by Mere

Created on: May 29, 2009   Last Updated: May 30, 2009

I don't have the credentials of a child psychologist, nor do I have the education to be one. However, I am of the camp that believes that it is permissible to take children under ten to funerals. These are my feelings, thoughts, and personal reflections.

Death is an every day thing. It happens to every family some time or another. None of us are exempt. Children need to be taught reality in an honest way. Tell them the corpse is merely a shell. Depending upon your spiritual convictions explain to them what your post death beliefs are.

When my husband had a fatal heart attack without warning our daughter was eleven and our son was almost ten at the time. It was in the hours of the evening that we received the heartbreaking news that my husband had passed away at his office late in the afternoon. Being Christians, both children, as young as they were, expressed immediately they knew where their daddy was now.

The next morning the first thing our son said to me that daddy was with Jesus and his father. (The children never had a chance to meet their paternal grandfather. He had passed away before they were born.) Ironically, just three days prior to my husband's death he and our daughter had a conversation about death. He told her that he wanted to be with his family, but if God called him, he would go with Him.

Of course the children sobbed profusely when they saw their daddy in his coffin for the first time. However, allowing them to be part of the funeral helped to give them closure for such a traumatic event in their young lives. As the days and months passed it was not unusual for either one to say something to the effect of wondering what daddy was doing in Heaven. When such a remark was made, I emphasized to them that they now had two fathers; both at the same address!

I was just a young child when I started going to wakes and funerals with my mother. I think I went to every one she attended. I never had a fear of a corpse. I had been taught at an early age that it is the living, not the dead, that could hurt me.

It does surprise me that many of my friends are unable to view the body of someone in a coffin. To me it is just another part of life.

The only emotional scar I have from attending so many funerals beginning at a young age is the immense dislike of gladiolus. I don't even like them in their natural setting in a garden. In my eyes they shout funeral!

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