A funeral is an occasion when adults can say their last goodbyes and start the process of resolution. A child eight years or older has the same need to grieve as their parents, and should be encouraged to attend. The six- to eight-year-old has less to gain, but while not essential, it’s best to include them in the family group. The three-, four- and five-year-old has little understanding of death and gets no benefit from a funeral. At this young age it is parents and the expectation of others that influence whether a preschooler attends or not.

The need for open communication

Young children ask endless questions but don’t have much interest in the answers. Adults often cope with these queries by hiding behind the jargon of death: ‘We have just lost your grandma’; ‘She is sleeping in wonderful peace’; ‘She is happy up with the angels.’ With explanations like these children may wonder where it was you lost Grandma or may see sleep as a dangerous occupation.

Adults also make the mistake of believing that the under-eight-year-old needs deep and detailed answers. But when a five-year-old asks an innocent question they will be happy with a few words of general reassurance. It is your availability and unflustered attention they want because this lets them know they are safe and secure.

The over-eight-year-old wants more information, and it’s best to be honest and open. When Grandma is ill, tell the truth: ‘Yes, we are very worried. She may die, but we are doing all we can to help.’ If parents become stoic and non-communicative, children may bottle up their feelings, generate strange fears and get stuck in their resolution. But o: course, it is hard for parents to talk openly and clearly when they are drowning in their own grief.

Divorce and separation

There are many similarities between a child’s reaction to death and their reaction to divorce. Their understanding of the event depends on their j age, and all children are immensely influenced by the stability and emotional well-being of their parents.

It is believed that the children of a hostile break-up suffer more deeply than a together family that loses their dad through a tragic accident. When a parent dies friends flock around, there is a funeral, and then life slowly starts to get back on track. In a messy divorce friends have confused loyalties, there is no turn-around point and hostility can go on for years.

How children react

The under-six-year-old is all feeling and no understanding. They resent what has happened and react by clinging closely or responding with bad behavior. They don’t know what is going on but they hate the tension and disruption.

The six- to eight-year-old is also confused and disturbed by the disruption. They have a limited understanding, and are more unsettled than disruptive in their reaction.

The over-eights are more aware and they know that this event is forever. They may be confused in their loyalties. They often react with preoccupation, withdrawal and a reduction in academic grades.

Whatever the age, children do best when parents act amicably and maintain the maximum environmental stability.

Indeed, a divorce may cause adjustment problems for people working out a new lifestyle, but the chances arc David pesters his mother because she accidentally rewards him, even though she wants him to stop. Her looks, touches, scolds, and even smacks arc still attention to David. To help him through the divorce adjustment, his mother needs to give him lots of reassurance and attention – but carefully to avoid doing so at times when David is acting in undesirable ways Although it may seem obvious that attention can be a social reward, too much of the obvious forms of attention (shouting, touching, grabbing) are not recommended, but the more subtle forms, such as a glance, smile, frown, eye contact, or physical gesture. In many families there is troublesome child behavior that is maintained by exactly these types of subtle attention rewards.

Many parents and teachers alike operate under the mistaken belief that publicly noticing ‘bad behavior’ will somehow stop it (indeed, much of our society operates on this erroneous principle). ‘Johnnie, Mother is watching.’ `Don’t go in there!’ ‘Leave your brother alone!’ Put that down this instant!’ Imagine a teacher looking out at her class: ‘Who is talking over there? Is that you, Peggy? Stop it right now! I expect to have absolute quiet in here.’ Often children giggle when a teacher reacts like that. Or the teacher may say: ‘Linda, get back in your seat. What are you doing on that side of the classroom?’ Is the teacher’s public notice going to stop the behavior, or is it actually an attention reward for the child? Aren’t the talkers and walkers in that classroom being actively rewarded by attention’? Many studies have demonstrated that such attention produces more and more of the very behavior that teachers want to end in their classrooms.

It is important to note, of course, that teachers and parents do not have control over all of the rewards which the child may receive in the situation. Disruptive classroom behavior, for instance, is powerfully rewarded by the attention of other children. In such cases, it may be necessary to use other procedures to eliminate the behavior.

There were a number of amusing examples in which college students purposely used attention in the classroom markedly to change their professor’s behavior without his or her knowledge of what was going on. One professor we knew tended to give very dull lectures, reading in a monotonous voice from his notes. Yet on rare occasions he would digress from the notes and describe interesting personal experiences related to the topic. Three students sitting in the front of the classroom agreed privately to look bored and inattentive during the lectures from notes, but to look very attentive and smile immediately when the professor talked about personal experiences. Within two weeks the professor, who did not know about the ‘experiment’, was not referring to his notes at all. Such is the power of attention and other social rewards!

`Monkey see, monkey do’ was a popular saying among parents when we were children. The slogan didn’t have much to do with monkeys but rather reflected a common observation of parents that children learn a great deal by just watching the behavior of others.

Have you ever known parents who think their child is an ‘angel’, while you are convinced the child is a ‘monster”? There are no such things as ‘good’ or `bad’ behavior in children. This is also true among nations, cultures, or socioeconomic groups.

Actions considered ‘good’ in a Northern European country, for instance, may be considered ‘bad’ in the Middle East. Also our judgment changes over time: many characteristics considered ‘unacceptable’ for women in the early part of this century, such as assertiveness, are considered desirable today.

What is acceptable and what is unacceptable is a matter of opinion, but all behavior is acquired in the same way, no matter how we label it. Within your own family there is probably general agreement about what is acceptable and unacceptable behavior.

Obviously, no one wants children to learn tad’ habits! They often do, nonetheless, and parents can sometimes see where they got such habits, perhaps from friends, school, television, or even other family members! Sometimes it seems a mystery: how did the child ever pick that up? Why does it continue in the face of punishment? In such cases, parents may be accidentally teaching the behavior and helping to maintain it by their reactions to it!

Every now and then we encounter parents who are surprised to find out that their child is quiet, cooperative, and perhaps even docile at school. At home, they find the child loud, negative, and almost constantly in trouble. Such parents may see nothing unusual in the observation that their own behavior is very different at home, at work, with friends, or while on holiday. Why not their children as well?

Children, like adults, learn what behavior fits what situations, so that places, people, and events become ‘cues’ for both desirable and undesirable behavior.

Like a green light that has been turned on, the class goes wild when the substitute teacher shows up. When the students are well aware that their teacher doesn’t know them, can have little effect on their marks, and probably will not be seen again for the rest of the year. So why work? Why not play or just do nothing, or even enjoy tormenting her? The substitute becomes a ‘cue’ for acting up. When the regular teacher returns, she finds it hard to believe that her normally well-behaved group could possibly have been so unruly.

The immediate effect of cues upon behavior can be seen in a variety of situations. For example, some young children cry when parents are about to go out and leave them with a babysitter. Yet the minute the door closes the crying stops. Some brothers and sisters will fight noisily when parents are around, yet play well together when alone. Children can also behave ideally at home but cause perpetual problems at school. Situations, people, and places serve as cues for all sorts of behavior.

Children’s actions make sense in terms of the situation. Sometimes the cues are very subtle and not noticed. In other cases, they are obvious. When we look at the complexities of each unique individual, and the variety of situations which occur in our lives, it is not difficult to see why behavior can at times seem to be beyond explanation!