For centuries, death and being mortal has been talked about and has been the subject of many movies and books. Death is an irreversible phenomenon. Since the first years of life, human beings struggle to survive. From the moment a baby is born, his only thought is to survive, and for this he enters a struggle for life starting from infancy. Babies cry to survive and send signals to their parents. Being able to read these signals accurately and well enough will help to meet the needs of the baby simultaneously and the baby will experience the belief that he can survive. Fear of death is a fear that starts from the moment the baby is born and will continue throughout his life.
Facing many losses during the current pandemic process has undoubtedly made the fear of death more visible. The losses experienced, the worries of getting sick and experiencing loss have mobilized the most primary emotions all over the world. Children were relatively more affected than adults in this process. While the child's mind is still trying to make sense of what this concept is, death has settled very close to the lives of many children. Undoubtedly, it has become even more difficult for adults to explain this phenomenon to children, which is equally challenging.
In order to talk about death with children, it will be necessary to understand at what age and how they see this phenomenon.
Children 4 Until the age of 5, he is in an animistic, magical and egocentric stage. In the necessity of this period, everything is for them and they cannot distinguish between the inanimate and the living, they think that whatever comes to their mind will come true. The child thinks he will lose his mother 'because he is a bad boy'. He can attribute the situations that developed during this period of intense guilt 'because of me' to himself. The child may fantasize about the disappearance of his mother or father or someone from his life due to his anger, but under normal conditions, the person who goes will come back. What goes in death does not come back. The child is waiting for the one who does not come back with the phantasy of "gone and future" because going and coming is a concrete action. Just like the game of hide and seek, someone will definitely find the hiding child or the parents who go to work will definitely come back. When the child sees that the person he wants to 'disappear' does not come back, he becomes 'my life'. He/she will get into the thought of “out of the blue” and it will be possible to experience intense guilt. For this reason, it is important to say that the person who leaves will not come back when the concept of death is explained to the children of this period. 'he has gone to a far away place and will never come again'
It can be shocking to say that the person who died in children of this age is under the ground. Since the child will think that the person under the ground is cold, hungry and alone in the concrete stage, this information may increase the anxiety level of children.
This concept can also be explained to 4-5 year old children with a wilting plant or a dying animal. . ‘Ayse, look, the flower is dead, that is, it is dead. This is the case with living things, they are born, grow up, live and die, and we can no longer see the dead. Generally, the end of life span is also an appropriate expression to use to describe death. Like, "Your father died because his life span was over and no one knows when this period will end". Although there are many sources and information about the presence of children in cemeteries, funerals or condolence environments in this period, the opinion that these environments are not suitable for children before the age of 6 is intense. Some rituals still continue to be performed in the presence of children in Anatolian lands. Adults convey what they know to children, and try to comfort both themselves and the child, like 'he became an angel, went to heaven'. However, the important thing here is that the person who will explain the loss should not deny the truth and should make the child feel safe and with him/her while explaining the loss, and that he/she should catch the reactions that develop in the child. They may begin to understand the loss but will continue to fear that it may happen to them and their loved ones. They think that only the old, the sick, and the wicked will die.
Death and Mourning
A period of mourning occurs after death. The first reaction during the grieving period is the shock response. Sudden and unexpected death May cause a shock response. Heavy losses can rekindle fears of abandonment and feelings of helplessness. With these complex emotions, the stage of shock may also vary according to the people who have experienced the loss. Everyone's response to loss is different, just like fingerprints. During the shock process, unresponsiveness, freezing and ignoring may also occur. The period after the shock is followed by the anger period. The person who has experienced the loss will enter into a process of anger, self-blame and denial of death, unable to cope with the absence of the deceased. The last phase is the goodbye/acceptance phase of the loss. After the loss, the person will enter the phase of identification with the deceased and may want to disguise himself as something like him. This identification phase can also be a phase of coping with loss. Wearing the favorite tie, visiting places, and acting like it are examples of apparent identification behaviors.
Children do not experience the mourning process like adults until they are 9 years old. While the stage of reactions to loss in children at the age of 9 and after is almost the same as in adults, the reactions to loss in children before the age of 9 are manifested with sadness and anxiety. /p>
Children may choose to show it through games while trying to make sense of grief. In their game, they can often try to heal the process by having the person they lost come back, or by burying them in the ground or hiding them and finding them. Difficulty separating from parents, inability to cope with distress and crying, intense fears and tantrums, behaviors belonging to the lower stages of their age (regression), sleep problems, eating disorders, reluctance to school, sometimes in preschool children as grief manifests itself with anxiety. difficulties in socialization, sudden and reactive reluctance towards the things they love.
Sometimes, children have difficulties in dealing with the mourning period of their parents. For this reason, intense anger may also arise in order to mourn the mother or father. Children have difficulty in making sense of situations at the adult level, but they internalize every moment. A person in intense mourning (for example, maternal depression y or negative dynamics that appear as a result of mental strains) will push children to other behavioral changes that they will use for their survival. In this process, observing the child and following his changing behaviors will also make it easier to understand the grief in children and to support them. If the mother or father is in an intense mourning phase, the perception of 'you are safe' to the child must be created by another adult, the child should not be ignored in this period, the child should not be blamed for his regressive (regressive) behaviors, and the adult should not be expected to support him, and suppressing his feelings should be prevented. Children are not responsible creatures that can support an adult.
Dear parents, almost all of us have suffered a lot of loss during the Covid-19 process we are in. We have seen both one-to-one losses and more losses than the press. There have been processes in which social areas and financial losses have occurred. Like the whole world, all of us have an increased anxiety and concern for survival, and we have to face many suppressed despairs and fears. Our accustomed behaviors had to change, we got angry, angry and searched for a meaning. Somehow we had normal reactions to an abnormal situation. Both the covid process and the losses triggered our perceptions of uncanny and insecurity. Although we, as adults, try to get through this process as best we can, children were exposed to this process with more negativities than we did, and they lost their social space. Anxiety levels have risen too much and some have had a hard time controlling it. We are in a year where we understand the importance of closeness to each other in order to survive this global process in a good enough way in terms of both physical and mental health. To more peaceful and happy days, where you can stay as close and related as possible with your children and get through with health…
Psychologist Gonca Cihan
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