This from “Death and Dying, Life and Living” (Page 346):

In our society, adults often wonder if they should talk to children about death, what they should say, and how they should act with children in death-related situations.  These questions arise in many ways:

Should we discuss death with children or teach them about loss and grief even before a death takes place?

What should we say to children after a death occurs?

Should we take children to funeral services?

Perhaps the most difficult of all questions of this type arise in situations in which adults (parents, family members, or care providers) are challenged by a child who has a life-threatening illnes and who is facing his or her imminent death.

One recent contribution to the discussions (Kreicbergs et al., 2004) described a study of Swedish parents whose child had died from cancer between 1992 and 1997.  Among the 561 eligible parents, 429 reported on whether they had talked about death with their child.  Results showed that more than a quarter of those who did not talk with their child about death regretted that they had not done so.  Similar regrets were reported by early half of the parents who had sensed that their child was aware of his or her imminent death.  By contrast, among the parents who had talked with their children about death, “No parent in this cohort later regretted having talked with his or her child about death (p. 1175).

The implications of this study suggest that, despite all of the challenges involved in talking to a child about death and even in the very demanding circumstances of a child facing his or her imminent death, it is most often better to go ahead with such conversations.  The main reason for this is that, as Rabbi Earl Grollman has often said, “Anything that is mentionable is manageable.”  Opening a line of communication with children is preferable to allowing them to try to cope on their own with incomplete or improperly understood information and the demons of their own imaginations.  In addition, a child who is able to have his or her concerns addressed in a thoughtful and loving way is a child who has someone he or she can trust when there is a need to look for a source of support.

On Friday, December 14th, Sandy Hook Elementary experienced a tragedy that is creating a new normal for the town of Newtown, Connecticut.

The very same day as the school shootings I worked a viewing at a small Mennonite church in Gap, PA.  As with most Mennonite churches, the pastor is bi-vocational.   This specific pastor works as a part-time pastor and full-time salesman for an agricultural feed company.  The area that he covers includes Bart Township, the same area that experienced the Amish school shootings in 2006.

We walked in to the church, set up the casket and flowers and I broke the news to the pastor about the shootings in Newtown, Connecticut.  His countenance fell as he immediately connected the Sandy Hook shooting to the Amish School shooting.  “I’ve been the salesman there for years.  All the Amish families are my friends.  Just the other day one of the mothers who lost a daughter told me she’s reminded of her daughter every time she sees children coming home from school.”

This, like all tragedy, finds a life of its own.  Friday, December 14^th marks the first day of a new normal for Newtown, Connecticut.  In many ways, this new normal is a sad birth.  In this blog post, I want to look at the practical side of how the next couple days and weeks will look for Newtown.

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TRAUMA RESPONSE: Thankfully, there are professionals who are being tasked this very moment in setting up response teams.  The American Red Cross, various hospice programs and the American Psychological Association all have large scale trauma response teams who are trained to counsel children and parents in psychological and bereavement support, organize support groups and guide the community back to some type of semblance.  The response teams will evaluate, support, offer guidance and help as the children, parents and teachers begin this dark journey.

Children do grieve.  As long as there are relationships formed, there’s grief.  And while the general public is not very adept at understanding a child’s ability to grasp death, those from the APA, Red Cross and hospice programs are.  All the children will experience traumatic grief (CTG), many will experience post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and the hope will be that these children, like the youth from Columbine, will bond together and find deep fellowship in their grief, sorrow and pain.

Pragmatic questions like, “When do we restart school?” and “When should I go back to work?” will be guided by these wonderful angels from the response teams.

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BODY IDENTIFICATION AND FAMILY NOTIFICATION:  By deduction, the families know whether or not their son or daughter, husband or wife is dead by the simple fact that they didn’t come home.  But, their son or daughter, husband or wife may be so … that the bodies have yet to be identified.

Some families may be called into the hospital to visually identify their loved ones, other bodies may be too distorted and will need to be identified through other, more technical means.  All the bodies will be studied, some autopsied, some given for organ donation and one – the shooters – will be looked upon with contempt by all who view him.

Once identified, the families will start the funeral arrangements.

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These police were apparently some of the first on the scene of the Newtown shootings.

FUNERAL ANNOUNCEMENTS:  There’s only one funeral home in Newtown, Connecticut. And while I doubt the Honan Funeral Home will bury all the victims and the shooter, they will probably bury many of them.  From what I can tell by the obituary section on their website, the Honan Funeral Home is not a very large funeral home.  In fact, they’ve only advertised 12 obituaries in the past year.  They will need help as they could very well have twice their yearly volume in one week.  And thankfully, per this article, other surrounding funeral directors are offering their help to Honan.

Any funeral home and funeral director who works with these families will need their own type of support over the months to come.  Most of us don’t enter this business because we’re cold hearted; rather, we enter it because we’re generally big hearted.  These tragedies hurt us as well.  Embalming the body of an elementary school student that has been autopsied and shot is enough to permanently disturb anyone, including a seasoned funeral director.

Questions of “how will this family pay for this funeral?” are likely taken off the table, either by the funeral director’s generosity or by nonprofits like Bury a Child (run by my friend Nancy Burban, who lives in a neighboring town) who are already donating caskets and raising funds for funeral expenses of the children (UPDATE: Per Nancy, all the funds have been raised to cover the funeral expenses of the victims).

Police and other first responders will carry a burden that no man or woman should ever carry.  They have seen images no one should ever see.

Pastors, too, will experience many sleepless nights as they prepare words for an unspeakable event.

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THE NEAR FUTURE: The funerals will be large, sad and no doubt full of horrible theology explaining how we can’t question God, how God will turn this into good, etc.  Yet, despite the horrible theology, many churches will find themselves full.  Churches will comfort some families.  The community will become more closely knit.  Memorials and monuments will be built to honor the memory of the children and the teachers.  School will eventually reconvene.  On December 14^th, 2013 CNN will hold a special marking the one year anniversary of the shootings.  And in five years the world will forget.

But the pain will linger.  The grief will remain in the hearts of the parents and their families.  Time will not heal these wounds.  This is the new normal for Newtown, Connecticut.

Here’s the description of the following Sesame Street scene:

The actor who played Mr. Hooper on Sesame Street, Will Lee, died. The Sesame Street people decided to let the character die too, and used it as an opportunity to teach children about death.

This clip demonstrates how to treat death in an honest and helpful way better than any evasive or euphemistic gibberish I’ve heard from allegedly mature people.

Grab some tissues and hit play:

I joined a forum at HuffPost Live the other day.  They called me a couple hours before the forum started to see if I’d be willing to add my funeral director’s perspective.  I was not entirely prepared (which was evident in the final question they asked me towards the end of the convo).

Otherwise, it was a great conversation and an honor to be included with other respectable persons in their fields.  The article we are discussing is “Letting Children Share in Grief” from the New York Times.

I cried when Mufasa died.

And Disney’s “Old Yeller” messed me up for like a month.

Yup.  Disney pretty much took away my death virginity.

In fact, Disney has effectively taken away the death virginity of multiple generations.  And they do it so subtly too.  One minute you are watching a movie that has been made for you.  Life is good.  Cartoons are dancing across your TV screen, singing happy songs about the circle of life and the whole time it’s a set up.  A set up to pull you in and steal away your virginity.

Now, they are stealing away the death virginity of a new generation with their “The Odd Life of Timothy Green.”

I have to admit that when I saw the trailer for “The Odd Life of Timothy Green”, I didn’t want to see it.  Not because it looking poorly written or poorly produced, but because of the emotional nature of the story: A couple who can’t have kids miraculously finds a boy named “Timothy Green”.  I’ve grown wise to that cunning Walt Disney.

After watching the video below (spoiler alert), I’m pretty certain I will shield my tender soul from this movie.

Watch as Disney steals the death virginity from these unsuspecting children.

Death, though, isn’t something that we CAN protect our children from.  It is a part of life.  A part of life that we can either ignore, or we can learn to find the life that exists in death.

Here are a few helpful tips that I’ve gathered from three separate Counseling journals about how to help your children grieve:

• When death happens, have a close relative, preferable a parent, tell the child about it immediately.
• Understand that children do indeed grieve, can comprehend loss and experience grief processes.
• Stay close to the child, giving them physical affection.
• Let the child see you grieve; it gives them permission to grieve on their own.  “It will help the child to see the remaining parent, friends and relatives grieve.  Grief shared is grief diminished…if everyone acts stoically around the child, he or she will be confused by the incongruity. If children get verbal or nonverbal cues that mourning is unacceptable, they cannot address the mourning task.”
• Avoid euphemisms such as, “passed on,” “gone away,” “departed”.  In and of itself, the concept of death is difficult enough for a child to understand; using euphemisms will only add to the difficulty.
• Advise the child to attend the funeral, but do not force him or her to go.
• Gently help the child grasp the concept of death.  Avoid vague explanations to the child’s questions, but answer each question as honestly as possible.
• Keep other stressing situations, such as moving or changing schools to a minimum; after the ceremonies, continue child’s regular routines.
• Be honest with the child about the depth of the pain he or she will feel.  “You may say, ‘this is the most awful thing could happen to you.’ Contrary to popular belief, minimizing the grief does not help.

Based on the above tips, how would you answer the question, “Should I bring my child to a funeral?”