Helping Children Cope With Death - The Mourning Process
If the death is understood, if its cause is understood and the disposal of the body is understood, and if the bereaved child is reasonably sure of his or her own survival and of having bodily and emotional needs met to a sufficient extent, mourning will start of itself. It is a process that is not always visible from the outside because, contrary to what many people think, mourning does not consist of wailing, rages, crying, or complaining. Sometimes there are no overt signs of upset and yet the feelings may be there.
I worked with a mother and child. The little boy lost his father two years previously and experienced some difficulty in the aftermath. The mother told me that she had never cried in front of the child, since she only cries when she is alone in bed. The boy, who supposedly had not reacted at all to his father’s death and had certainly never cried or raged, told me in his separate interview that he was a person who never cried in front of people. He only cried when he was alone in bed and nobody knew that he cried. He cried night after night but his mother never cried. Although mother and child expressed feelings in the same form, they did not know that the other even had feelings. It was sad to see how hard they had made it for themselves and for each other. However, even if they had not cried at all they might have been able to mourn because mourning is a mental process that consists primarily of two parts: on one hand, a very gradual and painful detachment from the memories of the deceased, and on the other hand almost the opposite. A taking into oneself some traits or qualities of the deceased. How much there is of each part and whether the proportion leads to a healthy adaptive outcome depend on many factors, including the age of the bereaved person, the nature of the bereavement, the preceding relationship, the personality of the deceased. With young children it is particularly important that they take into themselves the healthy rather than the sick attributes of the dead parent and that they detach themselves sufficiently, so that, in time, they will be free to form a parental bond with a new person.
Sometimes parents intuitively understand the ways in which their child’s long inner mourning proceeds and sense when the child encounters difficulties. Sometimes it is much harder. It certainly is not a mark of failure to seek professional assistance at such a time. That is yet another area where the teacher can support the surviving parent. The sooner help is given, the better the chances of preventing possible damage to the child’s growing personality.
References
Barnes, M.J. “reactions to the Death of Mother.” The psychoanalytic Study of the Child 19(1964): 334-357
Furman, E. A Child’s Parent Dies, New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1974
Hoffman, Y. “Learning About Death in Preschool.” Review, Spring 1974. Cleveland: Cleveland Association for the Education of young Children, 1974, pp. 15-17.
McDonald, M. “Helping Children to Understand Death: An Experience with Death in A Nursery School.” Journal of Nursery Education 19, no. 1 (1963): 19-25
