Death is the natural thing that happens to all living things. Everybody reacts to the loss of someone they love or care about. However, at different ages people react differently when somebody dies. For a child to understand death, the concept of death has to be formed in a child’s mind. The concept of death means that death is universal, inevitable, irreversible, and that there is no physical existence after death. The whole concept of death is being developed in a human being through the time and consequently the complete understanding of this concept depends on personal development.
One of the greatest Swiss developmental psychologists Jean Piaget after the decades of studies concluded that all children have uneven but gradual development of their sophistication and that every stage has to have its own time. The first goes first and only then the second stage can develop. Piaget divided all of the development into four main stages: 1) sensorimotor, 2) preoperational, 3) concrete operational and 4) formal operational.
When a baby is born he or she enters the sensomonitor stage of development. During this stage a baby discovers the world through grasping, smelling, sucking, and other primitive actions. These actions however have no significant results for overall development of a baby’s worldview. At the age of one month babies learn to realize the shape of objects. Being five month old babies can acquire information with their hands. At this point of time things only exist when babies see them. As soon as the object disappears it is out of an infant’s mind. The most important thing that impacts the understanding of death and dying, when a baby is in sensorimotor stage, is the concept of object permanence. This concept means that objects continue to exist after they disappear from the sight. Piaget first noticed this phenomenon in 1952 when he took away some object from babies younger than eight months there was no reaction by the babies which greatly supports the theory that babies at this age do not have the concept of object permanence developed. Thus, babies can only start realizing loss of someone when they have the concept of object permanence developed. During the second year of life children begin to realize that people that surround them and disappear sometimes do not stop existing. The second year is also a very important period in developing symbols and associating them with some objects.
The next stage in the development is the preoperational stage. According to Piaget we are in this stage in the age from two to six. During this period we learn to reason things intuitively without full understanding how things work, according to some magical things. At this age kids develop their symbolism, they view made up monsters as death. During this phase of development kids are usually self-centered which means that there are only them and the world is turning around them. Another feature of this stage is the concept of conservation which means that properties of the object do not change as the forms of the object change. “Piaget believed that both object constancy and conservation mark the beginning of a major advance in cognitive development, one that lasts until the age of 11 or 12.” Preschoolers view death as separation from them. Most children of this age feel grief when they lose somebody but they do not understand the whole concept of death yet. They picture death not as a permanent thing. When playing cops and robbers kids shoot each other with toy guns and the shot one falls imitating death and quickly gets up. By doings this they show their view of death as temporary and partial.
The third stage of cognitive development is concrete operational stage. This stage starts when we are about seven years old. It is when we begin to reason logically. During this stage the magical thinking still exists and the death is viewed as some scary skeleton that is going to kidnap and kill them. Between ages six and ten children think that they can cheat death which shows that they do not understand the universality of death yet. The mature understanding of death starts when children are about ten years old. The fact that the suicide among children of ages from 5 to 14 is present highlights that children do not fully understand the concept of death. Children simply do not see the number of possibilities in the future that is also the reason why the suicide among children happens.
The next and the final stage of Piaget’s cognitive development is formal operational stage. At this stage children obtain a possibility of logical and abstract thinking. By the age of ten we start to understand that death will take part sometime in our bodies, and by understanding this we agree that we will also die some day. The main idea of Piaget’s theory and all his studies is that adults are able to understand death whereas children can not.
According to the psychodynamic point of view, the point when a child starts to realize that he or she will die or another one will die is another facet of the sense of self. Another great scholar Sigmund Freud spent a great deal of time on studying the development of children. He also found out that as a child gets more sophisticated he or she differentiates others from his or herself.
“According to Margaret Mahler’s theory the newborn’s subjective world is initially self-absorbed.” Only by the age of two and a half to three a child achieves a sense of his or her separation from others. The organization of an emotional dimension to the sense of self is called libidinal object constancy. Mahler calls this stage as the psychological birth of an infant. From this point of view infants do not have a formed understanding of death but they emotionally react to the caregiver disappearance.
According to Easson a very young child is a part of the parent –child relationship and that is why the child responds to the feelings of his or her parents. At this age fatally ill children do not realize that they will die soon, therefore they do no get too much upset. They only get upset when they see their caregivers being sad over them. Parents should talk to little kids about death but it is very understandable that no parent wants to do it. Most mothers find it very challenging to talk about particular death of a particular child as probably they can relate such a situation with their own families. It’s a big problem for them and they choose to leave this subject without discussion although I believe that children need to know more about death so that to be better prepared and understanding for their future.
People undergo different stages of development throughout their life, not only in childhood as Freud’s theory states. According to other psychological theorist Erik Erikson believes in life-span developmental psychology which states that people differentiate and become overall different with the new crises and challenges in life. Erikson says that with each new decision people make they become more developed and each subsequent decision in their life would be based in part on that former decision with a previous experience in mind. On the other hand is the previous decision was a wrong one, the decision as to the new task can be held back as people could be afraid of possible outcomes of such decision. They look back and see an unpleasant experience and this makes them think of a bad result in whatever they do. This situation can be observed in everyday life of almost each person.
The scientific proof of those situations can be found in the Erikson’s four stages of infancy and childhood, involving conflicts and challenges. The first stage a child undergoes when he or she interacts in the first years of life with the parents and external environment. In case when “psychological, security, and belongingness needs are generally met”, children become more trusting. Their inner sense of security grows stronger and they acquire a belief for a good future because as they have learned they can predict their environment to some extent. Totally opposite effect the mistrusting feelings have on children. They become anxious and defensive, they have no belief in their future security. I think this first stage of a child’s life is of great importance and it forms his or her comprehension of life as a whole for years to come. The second stage in a child’s development although rather physical has a huge psychological impact on his or her life. In this stage child learns to walk and to hold things, this allows him or her to develop a sense of “doing something independently “, if those attempts fail, child may and probably will feel ashamed and somehow mistreated. I believe in this stage parents should encourage children to try doing things on their own and if something is a challenge help them without being pushy and aggressive. In that way children will feel welcome and cared for rather then rejected by their own parents, in return they will acquire more confidence in what they do in their future life.
Third stage that takes place between the ages of 3 and 6 is the logical continuation of the second stage. When kids get very active they want their parents not to get too involved in their activities. Parents’ role at this time is rather of a spectator, of course to a certain degree. Children have to feel the sense of being taking an initiative themselves and being able to take and resolve new challenges. This again would give them a feeling of ability and self worth, if this doesn’t happened a child will develop a sense of guilt and resentment from the society. Examples of such children are numerous unfortunately and they would have been avoided if parents new about this problem in time. The fourth and the last stage in child’s development according to Erikson lays during the years 6 and 7. This final state means that children have to learn to act like a full grown ups and adjust to the rules and norms of the world of grown ups. I think that at first especially, children may feel lost and very challenged by a quickly changing and difficult world of adults. And of course if children are not on the same page with the rest of their external environment they become stressed and helpless. This causes them to be closed and feel inferior to their peers, which in later years results in poor performance of most tasks they do. Consequently, this fourth stage is so to speak the last chance of a child to be fully accepted by the outside world and to become adjusted to its rules and functioning schemes. On the other side this is the stage when one finally decided if the world is a nice place to be in or a dangerous place and one has to protect himself or herself from any influences from outside.
The feeling of rejection a child may acquire throughout those four stages of development, will most probably result in sense of inferiority as I have already mentioned. It could grow into a very extreme feeling of self hatred and unworthiness, which in turn may lead to suicidal thoughts and even suicide itself. I think that this situation can be prevented by careful observation of such children and by encouraging them to perform whatever they wish by themselves and helping them when really needed. Constant care and advice could do a lot for these children and their psychological problems should never be neglected.
The approach to children’s development on the basis of step-by –step theories are contradicted by a different version called “the humanistic existential perspective”. It claims that children regardless of how many stages they have gone through of years 3 and older have a sense of grief and loss that is formed altogether from what their experiences were, their environment, family bonds, cultural experiences. And some children can comprehend death much earlier than indicated by the Erikson’s theory for instance. Humanistic approach also says that each situation is very individual and everything must be taken into consideration, although children do have a strong emotional reaction to the loss of people they have known.
Another scientist claims her own theory as well. Myra Bluebond-Langner researched the behaviors of dying children in early ages, and came to a conclusion that age-based and stage-based development theories at times are non applicable to children who know that they will dye soon. As her research shows, these children not only feel but also understand that their time on earth is limited and they have to get a lot of things done. They behave as adults already, without undergoing a step-by-step growth like most people do. I think it’s a result of a deep stress that causes them to understand and feel more deeply things that take other people years. Very strong feeling such as fear, loneliness, anxiety, fear, and sadness leads children to such understanding of their own life and probably approaching death. They are exposed to all these negative experiences in the hospitals where they have to go through their medical treatment, where they have to undergo surgeries and other very unpleasant and often painful intrusions. They are losing control over physical abilities and become angry with everything because they are no longer masters of their own bodies. With irritation come sadness because of the loss of their previous abilities. It’s very painful not only for children but for their families, as they have to suffer as much as the ill ones. I think it’s a great trauma for the whole family and leave a deep print in lives of people who had to overcome death of a child.
Dying children as was mentioned earlier become isolated and distanced not only from their friends from school but from their immediate family as well. This happens because of parents often choose to keep silent about true consequences and causes of the illness and thus children become distanced and mistrusting. Adults do not let children talk about a lot of aspect of life such as “their feelings and fears, their hopes and despairs, life and death” (French psychiatrist Ginette Raimbault, pg.162), thus they take away from them whatever fun they could have, especially for a dying child who has lost hope. Only talking about hope could help him or her feel encouraged and not desperate.
Every child is unique regardless in what he or she does, the same is with living and dying. Each child will behave differently and parents have to be ready to be flexible and caring in any case. I think they have to be very patient with dying children not to hurt them even more and encourage them in all they do and feel, let them talk and try to listen them and respond to them in a way they expect. I believe this will make their days on earth more pleasant if there any chance for a pleasant moment in their situation.
So far I was writing about the death of young children and their reaction to their own illness. However, there is also another very important situation which can influence child’s life immensely, it is the death of someone close, a family member, a friend, or pet. The strongest effect of course on a child is death of a parent or a grandparent, which later causes feelings of despair, protest against society and detachment when child becomes uninterested in anyone surrounding him or her. Moreover, grieving children may acquire not only emotional problems but also a number of physical malfunctions. I have to note, however, that children from stable families suffer from parent’s death less then those who were stressed all along by an unstable family.
“Hyperactivity and difficulty controlling emotions” (pg.166) is also normal for children in grief and they should express their feelings how they wish to, it’s normal, although parents have to pay attention to a constant physical problems. If such happen a child needs professional help. Slightly different reactions are observed in children with a loss of as sibling. Birenbaum and Robinson (pg. 167) investigated this question and came to a conclusion that children with dying siblings show more problems living in society than kids from normal families. Also they found out that most children could tolerate less attention to them from parents IF they know what is happening to their brother or sister. Thus, I again come to a conclusion that children have to know the causes of the situation that they are in now, for them to make up their mind as to how to behave. Involving them in this process will let them learn easier how to cope with their grief and to understand death better.
Death of a parent or a sibling is not the only stressful lose that a child can experience. The death of pet is another loss that is not a mere “emotional dress rehearsal” like some people think. It is believe that very young kids do not get too attached to pets and thus do not grieve much, on the contrary children of school age understand the loss and get angry when pets leave them, because they had already established a sort of close relationship with them. For a child it’s an important issue, unfortunately it is not yet profoundly researched, to detect any concrete behavior patterns of children who have lost their pets.
The issues of death as a phenomenon can only be understood deeply by people, no only by children, only when people come to understanding then death is a termination of a physical form of existence. One has to comprehend that their loved ones or even themselves will be separated soon forever, because of death. I think that weather it will be a step-by-step learning or an abrupt experience, it only can be fully understood when it actually happens. After that time has to pass, so that the person can look at it in perspective of years after death, and then, I believe he or she can conclude what death is and how to deal with it.
