Parents' Anticipated Discussions About Death With Young Children

Guided by family communication patterns theory and terror management theory this mixed-methods investigation explored how parents (N = 112) of young children (ages 3-6) described the way they would discuss death when it comes up in conversations. Responses were coded inductively, resulting in four themes: explanations that death is inevitable, explanations that death is in the distance, the use of religion to frame discussions of death, and finally, discussing afterlife connections to deceased family members. Logistic regression analyses were used to evaluate whether parents' conformity or conversation orientations were associated with the frequency with which parents discussed death with their child and the content of parent vignette responses. Quantitative analysis revealed parents' conversation orientations were associated with the frequency with which they discussed death with their child and conformity orientations were associated with parents' use of religion and discussing afterlife connections to deceased family members in their responses.

The Ashes of Tragedy: Parental Death and Child Character Development in Bambi and The Lion King

The Walt Disney company has been the topic of extensive research for decades; among the explored subjects and identified themes is Disney's fixation on death. Disney has capitalized on the incredibly traumatic childhood experience of the death of a parent by featuring parental death as a major narrative component. Speculation remains regarding the accuracy of not only death presentations in media, but death influence on characters. Using textual analysis, this paper explores the role of parental death on child character development within two Disney animated films. Analysis demonstrates an inaccurate depiction of parental death influence on children in a positive light - essentially overlooking the trauma associated with loss during childhood and the mediating factors of long-term bereavement outcomes. Conversations remain to be had regarding how these inaccurate depictions of death and dying in popular culture influence the children consuming them.

Parents' Discussions of the COVID-19 Pandemic and Death With Young Children

Death and loss are often uncomfortable topics for adults to discuss with young children. Disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, however, made the avoidance of these topics nearly impossible. The current study explored how 20 parents engaged with their young children (ages 3-6) in discussions about death, dying, and loss as they jointly experienced this global crisis. Interviews were conducted both prepandemic (Summer/Fall 2019) and a year later, at the early stage of the COVID-19 pandemic, before vaccines were approved (Summer 2020). Results suggest parents largely sought to balance sheltering children from stress and socializing them with socioemotional competencies. The pandemic context, however, brought parents a sense of urgency to scaffold their children's ability to remain resilient after experiencing losses. Practical implications are discussed regarding how family nurses and other practitioners can provide support to families of young children during the COVID-19 pandemic and potential future global crises.

A Qualitative Systematic Review About Children's Everyday Lives when a Parent Is Seriously Ill with the Prospect of Imminent Death - Perspectives of Children and Parents

Parental dying is a life changing experience for children. This study explores children's strategies and (inter)actions in their everyday life when facing critically ill parents and imminent death, from the children's and parents' perspectives. A qualitative systematic review was carried out, registered in PROSPERO (CRD42022306862). A literature search and screening in six databases resulted in eighteen articles. Thematic analysis showed that children were capable of developing various strategies to cope in everyday life, even in vulnerable situations. From parents' and children's perspectives, inclusion, openness, and communication about parents' situations, taking children's age and needs into consideration, were important to face and cope with the situation. Children were life-capable, also in vulnerable and difficult situations. This calls for the necessity of developing children-led support, by acknowledging, and taking the children's experiences, and resources, as starting points to tailor adequate support for children of critically ill parents.

Applying terror management theory as a framework to understand the impact of heightened mortality salience on children, adolescents, and their parents: A systematic review

Terror Management Theory (TMT) posits that controlling death anxiety is a driving force behind many aspects of social behavior. The objective in this systematic review was to explore how TMT is used to explain children's, adolescents', and parents' behavior when exposed to situations that increase mortality salience. A systematic search identified 2484 papers; 14 studies met eligibility criteria. Key topics explored were mortality salience, death thoughts, and distal defenses. Findings indicate that adolescents comprehend death and have mortality salience reactions like adults, highlighting the potential for TMT to be used to explain children's and adolescents' social behavior in high-stress situations.

Young children’s representation of people who are elsewhere—Or dead

Given the legacy of John Bowlby, Attachment theory has often portrayed separation from a caregiver as likely to provoke protest, despair, and ultimately detachment in infants and young children. Indeed, the emotional challenge of separation is built into a key measurement tool of Attachment theory, the Strange Situation. However, James Robertson, one of Bowlby’s leading collaborators, voiced dissent. He argued that young children can cope with separations—even when they last for several days or weeks. They are able to keep the absent person in mind provided an alternative, familiar caregiver remains available. Observational and experimental findings lend support to Robertson’s claim. Recent analyses of natural language provide further support. Although young toddlers (ranging from 20 to 26 months) often make contact- or attachment-related comments about absent caregivers, such comments become less frequent with age whereas reflective references to absent caregivers—comments that do not express contact-related concerns about their absence—are often produced by young toddlers and remain frequent throughout early childhood. Children’s early-emerging ability to keep an absent attachment figure in mind raises intriguing questions about their responses to the permanent absence of an attachment figure—as in the case of death. Consistent with contemporary research showing that many grieving adults report continuing bonds to a deceased attachment figure—rather than a gradual process of emotional detachment—children also report such continuing bonds. By implication, children and adults are prone to construe the death of a loved one not just as a biological endpoint that terminates the possibility of any continuing relationship but instead as a departure that can be bridged by a continuation of the earlier bond in an altered form.

The Ecology of Youth Psychological Wellbeing in the COVID-19 Pandemic

The consequences of profound disruption to everyday life caused by the COVID-19 pandemic will only emerge over time. Guided by ecological systems (Pitchik et al., 2021) and developmental psychopathology (Masten & Cicchetti, 2010) frameworks, I review evidence that points to parents at home with children as particularly vulnerable to increased psychological difficulties, particularly in contexts of poverty. Resultant compromised parenting may reduce children's opportunities for the kinds of everyday interactions that promote cognitive and socioemotional development and expose them to increases in coercive, avoidant, and other problematic caregiving behaviours. I discuss three evidence-based strategies that parents could adopt to buffer their child's mental health: building positive discipline strategies, talking with the child about the pandemic and its consequences, and conversing about the past. I conclude, however, that approaches to supporting parents and their children at this time must also address multisystem factors that compromise caregivers' ability to provide nurturing care.

"When will it be over?" U.S. children's questions and parents' responses about the COVID-19 pandemic

Parent-child conversations are important for children's cognitive development, children's ability to cope with stressful events, and can shape children's beliefs about the causes of illness. In the context of a global pandemic, families have faced a multitude of challenges, including changes to their routines, that they need to convey to their children. Thus, parent-child conversations about the coronavirus pandemic might convey information about the causes of illness, but also about how and why it is necessary for children to modify their behaviors to comply with new social norms and medical guidance. The main goal of this study was to examine the questions children ask about the COVID-19 pandemic and how parents answer them. This survey included responses from a national sample of 349 predominantly white parents of children between the ages of 3 and 12 recruited through Amazon's Mechanical Turk in United States. Parents reported that although children asked about COVID-19 and its causes (17.3%), children asked primarily about lifestyle changes that occurred as a result of the pandemic (24.0%) and safety (18.4%). Parents reported answering these questions by emphasizing that the purpose of different preventative measures was to protect the child (11.8%) or the family (42.7%) and providing reassurance (13.3%). Many parents discussed how it was their social responsibility to slow the spread of the virus (38.4%). Parents of younger children tended to shield them from information about COVID-19 (p = .038), while parents with more knowledge were more likely to provide explanations (p < .001). Our analysis shows that families not only discuss information about the virus but also information about changes to their lifestyle, preventative measures, and social norms.

Conceptualizing death: How do suicidal adolescents view the end of their lives?

OBJECTIVE

Adolescence marks an important time to detect suicide risk, as suicidal ideation often emerges during this developmental period. Death-themed cognitions represent a promising domain of risk factors for suicidal ideation, but they have been understudied among adolescents. To address this knowledge gap, the present study examines the association between adolescents' attitudes and beliefs about death, hereafter referred to as death conceptualizations, and suicidal ideation.

METHODS

Seventy-four adolescents (12-19 years) completed a self-report measure assessing three types of death conceptualizations: Death Avoidance (i.e., suppression of death-related thoughts), Neutral Acceptance (i.e., belief that death is a natural part of life), and Escape Acceptance (i.e., belief that death is a viable escape from pain). Suicidal ideation was assessed at baseline, as well as 3 and 6 months later.

RESULTS

At baseline, suicidal adolescents endorsed higher Escape Acceptance and lower Death Avoidance. Suicidal and nonsuicidal adolescents did not differ in their degree of Neutral Acceptance. Death conceptualizations, especially Escape Acceptance, also predicted future suicidal ideation.

CONCLUSIONS

Initial findings suggest that suicidal adolescents are more likely to believe that death is a viable escape from pain and that this death-related cognition is a risk factor for suicidal ideation.

Capturing Death in Animated Films: Can Films Stimulate Parent-Child Conversations about Death?

We present three studies examining death in children's animated films. Study 1 is a content analysis of 49 films. We found that death is often portrayed in films, but many deaths occurred off-screen. Deaths were mostly portrayed in a biologically accurate manner, but some films portrayed biological misconceptions. Study 2 (n = 433) reports on parents' attitudes and parent-child conversations about death in films. Children's questions about death in animated films were similar to their questions about death more generally. Animated films may provide a context for parent-child conversations about death, as parents often watched these films with their children. However, it appeared that few parents took advantage of this opportunity to talk about death with their children.