Children and Grief
The Role of the Early Childhood Educator
By Andrea Ruth Hopkins
Early childhood educators cannot shield children from learning about death. Children witness death in many different forms, from a neglected houseplant to a favorite pet dying; from a cartoon show character flattened by a steamroller to TV images of exploding airliners and collapsing buildings during September 11 terrorist attacks. As educators we have no choice about whether or not children receive death education; our only choice is how developmentally appropriate that education will be (Fox 2000).
Perceptions of death and developmental stages
A grieving child’s perception of death relates directly to the child’s level of cognition. Perceptions of death change as children progress through developmental stages. A clear understanding of these perceptions is essential for educators wishing to respond appropriately and helpfully to a grieving child’s unique needs.
Infants and toddlers
Piaget theorized that children birth through age two are in the sensorimotor stage of development (Berk & Winsler 1995). During this period they develop a complex behavioral system, with strong attachments to parents and other intimate, dependable caregivers in their lives. Mutual attachment behavior projects the young and vulnerable child from danger. Instinctive behaviors such as smiling, babbling, and crying engage the caregiver in interactions, ensuring that the baby’s emotional, physical, and social needs are met (Black 1998). Separation from the primary caregiver is likely met with vigorous protestations. The outcomes from a tragic loss are far reaching, according to researcher Bette Glickfield. In her 1993 study she found the presence of a consistent and emotionally nurturing caregiver during the formative years to be the only reliable predictor of later attachment style in bereaved children (Glickfield 1993).
For babies younger than six months, the concept of death can be summed up in the phrases “all gone” and “out of sight, out of mind.” From six months on a baby is somewhat aware of the absence of an attachment figure and may express limited grief (Papenbrock & Voss 1988) or react to the loss of attention, altered routines, and changes in the environment. Babies and Toddlers are sensitive to the stress and emotions of those around them. They may experience temporary delays in motor development as their energy is invested in the process of grieving rather than in new physical or emotional growth (Grief Resource Foundation 1990).
A baby or toddler in the sensorimotor stage who loses a parent or other attachment figure needs a stable environment, predictable schedules, and lots of comforting, touching, hugging, and holding by someone who loves her (Papenbrock & Voss 1988) to help restore some of the security threatened by the loss. When the child is older, the primary caregiver can guide him through an understanding f the earlier loss (Furman 1990).
Older toddlers and preschoolers
Piaget’s next cognitive stage, preoperational, encompasses children ages tow to five. The preoperational child’s thinking is characterized as magical, egocentric, and casual (Goldman 1998). Preschoolers believe strongly in the power of their wishes, which often leads them to conclude that death is temporary, reversible, or partial. (See “Preschoolers’ Grasp of the Concept of Death.”) In Maria Nagy’s (1948) landmark study of children’s conceptions of death, children ages three to five denied death as a natural and final process. They saw death as a departure – a further existence in changed circumstances for the person who died.
Preschoolers tend to respond to death with periods of anger, sadness, anxiety, and angry outbursts. They are also likely to show regressive behaviors and physical disturbances, as mentioned with toddlers (Farish 1995). Appropriate adult responses to a preschooler coping with death include clear communication about the death, reassurance that the child’s needs will be met, acceptance of the child’s reaction’s to the death, and plenty of hugging and loving reassurance.
Kindergartners and young schoolagers
Young school-age children from five through nine have reached the concrete operational stage of development. They are curious and realistic, and most have mastered some universal concepts, including irreversibility. While they are capable of expressing logical fears and thoughts about death, their understanding of finality can bring on deep emotional reactions (Goldman 19996). They may alternately deny feelings and experience deep anxiety. Fears of further abandonment and intense feelings of loss complicate the grieving process (Christian 1997).
Observable symptoms of and behaviors due to the stress of bereavement vary. Aggressive behaviors and temper tantrums are common in children who feel out of control. Sleep disorders may indicate fear or anxiety. Regression, also common, is an attempt by the grieving child to return to a more secure time in his or her life (Alderman 1989).
A delayed reaction months after the death is as legitimate as one occurring immediately after the loss (Farish 1995). Reprocessing takes place throughout the bereaved child’s development. Years after the death the child will revisit the lost, trying to understand it from the vantage point of his or her current developmental perspective (Perry 1996).
Teacher’s role
Three basic responsibilities regarding death education rest with the early childhood educator: to help children feel safe while acknowledging the reality of death, to promote an accepting classroom atmosphere where children’s feelings are supported, and to provide developmentally appropriate learning opportunities that allow children to discuss death. Each of these functions plays an important role in developing young children’s attitudes and understandings about death.
Helping children feel safe
Helping children feel safe while acknowledging the reality of death requires acceptance of children’s views of death as one aspect of their normal curiosity about the everyday world. Teachers need to provide clear, simple facts that a child can comprehend, while avoiding confusing abstract euphemisms, like equating death with sleep.
In one nursery school, teachers trying to deal effectively with the topic of death drew up some guidelines (Galen 1972). The primary guideline concerns the importance of teachers using the proper perspective. This means accepting preschooler’s views about death as part of their growing curiosity about and understanding of everyday phenomena. Children need adult permission to act out, talk about, and interpret their thoughts and feelings about death, a topic adults tend avoid with young children.
Early childhood educators can ask themselves two questions before they react with ingrained discomfort to any child’s question or comment regarding death:
· How would I treat this action/comment/question if it were not about death?
· What is the child really seeking by his or her action/comment/question? (Galen 1972)
If adults find children’s repeated questions about death disconcerting, they should keep in mind that it is very common and completely normal for children to ask the same questions over and over again. This doesn’t mean that the answers they give are inadequate, but rather that the children are seeking reassurance and trying to make the information fit their understandings (Cohn 1987). Children gain a sense of control by discussing their fears (Sandstrom 1999).
Creating a supportive classroom
The second function of the early childhood educator in death education is to promote a classroom atmosphere wherein the children’s feelings are accepted and supported. The teacher should emphasize to the children through words and actions that there is nothing too sad or too terrible to talk about with a caring adult. Sensitive acknowledgment and support greatly assist children in sorting out their many difficult emotions (Cohn 1987). Teachers must never minimize children’s feelings by distracting them or encouraging them to cheer up. The normal process of grieving is necessary if the child is to move on toward understanding a loss and resolving pain.
Educators must acknowledge grief with compassion and support. Providing extra comfort, reassurance, and security in the form of extra hugs, hand holding, and empathetic verbalizations is crucial. These efforts let a child know she is safe and that someone is there to care for her. The classroom structure and limits can bring a welcome feeling of normalcy to a grieving child. Emphasizing familiar routines, playing soothing music, using a calm voice – these strategies offer comfort as well as model coping skills a bereaved child can use (NAEYC 2001). They also show the other children appropriate ways to interact with their bereave classmate.
Teachers can anticipate children’s anger and plan activities that help them express and release their anger in healthy ways. Many elements of early childhood classrooms can serve as tension releasers for children dealing with overwhelming emotions. Children can channel physical energy into sensory experiences such as sand and water play or manipulating clay and playdough. Opportunities and materials for emotional expression abound in the dramatic play center, block area, and puppet theater.
Play is an effective means for a child to work through grief. More than a game, acting out death, dying, funerals, and associated feelings can greatly assist children in reducing anxieties. Death play, while not necessarily initiated by the teacher, should be supported rather than discouraged if it occurs spontaneously.
For example, a teacher might provide props and materials children can use to establish a veterinarian’s office. A doctor’s kit, stuffed animals, blankets, scales, and pictures of animals create a setting in which children can interact and discuss illness and death in a safe manner.
Grieving children can use these props to engage in play that helps them deal with some emotion-laden issues. Teachers observing the play can gain a better perspective of children’s progress through their grief “journey” (Greenburg 1996). Clear communication with parents supporting a grieving child’s need for these expressions is essential (see “talking to families”).
Offering developmentally appropriate death education
The third function of the educator’s role is to provide developmentally appropriate learning opportunities that discuss death (Crase & Crase 1995). There is great value in teaching young children about death before it enters their lives in an intimate way. Children exposed gradually to small doses of frightening or sad experiences may be able to work through them successfully (Ketchel 1986). Extending this understanding helps prepare children for other more personal losses.
Classroom activities and experiences that can help children understand death in developmentally appropriate ways include something as simple as having live plants in the classroom. Children can help care for the plants, experiencing first hand that all living things share a need for food, water, and light. (See “Teaching about Death through the Life Cycle of Plants”)
Live pets reinforce these concepts also. When a classroom pet dies, teachers sometimes respond by shielding children from the death. Rather, this should be used as an opportunity to answer children’s questions and reinforce their understanding of the life cycle.
One first-grade classroom learned the lesson during a unit on hatching butterflies. (Hofschield 1991). The first of four butterflies to hatch was born with curled, malformed wings. The first-graders had many concerns and questions about the butterfly. The teacher channeled the children’s interest into a focus on disability awareness. The students became very protective of the butterfly, which they named Popcorn. They checked on Popcorn often, verbally encouraging him and feeding him with an eyedropper.
Later that week the children noticed that Popcorn was not moving. The teacher gently lifted him onto a tissue and sat down with the children. She explained that the butterfly had died. Together they talked about the learning and growing they had all experienced because of Popcorn. Some children cried. Later that day, the children buried Popcorn in the school yard, each taking an opportunity to say something about the butterfly.
Reflecting later on the experience, the teacher realized that not only had the children learned scientific knowledge from the butterfly unit, but they also had matured through the group discussions and subsequent individual journal entries in which they wrote about their feelings. In the following weeks the teacher saw the children become more thoughtful toward and accepting of those around them (Hofschield 1991). Perhaps the loss created a shared bond among the children, as well as teaching empathy and tolerance for others.
When the class rabbit died unexpectedly at one school, the teachers saw the opportunity to model mourning and assist children in processing an emotional loss (Winter 2000). The teachers sent a letter home (opposite page) to families in an effort to keep school and home discussions consistent.
Allowing children to watch the decay of something organic, such as a carved pumpkin or a piece fruit, is another way to help them gain a better understanding of what happens to living organisms after death (Miller 1996). The item, enclosed in a heavy zipper bag or other transparent container, can be examined every few days by the class, and the changes noted. It is important for teachers to emphasize the process of nature, rather than revulsion, when discussing the changes (Miller 1996).
Conclusion
While early childhood educators may wish to protect children from negative or painful experiences, they are also aware that one of their primary tasks is to help children deal with strong emotions in healthy ways. Perhaps at no other time is this responsibility as difficult as when a young child experiences loss through death. An early childhood educator who creates a safe atmosphere for children’s concerns, outlets for children’s strong emotions, and appropriate life cycle experiences in the classroom can foster resiliency and coping skills that will assist children during an initial loss and help strengthen them for a lifetime.
Preschoolers’ Grasp of the Concept of Death
Four subconcepts of death – finality, inevitability, cessation, and causality – are related to the thinking of a child in the preoperational stage. Finality refers to the understanding that once a living thing dies, it will never be alive again. Preschool children are unable to comprehend death’s permanence. A child may want to write or call the person who died in an effort to continue a physical relationship (Trozzi 1999). For example, after a tragic apartment fire left a young child dead, his classmates discussed the event. One child wasn’t sure just who had died. “Carlos comes to breakfast,” one of the other children assured him. “I’ll show you who he is when he comes to breakfast tomorrow.”
The concept of inevitability is knowledge that death will occur sometime to every living thing. Preschoolers usually deny the possibility of a personal death. They may see death as something avoidable or an event that happens only to others.