Question
What do young children understand about loss and death?
Answer
Understanding of Death: Infants and Toddlers
First of all, what's the understanding of death for infants and toddlers? To understand how they react, we need to understand what they understand. Infants and toddlers have little to no concept of death. They don't understand and don't have the cognitive ability to understand things such as permanency and other things related to death. They can sense change. There was a long period of time where we were told that infants and toddlers don't grieve, that they're okay because they don't have a concept of death and don't understand what's going on. I think we do a better job now of acknowledging that children at a very young age can sense change, especially if the main caretaker is gone or that person is grieving. When I say gone, it doesn't have to be death. If that person is deployed because of a military deployment, their infant or toddler is going to be able to sense and have the cognitive ability to understand that that person is no longer physically present with them. They are also going to react to the emotional distress of that caretaker.
Understanding of Death: Early Childhood
In early childhood, children start to think that death or loss is about separation, but they don't really understand permanency yet. Some kids start to, but in those younger, preschool years, they really don't understand that too much. They do love to know about the biological aspects of death. I'm sure you can relate to that with children's questions about how the body functions. That translates into understanding or wanting to understand how death works. Children at this age often think that death is sleep or because of that magical thinking at this age range, they think that maybe their thoughts, behavior, or feelings could have caused a death or some significant change. They definitely sense emotional distress in the people around them.
Mature Concept of Death
At what age do we get past this and start to understand and have a mature concept of death? The research tells us anywhere from four to 12 years, but typically by about age seven, most children have what we call a mature concept of death. Figure 1 shows some of the factors that go into that.
| Universality | Irreversibility | Non-functionality | Causality | Personal Mortality |
|---|---|---|---|---|
The understanding that all living things must die. | The understanding that once the physical body dies, it cannot be made alive again. | The understanding that once a living thing dies all of the typical life-defining capabilities of the living physical body cease. | An abstract and realistic understanding of the external and internal events that might possibly cause a death. | The child’s understanding of vulnerability to death. |
Figure 1. Factors contributing to a mature concept of death.
Children need to have the cognitive ability to understand these different factors including that death is universal, it's irreversible, and the body is nonfunctional once someone or something dies. They begin to understand the causality and that there may be events externally, such as accidents or things that happen to people, or internally, such as illnesses that can cause death. Because children understand all these things, they begin to understand a vulnerability to death and understand that, "Oh, okay, if my grandma died, then could my dad die? Oh, wait a minute, could I die, could this happen to me?" All of these factors come together and help children understand the permanency and the universality of death. Because of the personal mortality or mortality of other people around them and understanding that, sometimes we see anxiety increase a little bit or some separation issues.
This Ask the Expert is an edited excerpt from the course, Loss and Grief in Early Childhood, presented by Tami Micsky, DSW, MSSA, LSW, CT.
