Where has my dad gone?

By John Muturi

Wanting to protect your child from all bad things in the world is something all parents want to do. However, some things are out of your control, for instance, the death of someone in the family.

You will not only have to deal with your own feelings, but you have a child to consider as well. And this is the child you are striving to protect from any conceivable bad thing and traumatic details of death are bad enough. It’s hard enough to break such bad news to an adult and even more difficult to a toddler and a young child. The dilemma is you’re not sure of their reaction and how much they will understand. The least you would want to do is upset him or her unnecessarily.

The mistake most parents make is using euphemisms. For instance, "Your dad has gone to sleep" or "He is up in the sky", which won’t mean much to a child because they take everything literally. He or she may assume they will see their dad when they look up to the skies. There is nothing wrong in explaining through the religious belief where dad has gone but taking into account the concept is difficult for the child to understand.

The information is better absorbed at the child’s pace if it is given in small doses at a time. You can start with, "I have bad news about your dad." The child may seem fidgety or uninterested, in which case you should let him go on with his or her business.

Explanations

Re-introduce the subject say like half an hour later. The best way is to hold the child on your lap and say, "I have some bad news — your dad has died," which may be an enough dose for the time being. Chances are he or she will come back with questions once the information has been processed.

Take the opportunity and tell him or her, "Your dad has died, which means he won’t be coming back to our home anymore." It’s important to repeat this explanation several times because toddlers and young children constantly need reminding, which of course can be difficult when you’re grieving yourself. On the other hand, you should expect the same questions from the child several times over, such as, "Mom, when is daddy coming back?" which will be hard to deal with since it will be a constant reminder for you that your husband is not coming back. You have to keep emphasising that he won’t come back and your child will eventually come to accept it though it will take some time and constant explanations.

Handling the child’s emotions

The child might not react and the first thing that comes to a parent’s mind is that the child is okay because he isn’t saying anything. Experts however say this is because the child can’t explain verbally how he or she is feeling. Your first instinct is to throw a protection ring around the child. What he or she needs is to talk about the death and be allowed to express his or her emotions.

Similarly, your child may show mixed emotions where one second he or she may be crying and the next playing happily around the house. There is no need to worry about it, experts say, because toddlers are prone to getting in and out of emotions with ease — known as ‘puddle jumping’ — and which is a normal behaviour.

Since the child can’t fully grasp the idea of death, he or she will have some concept of separation but basically only on the level that someone has left the room depending on his or her age. Experts explain that three to five year-olds are at least able to know that somebody has gone away permanently. Those aged between six and nine have began to think about the finality of death and by the age of 12, they can understand its finality.

Anger is a common conduit through which the child, just like an adult, may express his or her emotions about the death. If this happens, you need to soothe and make him or her feel safe for instance by saying you too feel sad and angry. By doing this, you are giving a face and meaning to what the child is feeling and this will help the child understand what he or she is going through.

It is normal for children to blame themselves when something bad happens. It is therefore important that you carefully explain to him or her what caused dad’s death, and that it was nobody’s fault. It is also important to relate the death to something familiar — for instance when the cat dies, tell him or her that the cat has died like dad. This way he will be able to understand as time goes by.

Funeral

Often, parents hide their emotions form the children to protect them from the grief but experts say this just does the opposite. The child, at whatever age is very quick to pick his or her parent’s moods and vibes so pretence will not work.

Being honest with the child is what will help, for instance, "Mom is sad because daddy is not around anymore." The child will find this easier to deal with than confining yourself to the house and secretly mourning which will make him or her feel isolated and more anxious.

Majority of us feel having a toddler or a young child in the funeral is traumatising but the truth is excluding him or her when the whole family is involved will do more harm. The way forward is to hand him or her over to a close friend so that you can fully participate in the funeral without worrying about them. What you shouldn’t do is force them to do what they don’t want, for instance viewing the body.

There is no grief that time does not heal, so once you feel healed enough, you and your child can have a small memorial for instance, by looking at his or her dad’s photos and talking about happy times with him when he was around. It will also help him or her to remember dad by visiting the grave. You can take flowers and talk about good times you all had when he was alive.