I have written this new book as a help for parents, teachers and others working with children to help provide the words to use when those difficult questions come up about death and dying. These are always difficult subjects to talk about, but are especially so when talking with children. While the information is provided in a simple and straightforward way, it is the compilation of working many years in the field of death and dying.
Linda Goldman
"Why Did God Let My Brother Die?"
New Book Serves as Guide to Answer Kids’ Questions about Death
"We can’t protect children from life’s tragedies, but we can ease their journey by responding openly to their questions," writes experienced grief counselor Linda Goldman. "Adults often prescribe quick fixes and remedies based on myths and clichés that they were raised with. Many girls and boys are told to be strong, to be brave, and be the man or woman of the house. Or they are told that boys don’t cry and kids are too young to understand."
Death is never an easy subject for discussion and adults can have difficulty finding the right words when talking about it with children. Goldman’s book, Great Answers to Difficult Questions about Death: What Children Need to Know [2009, Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 112 pages, paperback, 978-1-84905-805-6, $14.95] explores children’s thoughts and feelings on the subject and provides parents and other caring adults with guidance on how to respond to difficult questions.
"Death is a difficult and sensitive topic to discuss with children," writes Goldman. "So often adults feel at a loss for words. Without knowing what to say or how to say it, many parents and professionals avoid children’s questions. Some refuse to respond at all."
To help parents know what to say, Goldman reviews some of the common questions that children ask about death and provides sensitive yet candid answers in a way that children will be able to understand. Each chapter is devoted to a particular issue, such as religious beliefs, coming to terms with terminal illness, and fear of forgetting someone when they are gone.
"Our goal is to create an environment where all questions are welcomed, accepted, and responded to openly and without judgment," writes Goldman. "Caring adults can discuss death with kids in ways that ease anxiety and build confidence for further exploration of ideas."
While offering useful advice for parents, Goldman’s handy guide will also be of interest to counselors and other professionals working with children. This book also recognizes the emotions and reactions of children and family members and includes separate conclusions for parents and children.
"With constant media bombardment and instantaneous communication, there are no secrets," Goldman concludes. "Kids today are savvy about issues of death and their questions are quite sophisticated. They deserve honest and respectful responses to their inquiries."
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Children entering this new millennium are faced with life issues that were unspeakable to us growing up as children. Death related tragedies such as suicide, homicide, and AIDS, and non-death related traumas such as divorce and separation, foster care and abandonment, bullying and terrorism, and abuse and violence have left our children sitting alone in their homes, unfocused and unmotivated in their classrooms, and terrorized in their
communities. They are overwhelmed with their feelings and distracted by their thoughts.
Survivorship of these traumas creates for any child a loss of their assumptive world of safety, protection, and predictability. The role of the media as a surrogate communal parent and extended family further creates
this same traumatic loss of this assumptive world for many if not most of our children.
Children naturally assume their world will be filled with safety, kindness, and meaning as they attempt to answer the universal questions of who am I and why am I here. All too often these qualities seem to disappears into a nightmarish universe of randomness, isolation, and unpredictability. This leaves many of today¹s young people immersed in a new assumption: There is no future. There is no safety. There is no connectedness or meaning to my life. By joining together as a global grief team, caring adults can co-create an assumptive world that again provides a child¹s birthright to presume love, generosity, and value will be integral parts of their lives.
We are raising a segment of our youth that are numbed, disconnected from their hearts, their minds, and their consciousnesses, and choosing all to easily, other alternatives such as drugs and alcohol, crime and violence as ways of coping with the loss of their assumptive world. In yesterday¹s world we may have protected ourselves from trauma by having fire drills in our schools. In today¹s world our kids protect themselves from danger in the schools by having gun-fire drills. Too many of today¹s school children are grieving children. So many of our boys and girls are born into a world of grief and loss issues that live inside their homes and lay waiting for them outside their doorsteps, on their streets, schoolyards, and classrooms. Increasingly, children are traumatized by prevailing social and societal loss issues in their families, their schools, their nation, and their world.
Text adapted with permission from Life and Loss: A Guide to Help Grievng Children, Breaking the Silence: A Guide To Help Children With Complicated Grief: Suicide, Homicide, AIDS, Violence, and Abuse and Helping The Grieving Child in the School Healing Magazine (Kidspeace)and Growing Up Fast (NES).
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