How to teach children about death and grieving

Eventually all children will encounter grief when someone close to them dies. Katy Gosset asks: What can parents do to help them through it?It might be a grandparent who's enjoyed a long life. But also, it might not. Accidents happen and death is part of life so, as Katy Gosset learns, we'd better teach our kids to cope with it. Subscribe free to Are We There Yet? on iPhones: iTunes, RadioPublic or Spotify. On Android phones: RadioPublic or Stitcher.Laura's * father died unexpectedly this year. She found herself crying openly around her children, aged just two and four."They saw me at my best and they saw me at my worst and I felt OK with that, whereas I probably would hide it from other people."Still, they needed to know what was going on, so Laura and her husband decided to be upfront about the circumstances" go "Oh where's Grandad gone? What happened ?" "Well, Grandad was sick and he unfortunately died." "We talked to them quite openly about what had happened, identified feelings that we were having," she said."So they could see that, when Mummy is sad, she is sad because Grandad has passed away."It was factual, yet age-appropriate information, including that he had died at home of pneumonia.Laura believed being honest allowed her children to process his death and apply what they'd learnt to other situations." might see a dead bird and go "Oh, the bird's died like Grandad. Mummy, when are you going to die ?" So we had some quite deep conversations."Clinical psychologist, Catherine Gallagher said, in order to cope with grief, children first needed to confront it."Somewhere along the way we've been sold a line that life should not have pain in it and that bad things shouldn't happen to good people."This, she believed, was far from the truth."Life will and should expose us to positive and negative experiences as we grow because, otherwise, how do we learn ?"Ms Gallagher said parents often felt they should protect their children from sad or difficult experiences."The pain of others, especially if they're our children, feels really uncomfortable and distressing and so we often rush to problem solve, "It'll be OK."Yet she said pain could not leave people until it had been acknowledged and validated and those affected needed to get help rather than trying to avoid it."For parents this means we actually need to let our kids feel upset and then support them."It was also important for children to take part in the grieving process alongside their families, she said…Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details