What Happens When You Die?
A call to be frank about death with your kids.
(M, telling me his theories of the afterlife, age 7)
Last night I was in my home office (The Geekery) watching Almost Paradise while my son M was reading with his dad. M came in to tell me he was ready for bed and he saw an ostensibly dead man on my screen (as it happens, the man was faking it).
He said “Oh I saw a dead guy! But he’s not really dead. It’s fake. If it was a cartoon it would be real, but it’s person, so it’s just fake dead for TV.” I thought that was an interesting and unusual take, but he changed the subject, so I didn’t press for an explanation re: the cartoon theory. For context, my son is 9 at the time of this writing.
M and I talk about death periodically. As a death educator, I want everyone around me to keep death in mind, but I don’t want anyone to obsess about it. Sometimes M obsesses about it. Sometimes he causes a stir at school because he obsesses a bit too much. Maybe this is my fault. (Probably.) But I think at least part of it is just his personality.
Obviously, it was never my goal to instill anything other than a healthy understanding and acceptance of death in either of my children. Sometimes I think I’ve succeeded, like the time M told me about his very well thought out proclamation on what happens when you die. Or rather, what happens after you die.
When you die, your soul is reborn in the spirit world, he tells me. You’re starting all over again, at the beginning, a baby spirit with parents and maybe siblings. You grow up and live a (hopefully) long and happy spirit life. You might get to see the spirits of people you loved while you were alive, and eventually, your spirit self dies. And after that you either go to heaven or hell, or you go into the black nothing, where you cease to be. There are definitely more nice spirits than bad ones, he adds.
He explained his theory of the afterlife to me while we waited for the bus to pick him up for a summer school program a couple of years ago. “Did you learn something?” he asked me when he’d finished. “Oh yes,” I said. “Most definitely.”
The thing is, I don’t actually walk around our house talking about death all day. I don’t really talk about it much at all. And while it’s true that The Geekery has a healthy and ever-growing death library ensconced amidst deathy paraphernalia, there is a fair amount of normal nerd accoutrements scattered about as well. I am nothing if not a maximalist.
The thing is, explaining death to children is sometimes hit or miss. Until the age of roughly 7 (give or take, obviously every child is unique) children don’t really have the ability to fully comprehend that dead is dead.
One major thing we can do to help children gain an understanding of death is to avoid euphemisms whenever possible. This is true for adults, but especially true for children, who may not yet fully grasp the concept of euphemistic language. But for both children and adults, particularly in traumatic situations, phrases like “lost,” “passed,” “gone ahead,” etc. can be too open to interpretation. The brain doesn’t want to immediately go to D E A D. With children it can make things even more complicated because their little brains are still in major development mode. Telling a child that you’ve lost grandma may prompt questions about why you aren’t out looking for her.
(I never use euphemisms for dead personally unless I’m joking. Give up the ghost is a personal fave. I’m sure you can think of at least a dozen more without even trying.)
When I had to explain to M that my mother, his Nana had died, I told him that her body had stopped working and the doctors couldn’t fix it, so she couldn’t stay in it anymore. And I was honest about where she went if she wasn’t in her body – I don’t know. But the thing that made her her was gone, and we couldn’t get it back.
I think the single best thing parents can do to help children understand and prepare for the death of family members or, God forbid, friends, is to let them have pets with short life expectancies. A goldfish, a hamster, a gerbil, some other small something fuzzy to love and to, yes, lose. My kids have grown up in 4H and are no strangers to death. 4H kids learn pretty quickly that dead is forever. Whether you’re raising poultry for show, beef for the market, or any other creatures great or small, death is an ever-present shadow. That may come in the form of disease, injury, predator, or livestock processor. The simple fact is it teaches a swift and decisive lesson – dead is dead.
I know that sounds harsh. We want to protect our children from any and every hurt imaginable. But isn’t it far gentler to learn this lesson from a pet or a project (as in 4H) than it is when a grandparent, a parent, or a sibling dies? I argue vehemently that it is. And learning the ways of death through the loss of an animal can do far more to prepare children for the finality of human death than merely talking about it ever will. Maybe we have, on some instinctual level, an understanding of death. We know what it is without necessarily being able to put that into words, especially as children.
Will you still have to explain what dead is? Of course. But it’s much less emotionally traumatic to discuss the end when you are holding your favorite chicken than the alternative. I’ll make an aside here to note that losing your favorite chicken can still be devastating, just ask my daughter. I don’t discount the pain of losing a beloved pet, or even a beloved 4H project animal. Please don’t misunderstand me. When you love someone or something, it hurts. Death is never easy, no matter how prepared we are.
KidsHealth has a decent guide to talking to your kids with simple language and other advice. There are other sites that come up with a simple Google search. The real truth is this: You know your child best, and while, as mentioned above, I strongly recommend that you avoid euphemisms in delivering the difficult news, you are best equipped to determine how and when to sit them down.
But I imagine some of you are interested in a more detailed look at children’s understanding of the end, so let’s break it down a little. Please note that these ages are estimates based on developmental assessment of average children in these groups. Every child is unique, and every child will react to death in his or her own way.
Generally, children up to age 2 or 3 are not going to really grasp the finality of death no matter how you explain it. Certainly, if a primary care-giver (mom or dad, to be obvious), or close relative like a sibling is suddenly gone, very small children will be attuned to the loss and will likely cry or fuss more; their behavior may regress temporarily. They may look around the room trying to locate the individual who is missing. If they are verbal, they may ask for the person who has suddenly disappeared and won’t understand why they won’t come. As difficult as this may be for you to witness, the best thing you can do is provide structure and routine in addition to comfort.
From 3 to about 6, children will be able to verbalize confusion, feelings, and questions. They may worry that the absence of the person is the result of something that they [the child] did. They likely still won’t understand that death is a forever thing, and may ask for the person, wonder when they’ll be home, wonder what they’re doing wherever they are. There may also be some regressive behavior with this age group. Again, structure and routine are your friends. Don’t lose patience with their lack of understanding – this may seem obvious, but if you are also grieving, you may find your patience is suddenly very thin.
The 6 to 9 age group is where we begin to see an understanding of death and the realization that eventually we will all die. Children at this age may develop a fear of dying, which can complicate their grief for their loved one and they may need extra support through the grieving period. While younger children may not have a terribly emotional reaction to a death, children in this age group will likely exhibit what we commonly recognize as grief and mourning – tears, anger, sadness, anxiety, etc.
Children aged 10 to 12 more fully understand that death is final. Here they can begin to see what happens after death, how their lives are forever changed by the loss, the opportunities, experiences, memories that are gone with their loved one. They may act out, they may withdraw, they may begin having trouble at school, they may experience guilt over being alive.
Adolescents – ages 13 to 19 – Understand that death is truly the end and that life can be incredibly fragile. Experiencing loss in adolescence can be especially difficult to process given an already tumultuous developmental period. Hormones and emotions can be all over the place. Teens may withdraw, become depressed, behave inappropriately to a situation, engage in more risk-taking behaviors, which may be entirely out of character. A strong support system is imperative for adolescents experiencing grief, and their friends and peers may not be equipped to meet that need.
With all children, routine, support, structure, kindness, empathy, and love are going to get them through a challenging and difficult experience. The way you behave and the language you use will shape the way they process and understand death. Will you make mistakes? Probably. But don’t throw in the towel.
If you are open and honest with children about death and dying throughout their lives, their grieving process is likely to be less traumatic and complicated than it otherwise might be. Bringing death into your regular conversation rather than shying away from the topic, will help shape eventual experiences with loss. And maybe they’ll tell you what they think happens when you die. You might learn something.
My mother died almost four years ago now, and M still periodically has bouts of sadness over her death. He keeps her picture on his bedside table. I tell him that while I hate to see him so sad, the sadness is also a good thing in a way. The sadness is a tribute to how much we loved her and how much we miss her. The sadness is the price we pay for loving our people (and our chickens). But the sadness won’t always hurt so much, it won’t always make us cry. And there is comfort in knowing that they loved us right back.
Sources:
Children’s Understanding of Death at Different Ages - Child Bereavement UK, www.childbereavementuk.org/childrens-understanding-of-death-at-different-ages. Accessed 13 Sept. 2023.
“When a Loved One Dies: How to Help Your Child (for Parents) - Nemours Kidshealth.” Edited by D’Arcy Lyness, KidsHealth, The Nemours Foundation, Sept. 2021, kidshealth.org/en/parents/death.html.
(and my offspring)