Children can struggle to define the concept that someone has gone forever and we often worry that telling them too many facts surrounding the death of a loved one will do more harm than good. One of G Seller’s Bereavement Counsellors Tracy explains ways to navigate through those early days and beyond, whilst remaining age appropriate and factually accurate to help children as they miss their loved one.
Children can struggle to define the concept that someone has gone forever and we often worry that telling them too many facts surrounding the death of a loved one will do more harm than good. One of G Seller’s Bereavement Counsellors Tracy explains ways to navigate through those early days and beyond, whilst remaining age appropriate and factually accurate to help children as they miss their loved one.
Hi. My name is Andy Eeley. I'm a Senior Funeral Director with G Seller Independent Funeral Directors, and we've been serving bereaved families since 1910. I'm sure you're all well aware there's lots and lots of different misconceptions, taboos, myths around what goes on behind the scenes within the funeral profession. So we decided to put together this series of podcasts to try and dispel some of those myths and answer any questions that you have. So please do like, share and subscribe and send those questions, send them to liftingthelid@gseller.co.uk and we will do our absolute best to answer them for you. It genuinely is Our Family Caring For Your Family. Now, this episode we're going to be talking about children and young people's understanding of death and passing away. So I'm joined by my colleague, Tracy, welcome back. I've seen you before, haven't I, Tracy. We did mention that grief is perhaps a huge subject that would be a series of podcasts. So welcome back for this one. Thank you. How are you? Yeah, I'm good thank you. Good, good. So children and young person's understanding of death, Tracy. So, I mean, what age would a child perhaps begin to understand about bereavement, death, passing away? What sort of age? Well, all children, no matter what the age, grieve, even if they're little babies they would miss the person that has passed away, Mum or Dad, but their understanding can be very different depending on their age. Children struggle to define, like, a concept of somebody has gone forever, in very early years. But that's really why it's important to be absolutely factually honest with children, no matter how young they are, if they're asking questions. Okay, so not sort of talking to children and saying things like, Grandad's gone to sleep or Grandad'a s lost because a small child will interpret that as, well, where have we lost them? Can we find them? Or if you say gone to sleep, that can cause really big problems with a child being scared to go to sleep that they won't wake up. So factual honesty at all ages, that's right through from very little children through to teenagers and older that need, just think about what we need as adults. We like to know what's going on. For children, honesty is always the best policy. That was going to be one of my questions I think you've answered it there. So in terms of a funeral, can a child attend a funeral? Would you advise a child? How would you handle that situation? Okay, well, if a child is old enough to understand the concept of death, then generally they're old enough to be given the choice if they want to attend. But the key part of that is to demystify what a funeral is, because we use that word. But actually, what is it, you know, if you don't explain it to a small child, they don't necessarily know what it is and they'll make up all sorts of different fantasies about what it might be. So in the instance, say if it was Daddy that passed away. So saying something like, well, a funeral is a gathering that we're going to have to say goodbye to Daddy. And at this gathering there'll be lots of Daddy's friends and family and some of them might be very sad and some will be crying. So it explains that all these emotions will be there for the child and that there might be songs or hymns and people will stand up and say things about Daddy and share their memories. And kind of at that point it's about saying to the child, do you want to write something to read out at the funeral or do you want to write something that somebody else can read out for you? Do you want to say goodbye to Daddy at the funeral? And then from a visual perspective, it's also really important to explain that Daddy will be in a special box called a coffin and that after the funeral, the coffin will either be put in the ground or it will be Daddy's body and the coffin will be turned to ash and that's called a cremation. So it sounds like I think some parents can feel a little bit scared to say those words, but actually, if you tell a child the truth of what's happening in very age appropriate ways, then and they might just go off and not say anything to you, but then they might come back a bit later and just say, what does that mean? Or if they ask another question, always say to them, what do you think that means? And then if they're thinking wrongly, you can correct the wrong thinking. Okay, but I guess the thing about it is that a lot of say in the instance if it was Dad that died, and Mum was left with the children. Mum won't be in the great state at that time, probably can't cope. So that's where kind of bereavement support counselling can come in really useful because not only would it be supporting Mum, it would also be used, we also use it to strategise how she can talk to the children and help them with their grief as well. Okay. So it's kind of a dual process in that sense. And if Mum needs to be the best for herself in order to support the children as well. Absolutely. We quite often, as the Funeral Director arranging, we quite often get asked, I mean, should a child attend a funeral service? What were you saying about the open and honesty there; I've had people ask me if the child can perhaps meet me beforehand. And sometimes we advise maybe to try and be involved in part of that funeral service, perhaps drawing a picture placing with Daddy, just trying to be involved. So I think there are policies and approaches that work really well. Yeah. And actually meeting people like yourself, that's demystifying it for the child as well. And they'll come into the funeral and they'll see you there and that's a face they recognise, that they know is someone that's looking after everything. So we always say to the family that we're looking after that they know their children, they know what they can perhaps handle? Absolutely. But this is from a Funeral Director perspective rather than bereavement counsellor. I mean, I've had children in the past that perhaps been quite understandably, really incredibly upset on a funeral service. So I've tried to involve them. Like, we carry the top hats. I've actually given the top hat to the child and say, you help me with my role. And then they feel actively involved in it. But I do like the open and honest that you do there. So how do you help the child perhaps cope with a loss? Okay, well, just the same as with adults, all children grieve differently, but they can be very much more bouncing through the oscillation process. And I think we spoke about that in the first episode, so 1 minute, they can be in floods of tears and saying they really miss Daddy and they don't want to go to school and they don't want to do anything, and then two minutes later they'll be asking you, what's for dinner? And that can leave parents really kind of like, I don't know if they're grieving, I don't know what's going on and a bit thrown by everything that's happening. But it's almost like you've got to let your child just do that, let them bounce in and out. Because if you think about what we as adults need, we need factual information, we need to know that someones there for us if we want to talk, then we need to know that we can still do normal things. We all crave normality in times of grief because it's a chaotic time. So, again, a way of helping children is to let them carry on doing all the things they would normally do. So, encourage them to go to school because school will provide a structure for them. And also things like if they go to football club or they go swimming or whatever they do and playing with friends and things like that, all the normal things that were in their lives before, because home life might be quite chaotic, so actually going out and doing all those things will help them. But I guess it's the quiet times, like story time before bed and things like that to just have a little bit of time and just check in and see how are you? Are you thinking about Daddy? What's going on? That kind of thing. And I think the only thing I'd say with all this, again, I'm going back to like support for the parent because parents got to be strong enough to be able to do that with the child. But it's also allowing other family members to be that support for the children as well. So it does become a family thing to do to support a child? Yeah, absolutely. How can the child be affected? How are they affected? What happens? Well, like I said, a lot of times children can just be bouncing around like nothing's happening. But it's worth checking in with school because quite often children will hold it all in, If there was a change in behaviour? it can come out at school in things like either sort of disengaging with classes and not concentrating. It can turn children that were previously very conscientious into little troublemakers that are kind of messing about, or even can create some bullying behaviour or withdrawal. But it's worth seeing if there's been changes at school, because you might not always see it at home as well. And children, you can actually see a lot of what's going on with children through play through just watching them, because they might act out death scenes with their dolls Okay. Or if they're on their PlayStation or something, they'll be getting overly angry or something like that. And if you think about all of the stages of grief that we go through as adults, it's the same, but it comes out more kind of, I guess, spikily kind of here and there. Yeah, sort of amplified I guess and then kind of, you know, but then times when they just seem like absolutely nothing's wrong at all. But also because it does affect children, if a parent dies, say when they're about five or six, that's going to affect them at every key stage. So if you think about going to high school, think about doing their GCSEs, A Levels, right up into adulthood, there will be the fact that Daddies not there. So it's very much, just like grief is an ongoing process for adults, it definitely is for children. Well, there's lots to sort of try to pay attention to, isn't there? There is, yeah. So, very similar to a previous question around a child perhaps attending a funeral service. So we at G Seller, we have we have a book that's specifically aimed for children and sort of the part of their process, you know, compile images, perhaps write stories and memories, photographs in a little kind of memory book, I guess. What are your thoughts if a child asks if they can come and see in the Chapel of Rest? Come and visit. Perhaps Daddy or Grandad or Grandma. What would you think there? Well, again, if the child is old enough to understand the concept of death, then yes, but again, with information. So explain, so its inform all the time. If I explain to the child what it's going to be, how they're going to come in and what will be happening when they come and see them in the Chapel of Rest. And again, it's about choice. Some children will say they don't want to once they know, and same with the funeral, but it's actually giving the child the choice. Okay? And with all of those things all the way along, if they're given the choice, it will be better for them in the long run. Because what I've found with working with children and bereavement a lot, is that if they're not given the choice as they get older and they realise they weren't allowed to go to the funeral, they weren't allowed to go and visit Dad in the Chapel of Rest. They start to become resentful and angry towards the surviving parent because they weren't given the choice to do that. Teenage years are challenging ones at the best of time, so it just adds to that and can cause quite a lot of issues as the children get older, when they feel that they haven't had the proper way to say goodbye to their parent. Be open and honest. Tracy thank you. I think, again, we're still just touching the tip of the iceberg, such a huge subject. So that draws us to a close of today's episode. So please do like, share and subscribe any questions that you have, email them to liftingthelid@gseller.co.uk Tracy, we will see you soon and we'll see you next time.