Explaining death to your child

The only thing more taboo than sex in British culture is death. We ask why do we have a thing about death? And, for the sake of our children, should we be more open about it?

• What's death got to do with it?
• Curiosity didn't kill the cat
• Just keep talking
• I read it in a book

What's death got to do with it?

Two things in the media got me thinking at the weekend. The first was an article by Times' art critic Rachel Campbell-Johnston, who said that JK Rowling "would be right to kill off Harry". The second was the BBC programme Francesco's Italy Top to Toe, in which presenter Francesco da Mosta revealed that many inhabitants of the Sicilian city Palermo regularly take picnics to their relatives' gravesides for a family outing.

On the one hand, we had an insight into a culture not so different to our own that seemed happy to include death into their normal everyday life. On the other, an art critic was asking why we, in the UK, keep death "at an antiseptic distance" when "Death used to be an integral part of family life". I wondered that too. Just what is it about death that's so awful that we dress it up with euphemisms so we, and our children, don't have to face the honest truth?

One babyworlder, Redgecko, brought up a very good point on our Discuss, Debate and Deliberate forum. "In the process of tracing my family tree, I found that death (in the 19th century in particular) occurred with alarming regularity, particularly infant death and death in childbirth. Because it happened so frequently, I wonder if people found it easier to cope with emotionally or if they were less emotional than people are today. Are we more emotional about death because it is such a relatively rare thing nowadays?"

Rachel Campbell-Johnston's opinions initially spark from the same train of thought. "Death used to be an integral part of family life. People prepared for their end at home, surrounded by those whom they loved… But in our modern world death has grown lonelier. Too often our elderly seem all but abandoned."

Curiosity didn't kill the cat

However, this is not the case in all cultures, as Rachel pointed out. She had stayed with a family in the Amazon for a year, where the grandmother fell ill. She eventually died in her sleep, "And on the night that she died, it was her 12-year-old grandson who was sleeping beside her. And it was he and his sister who helped their mother to wash her, who kept her corpse company until it was buried."

Surely if a child had experienced such close contact with death in this country, they would be recommended for some sort of psychological counselling, in the belief that they would have suffered mentally from the experience. Yet children are far more resilient than we think and, as Rachel remarked, are even fascinated by the subject. "You only have to watch the toddler fixated by the road-kill. You only have to listen to all the brutally blunt questions of the 'When you die, Mummy, will Daddy cry?' sort. Death to a child is something solid… until they realise that the adults around them are side-stepping the question. Then they find it disturbing."

What is it that worries adults about exposing their children to death? babyworlder Kelly thinks the forthrightness of children and their unrestrained curiosity puts some people off. "Some adults won't discuss death because they are afraid of the subject and that children, who don't have the social graces and pretences that we do, will ask awkward questions." She then went on to make a very astute connection that our unease about death is perpetuated throughout the generations because of our insistence on avoiding it. "Perhaps the insistence on hiding death from children is one reason why we, as adults, cannot deal with it easily. We often don't get a chance to deal with feelings surrounding death until adulthood, so we don't know how to react."

Just keep talking

Childcare guru Dr Spock agrees with this line of thinking in his book Dr Spock's Baby and Child Care and emphasises that the best way to help children understand death is to answer any questions they have about it on their level, treating it as a perfectly normal discussion, rather than something taboo. However, he recognises that their ability to understand this area will be dependent on their age.

With regards the early years, Spock explains that children's ideas are often influenced by "magical tendencies" which carry across into their views on death. This can be problematic as they often will believe that a dead person might suddenly come back to life. Really, they are too young to understand the permanence of death and might be troubled by ideas that death is contagious or that someone close to them, like mummy or daddy, might die too. Unfortunately very sensitive souls might also think that they were in some way responsible for the death.

The key seems to be to talk, talk, talk. Treat their questions with respect and talk to them in terms they can understand. Don't try to dress things up and avoid the concrete; children think in concrete terms. Don't be scared of being quite blunt in your explanations either, as Spock encourages. "[If they ask] 'How will Uncle Bob breathe if he's in the ground?' parents can help a child by being equally concrete: 'Uncle Bob won't breathe anymore. He also won't eat with us anymore or brush his teeth.'… By dealing with their own feelings, parents can help the child deal with her feelings."

Steve and Sharon Biddulph, in their parenting book Love, Laughter and Parenting also encourage discussion. "It's worth taking a while to talk this over. A seemingly small question might lead into very deep water… Again, it helps to be concrete and practical. For instance, if you have a respectful ritual for burying your child's dead goldfish, then they might be better equipped and more able to handle the possibility of death of someone they care about."

I read it in a book

Books often deal in depth with the subjects that we find hard to think or talk about, as Rachel Campbell-Johnston wrote in her article, "Literature can offer an arena in which, uncramped by social expectations, children can discover and explore their emotions. That is why all great children's literature is preoccupied with death, from the fairytales that first flirt with its possibilities to the tragedies that encounter it in its full-blown form."

Looking around in children's bookshops though and there's nothing really that deals with death at toddler to preschool age. It seems peculiar that children can hear about the death of Christ, for example, or the death of fairytale characters without a non-fictional explanation of what it means. Usborne Books, which produces the excellent First Experiences series, has not included the subject matter in its list either. Sarah Macmillan, from the publishers, explains why. "We have considered for years doing a book on death, but haven't done it because it's very hard and we haven't thought of a good way of doing it. We're still thinking about it. We think it's an important subject, but want to make sure if we do it we do it really well."

One book that might be helpful for dealing with a pet dying is Judith Kerr's Goodbye Mog, in which her much-loved fictional cat Mog dies. It deals with death in a compassionate way, although it does tread the less concrete path. "Mog was tired. She was dead tired...Mog thought, 'I want to sleep forever'." One senses that children would find this a reassuring tale of losing a pet, although, as one reviewer on Amazon said, parents and adults might shed a tear or two. "This book caused quite an upheaval not only at home, but also in the shop when I bought it. My girlfriend was - already in the shop - inconsolable that Mog dies. When I paid for the book the shop assistants were also genuinely very upset that Mog dies."

Rachel Campbell-Johnston provided a nice summary at the end of her piece. "The only certainty of life is the thing about which we seem most uncertain. It is better for our children to confront death directly. Let Harry Potter be killed. It would be less confusing than for him to grow up to become an accountant."

Where to next

• See some books recommended by babyworld members