Tell or not to tell to the others when one does not survive?

What is expected from psychologically healthy attitudes is that they contain a mix of criteria such as transparency, comprehension and sincerity. In this case specifically, the best would be that the loss of one of these beings was accepted and faced in a mature and natural way. It is not easy, surely, it is always a pain, a loss or frustration sensation. But to hide the fact from the children that remain around us would be at least, an anti natural attitude, because we would be denying a fact that, even being bad, even causing pain, is part of life, and thus shall be faced and given a new signification as a prove of our improvement, and not as a tragedy that shall be denied and hidden from the other children.

How to tell?

Surely it is very important that we find the most adequate form of communication for the situation. For this, the people designated for this task, usually the parents, shall be calm, free from guilty or any conflicting feeling, so it is necessary that the fact has being "internally accepted". They shall emotionally “communicate” to the children, acceptance, comprehension and, again, naturalness sensations. Death is part of life, and as hard as it can look like, it shall be faced and accepted. There isn‘t any positive result in denying, getting revolted, carrying it as a load or with excessive sadness.

When to tell?

To reinforce this naturalness the ideal is to talk about the issue when the siblings get interested, when they start to show curiosity about it, independently of the age when it happens. Don’t “put pressure on it” such as, wait until they are 15 years old, sit all of them and tell as if it was the tragic secret of life. Even since very young, children are already able to live with the natural obstacles of life. If, since soon, the subject is treated with naturalness, higher is the probability of all establish healthful devoted relationships.

Teca Kuperszmit - Psychologist, psychotherapist, specialized in Neurolinguistics Programming. Currently acts as an emotional/behavioral Personal trainer, even for companies as for natural people.

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