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Thursday, May 3, 2007
Talking about death with your kids
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
All children, at some point or another, come to understand the finality of human mortality. It can happen earlier for those who experience a personal loss, but in general, the idea that death is forever thing occurs in children between the ages of six and nine .
I didn’t experience a personal loss until I was about 11 years old, but I remember exactly when I realized death was serious stuff. I was 8 years old, and the movie “The Day After” was being hyped on television. My parents didn’t think the movie was appropriate for us to watch, but the commercials were played over and over. Images of a mushroom cloud and a panicked public were etched into my mind. I was terrified. For the first time, I fully realized that death could be violent, massive and strike at any age.
By the time I was a teenager, of course, the pendulum had swung the other way - and I was once again, “invincible”. But it took quite a while and a lot of worry for me to stop examining every cloud for a mushroom shape.
Children today are caught in a never-ending death-hype loop. Our 24-hour news cycle splashes the faces of terrorists and violent acts. Politicians and celebrities constantly warn that global warming is going to bring about the deaths of millions worldwide. And destruction from natural disasters, like hurricanes or tsunamis, is replayed every where you turn. Given my reaction to one little mini-series in the 1980s, I would probably be certifiably insane if I was a kid growing up today.
When my oldest child was 8 years old, she attended her first two funerals. Death hit her like a Mack truck. We have had many conversations in the past year where we try to put these kinds of events into perspective. I have to admit, it can be hard when the list of new and more frightening issues seems to grow before our children’s eyes.
How have you discussed death with your children? Was there a particular age at which they became particularly curious or scared of it? How do you discuss potentially scary world events - natural or political - with them?
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