Harvard Common Press

How Do You Explain the Loss of an Icon to Your Children?

Last week, we lost three American Icons: Ed McMahon, Farrah Fawcett, and the “King of Pop” himself, Michael Jackson.  No matter what your opinions may be about the personal lives of these celebrities, it is inevitable that your children will see the headlines and news stories, and will begin to wonder why a nation is mourning over these individuals.  They may not understand the meaning of celebrity or how the deaths of someone they don’t even know can affect those around them.  Regardless, your children will certainly have questions.  In her book, Helping Children Cope with Separation and Loss, author Claudia Jewett Jarrett discusses what can be said when attempting to to explain loss to a child:

Because young children get their understanding of life primarily through their senses, tying news to a sensory or physical connection often helps them grasp it.  Such an approach can also reinforce their trust in their own powers of observation.  So talk with children about what they might have seen or heard.  Beginning this way also encourages the child to think, “I am the sort of person who can figure out what is happening.”  Corroborating what the child has noticed sends one more reassuring signal that the child is a thinking person, able to make sense of the world and therefore able to understand significant happenings.  In fact, acknowledging that they have been aware of the adult actions or situations that led up to the loss may help reassure them that it was not their fault.

In some families, children are discouraged from observing, commenting on, or questioning what is going on with adults, especially their parents.  Such children may now need assurance that it is all right for them to have noticed that things were not going well. Consequently, when talking about a loss, you should deliberately relax any unwritten rules that children should not be “nosy” about the affairs of their elders and encourage your children to voice their questions and to confirm their own observations about what has been going on in the family.  Remember: when a child suffers a loss, very little about what has happened is none of the child’s business.  (Helping Children Cope with Separation and Loss, pp. 11-12).