When do we, as children of the West, encounter death? I have vague memories of a funeral when I was barely knee high, though I had no idea at the time it was such. I recall that for some reason everyone wanted to go to the front but I was not allowed. Man was I not happy about that. In hindsight now, it may have been for the best, there being an open casket and all, and I did not have any concept of death at the time. My own experience brings to the front: are we too seperated from death? Do we hold it to a cleaned up, sanitized image? Should we be scared of exposing children to death?
I think we are too sparated from the cycle of life in general. We do not have contact with the food we eat, let alone are capable of handling the butchering process. I remember the first time my mother handed me a raw chicken breast to clean, season and cook.... 'eeeeew' and lots of poking I believe was my response. I think that we need to gain a better perspective of death in our life. It is a natural process, on that is emotional and that emotionality needs to be understood as normal and ok. I am not saying that we need to off more people in our lives or start dragging childern to random funerals, but I do think it should be part of an early child's education. That is why I love books like '100 facts Mummies.' It approaches death as natural and as a matter of fact and then goes on to really tells us all about the neat things people like to do with bodies. When education like this is given to appropriate aged kids (as in they have the capability to understand death and wont just see all the pictures as monsters that live under their bed) it can open the mind to the concept and allow for the normalcy of death to sink in. It might make talking about serious deaths easier later in life/childhood, including deaths of pets.
I wrote some similar comments in my post. Adults need to be teaching children that death happens and that it needs to be dealt with in whatever way the child feels most comfortable. I think a lot of people think that if they actually talk to their child about these things and show them that death is normal they'll somehow be desensitizing their child and making them cold when it comes to death, and I think that mentality is malarkey. I agree with your point that educating children about death could make important deaths later on in their lives a little easier. I know that I didn't have an open dialogue about death with my mom or the rest of my family as a child, and so I feel like I'm going to be totally unprepared for the day somebody important in my life dies.
ReplyDeleteYou both bring up good points. Is there a "good" way to go about teaching children about death without completely terrifying and confusing them? For me, having pets as a child was a vital tool in learning to deal with loss. Looking back on it now, I think that learning to deal with the death of my pets gave me invaluable skills that prepared me to deal with major losses later on in life. Animals have been such great teachers for me in more ways than one!
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