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Absolutely. When I was 11 I was diagnosed with Leukemia and went through one dose of chemo before they realized they had misdiagnosed me. To this day I'm still perfectly content with death and have never believed in a 'god' or 'passing' or anything of the like. You are simply gone, and your body is used to nurture the earth to provide for other living things. It's your legacy you leave behind that is important, not spirits.
Maybe it's a rather blunt way of thinking, but it works for me
As a child I was never taught about death or dying, so when it happened in my teens (a family death) it rocked my world.
Now as a mother, when I felt the time was right, I did teach my kids about it. We do go away. They are not permanately scarred and will in my belief fair better then the person who was not exposed to the subject in their childhood. Some people praised me and some people ridiculed me.
What should children be taught about death?
My parents were very matter-of-fact about everything. Sex, death, etc. I more or less understood from an early age that everything dies and that it is part of the natural cycle of life. You live, you die. Poof. End of story.
I think having an atheist family helped because the concept did not get cluttered up with a lot of mumbo jumbo dogma B.S. There was no talk of "afterlife" or heaven or hell. I think that is really what confuses people.
IMHO children have a very strong innate sense of how things work. If you don't feed them a bunch of garbage that confuses and conflicts them. They tend to handle such issues considerably better than adults do.
Absolutely. When I was 11 I was diagnosed with Leukemia and went through one dose of chemo before they realized they had misdiagnosed me.
OMG they actually ADMITTED that they messed up and it wasn't some miraculous healing of medical science? What are rare moment. Lucky for you the chemo didn't kill you. I hope your parents sued their pants off.
As a child I was never taught about death or dying, so when it happened in my teens (a family death) it rocked my world.
Now as a mother, when I felt the time was right, I did teach my kids about it. We do go away. They are not permanately scarred and will in my belief fair better then the person who was not exposed to the subject in their childhood. Some people praised me and some people ridiculed me.
What should children be taught about death?
Ok I was taken by my step-father to every funeral from since the time I could remember I remember my earliest probably around 5 years old. I hardly even knew these people we were seeing and it didnt effect me that much. But when my grandfather died it upset for some time after that, we were very close, I was 12 when he died. Dying I guess is a fact of life, I am not worse because I went to probably 15 funerals before i was 10. Just my Opinion.
Since my biological mother died a month before my 6th birthday (after being in & out hospital for cancer treatments), I definitely knew about death at a young age.
That it is part of life and is not be feared. That your community will take care of you during your grief. That we don't know what happens after we die, so we must be the best we can and live honorably in this life.
OMG they actually ADMITTED that they messed up and it wasn't some miraculous healing of medical science? What are rare moment. Lucky for you the chemo didn't kill you. I hope your parents sued their pants off.
thread drift, sorry.
20yrsinBranson
Well, it took about 2 years until they finally admitted they made a mistake. They also had a resident sign off on the orders (including the orders to take my spleen out..) instead of a 'real' doctor.... so there was a lot going on there.
We settled out of court, but just for them to pay my medical bills and issue an apology.
"As I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep. If I die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take..."
Even as a Recovering Roman Catholic for these past 30 years since I left the relgiion as a teen, I get twinges of nightmares about catchism class.
OH yes, every night we had to say our prayers and that was the first one. Then on for God to bless everyone and then for the sick--not only for the terminally ill cousin to be healed but for my mentally retarded aunt with cerebral palsy to be healed. Like that was gonna happen.
I guess each denomination had its own brand of fear and death. The Reformed church was very death-oriented. Probably still is. God is always watching you, just waiting to strike you dead for some infraction of the rules. A shrink one time told my mother that the Dutch Reformed Church provided him with plenty of business.
OH yes, every night we had to say our prayers and that was the first one. Then on for God to bless everyone and then for the sick--not only for the terminally ill cousin to be healed but for my mentally retarded aunt with cerebral palsy to be healed. Like that was gonna happen.
I guess each denomination had its own brand of fear and death. The Reformed church was very death-oriented. Probably still is. God is always watching you, just waiting to strike you dead for some infraction of the rules. A shrink one time told my mother that the Dutch Reformed Church provided him with plenty of business.
Well, I see we pretty much had the same experiecnes with the Death Cult brand of Christianity.
I had to put a kitten that had been hit by a car out of its misery when I was about 8 years old. I shot it in the head with a .22. One instant there was a screaming kitten the next there was a piece of furry meat. Then there was looking at my embalmed Grendfather that had also been hit by a car. Twenty years later there was 'Nam.
I learned all I needed to know about death. One instant you are there with all your hopes, dreams, regrets, pains and pleasures; the next you are gone. Finis.
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