Fear of death is one of the main human fears. In children of senior preschool age it is especially pronounced. Psychologists are sure that the fear of death is instinctive, just like the desire to live. It is laid down by nature itself. What is its reason?
Children aged 5-7 years are actively exploring the world and inevitably encounter abstract concepts and philosophical categories that they cannot explain to themselves, including the death of friends and loved ones. Death means the unknown, and the unknown is always scary. It scares not only preschool children, but also adults themselves.
How does a child's fear of death manifest?
By the age of four or five, carefree children suddenly begin to think about questions of the universe. They come to understand that they will not live forever, that there is also death. In this regard, children have various fears: attacks by strange monsters, darkness, fires, etc. All of them personify the basic fear of death.
First of all, it manifests itself in nightmares and whims with the onset of darkness. “There is nothing unnatural about this,” any practicing psychologist will answer parents. “This is an absolutely normal and natural stage of development.”
Complications
The main complications of phobias are emotional disturbances and social maladjustment. As the obsessive fear progresses, the restrictive behavior spreads to cover a wide range of familiar situations. In an effort to maintain a comfortable state, the child (teenager) reduces and “simplified” everyday activities: refuses to walk in the park, streets with active traffic, does not show the initiative to communicate with peers, or participate in school events. In severe cases, the space is limited to the child's room and the constant presence of the parent is required. Associated emotional disorders include depression and anxiety.
Children's interest in death
The topic of death not only frightens older preschoolers, but also arouses genuine interest in them. It first appears in a child by the age of four, when boys and girls simply begin to bombard adults with their questions: “Grandfather died?”, “Grandmother died?”, “Are you going to die?”, “Am I going to die too?”
A conversation with a child about death is inevitable, although in many nations it is considered taboo and frightens adults, who do not always have ready-made answers. But psychologists believe that it will be easier for a child to realize his fear and overcome it if his parents talk openly with him about this topic.
Tips for parents
Parents' help in overcoming their anxiety lies not only in moral support for their child, but also in preparing his personality for social life
It is important to teach him a certain culture of behavior and interaction with others. The fact is that psychology is a versatile science, and all parents who want to raise a mentally healthy child should know its basics.
Therefore, it is important for every mother and father to take advantage of the following advice from psychologists:
- It will be easier to deal with social fears if a teenager learns to make eye contact with people. Parents should remind their children of this more often, involving them in contact at home. It will be easier for the child to find contact with people in the future.
- The different options for starting and ending a conversation should be explained. Systematic training (even in the form of a game), with greetings and farewells, will make the child more relaxed.
- All conditions should be created for the child to have friends. Any unobtrusive help will be useful.
Psychologists also advise changing your attitude towards children.
A teenager may feel insecure due to the lack of the right to vote, the right to his own opinion and privacy.
Conversation with a preschool child about death
Forming a correct understanding of life and death falls on the shoulders of parents. How to talk to a child about death and answer the stream of children’s questions that arise? In preschool age, children tend to animate everything and attribute human traits to any object, giving them a special meaning, so it is better to construct a conversation in a form accessible to the child - fairy tales.
The image of a lost loved one for a child can be compared to a butterfly, flower or bee. The beginning can be standard: “Once upon a time...”, and then the child himself will take an active part in creating a fairy tale story and help the adult with his leading questions.
Even an unbeliever can invent and tell a story that a person died having done only good deeds, but his memory continues to live in the hearts of his loved ones. If it’s difficult to write a fairy tale, then you can simply tell a story from your own childhood.
The conversation can also be serious, as if you were talking to your friend. Even if a child does not know some adult words, he will definitely intuitively understand their meaning.
In a serious conversation with a child, you should not use phrases such as “eternal sleep” and negative descriptions, which, on the contrary, can aggravate the child’s sleep problems and will not help overcome the emerging fear of death.
What to do to help your child and relieve him of fear
Even when a child starts talking about death at an early age, the main rule for parents is not to lie. In other words, if grief has occurred in the family, there is no need to say that the old relative is fast asleep - the child may begin to be afraid to fall asleep. It is also wrong to call death a long journey - the baby will wait and eventually wonder who is to blame for the fact that a loved one is absent for a long time. By the way, it is likely that he will blame himself: “I didn’t learn my lessons, so he doesn’t come back.” And this is already fertile ground for the development of complexes.
You need to talk to your child about the topic of death without guile.
All words and actions of adults must be coordinated and aimed at supporting the baby as he grows up.
- Any fear is a weakness of the nervous system, and in young children it is just being formed. So try to protect your baby from stress (quarrels in which he is even just an observer, watching TV - this is not useful under any circumstances, reading horror films, etc.). At the same time, your warmth, care and attention will make the child feel protected and supported by his parents.
- Don't gloss over the topic. That is, you should not avoid talking about death, no matter how unpleasant it may be for you. If grief has occurred in the family and it is difficult to talk about the loss, ask your loved ones to answer your child’s questions. The fact is that by discussing his fear, the little one gets used to it and stops being afraid.
- Do not discuss your feelings about death in front of your children. And even if it seems to you that the child does not hear it. In any case, he feels all the emotions and tries them on himself. Remember: as soon as you complain about a migraine, within a few hours the sympathetic little one begins to have a “severe headache.”
- Give your child new experiences to distract him. This could be a trip to the zoo, a trip to an amusement park, or an entertainment center. However, be careful: too much of a good thing is also bad, that is, overstimulation will not improve the baby’s mental state.
- Explain. The most correct interpretations of death would be old age or a very serious incurable illness.
- Don't leave your child alone with fear. This means that when a phobia manifests itself, you should not send your child to a summer health camp (even at sea he will not improve his mental health!), and if possible, it is better to avoid going to the hospital (most children associate this institution with unpleasant sensations).
- Focus your child on the future. In other words, dream with your little one about who he will become, what he will become, about his family, children. And be sure to talk and make plans for the present.
- Be prepared to continue to struggle with related problems. Usually the fear of death is accompanied by a fear of the dark, closed space, and loneliness. If you notice manifestations of these phobias in a child, then be sure to take action to eliminate them.
Techniques for dealing with fear
For a child, the complex concept of the finitude of life does not have the philosophical meaning characteristic of an adult understanding. So a simple explanation of the meaning of the word in the fight against fear is clearly not enough.
There is no point in explaining to your child the philosophical meaning of the flow and finitude of life; it is better to do it at his level
There are several techniques that child psychologists recommend to overcome a child’s fear of death:
- drawings. Let the baby visualize his fear. And then, together with it, tear the picture into small pieces and burn it in an ashtray;
- fairytale therapy. To begin with, it’s worth reading Andersen’s fairy tales that touch on the theme of death: “The Little Mermaid”, “Angel”, “The Red Shoes”, “Something”. It also makes sense to turn to stories written by fairy tale therapists, which are dedicated to getting rid of fear due to specific losses, for example, the death of a mother;
High, high in the mountains there was Green Lake. The water in it was always clean and cool. Fish and frogs lived in this mountain lake. The fish had golden and silver scales, and the frogs had beautiful green skin, exactly the same as the color of the water in the lake. But the most beautiful and greenest skin was that of a little frog named Kva-Simka. Five days ago, Kva-Simka turned from a small tadpole into a real frog, but he could already croak well and jump high. Grandma, dad and mom were very proud of the little frog and told everyone around how smart and good he was. Kva-Simka also loved his grandmother, father and mother very much and tried to be obedient and well-mannered. This was the most friendly frog family on the lake. Living on the lake was fun and calm. True, sometimes the wind blew onto the lake, raising dangerous waves, but then all the adult frogs and small frogs jumped out of the water and pressed themselves against large stones so that they would not be carried away by the wave into the middle of the reservoir. One night there was a very strong wind. He not only raised high and dangerous waves, but also tore down large stones in the mountains, which quickly rolled down to the lake. Almost all the frogs and little frogs, as always, jumped out of the lake and pressed themselves against the stones, but several frogs did not have time to do this, and a large stone fell on them from the mountain. During the wind, no one noticed what happened. And only when the wind died down did little Kva-Simka realize that his mother was nowhere to be found. He began jumping along the shore of the lake and calling her, but mother did not respond. Suddenly Kva-simka saw a large stone falling from the mountain, and a thin ray of golden light flowing from under it. The frog froze, he was scared and interested, his little heart was ready to jump out of his chest. The beam became thicker and larger until it finally turned into a frog. Kva-Simka immediately recognized his mother, but she was not the same as always. Her skin glowed silver and gold, and was not green, as usual. And wings also grew on her back - exactly like those of large butterflies, beautiful and colorful. Kva-Simka's mother looked like a sorceress. - Mom, is that you? - the frog asked uncertainly. “Yes, my dear,” answered the sorceress. - What happened to you, mom? Why did you become gold? Why did you grow wings? “I turned into an angel and should now fly high into the sky.” - I don't want you to be an angel. I won't let you in! - the frog shouted and cried bitterly. - Don't cry, Kva-Simka. “It’s great luck to turn into an angel after death, and not just lie under a big stone,” the angel mother reassured the frog. - And what about me? Who will love me? — Kva-Simka did not calm down. “I will love you in heaven, and on earth your grandmother, and your father, and your friends will love you, and many other frogs will love you.” - When will I see you again? - Kva-Simka asked in a calm voice. “I will come to you in your dreams, and we will play and have fun together.” I will also smile at you from behind a cloud, but this will be our secret. And now it’s time for you to return to grandma and dad, and for me to fly away. Goodbye, my beloved son. “Goodbye, mommy,” Kva-Simka answered and sadly walked home. But suddenly a mischievous breeze knocked the frog off his paws and onto his back. Kva-Simka accidentally looked at the sky and saw his angel mother smiling at him from behind a cloud. The little frog smiled back at her, quickly jumped up on his paws and happily jumped to grandma and dad. He had a big secret that only he and his angel mom knew about.
- dreams under an umbrella. Quite often, children who are afraid of death have nightmares at night. True, experts say that 1-2 scary visions per month in childhood is the norm. And yet, it is necessary to help eliminate dreams of such content. Tell your child a fairy tale about Ole Lukoje, make an umbrella out of cardboard and decorate it with colored appliqués. Every time you put your child to bed, open an umbrella over him so that the baby dreams only good, fairy-tale and colorful dreams.
Fairytale therapy is a very effective way to combat children's fears
What after death
One of the questions often asked by a child of senior preschool age in a conversation is “What after death?” This is why parents begin to get lost. In a deeply religious family, they will tell you about the delights of the afterlife, while others shrug their shoulders or avoid answering.
There is no need to shy away or be nervous, psychologists say. Children will quickly feel anxious.
The best way to answer this question is to use metaphors and metaphorical stories. For example, that a good fairy or a good wizard gave a person, in addition to the body, something else called the soul. And the soul continues to live after death. She lives in the good deeds of the deceased, his actions and the memory of loved ones.
Summarize
Fears are a normal teenage reaction to changes that occur in the mind and body. This is a difficult moment for a child.
It depends on how prosperous the family environment is: whether these fears will pass or whether they will remain with the person for life in the form of phobias, complexes and low self-esteem.
Therefore, parents must ensure a healthy atmosphere in the family. See your child as a person. Respect his opinion and monitor any fears in order to make timely adjustments and, if necessary, contact a specialist.
Material prepared by: Inna Klevacheva Cover photo: Depositphotos
How to tell your child about the death of a loved one
Young parents often have questions about how to report the death of a loved one so as not to hurt the child’s psyche. In this situation, there is no need to deceive the child and hide behind pre-prepared phrases that the beloved grandmother is in the hospital, but will soon recover and return, or that the beloved grandfather has gone far, far away on business, but will definitely return.
Children are very sensitive when people are insincere with them and begin to think things through, which can negatively affect the vulnerable child’s psyche. It is better to immediately tell the truth and explain everything in a word form that the child can understand, take him to church for a funeral service or take him to the grave of a deceased loved one.
Virtual death
In the modern world, any information is available even to a small child. Every home has the Internet and satellite television, which older preschoolers can quickly master. But not all the information received is useful for the development of a healthy child’s psyche.
Psychologists, teachers and doctors are big opponents of all kinds of “shooters” and violent films, which not only do not help to work through the fear of death, but also provoke many other unconscious fears.
When thinking about how to tell your child that life is not eternal and people die, try to remember your feelings, your emotions, how you yourself overcame the fear of death and what helped you overcome it. The sooner you talk to your child about his fear, the faster you will help him cope with it, the greater the chances that the baby will have the correct idea of both life and death.
