affections for elders, because of misinformation.
Although, this booklet incorporates basic Judaeo-Christian concepts, it makes no assumptions about a child’s religious training and in no way reflects a specific religious point of view. We offer this publication in the belief that it will provide an honest, useful way to deal with a painful subject at a time when such help is needed. It is suggested by the writer that at least the first time this book is read by a young child, it be on a one to one basis with an adult.
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