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Book Review

What Do We Tell the Children?

Talking to Kids about Death and Dying 

reviewed by Deborah van Deusen Hunsinger

This article was featured in the Spring 2014: Stronger Together print issue. Click here to see the complete table of contents.

Written by Deborah van Deusen Hunsinger on March 15, 2014

Deborah van Deusen Hunsinger

Debroah Hunsinger is the Charlotte W. Newcombe Professor of Pastoral Theology at Princeton Theological Seminary in Princeton, New Jersey.

See all articles by Deborah van Deusen Hunsinger.

Parents, teachers and caring adults want to protect the children they love from the terrible reality of death. And so they try to shield their children from it, sometimes by forbidding them to attend the funeral, sometimes by withholding their own grief in the presence of the children so as not “to make them feel worse.” How few of us have the presence of mind to listen to grieving children and support them as they work through the pain and confusion they feel.

Joseph Primo, the author of this slim but substantive volume, What Do We Tell the Children? Talking to Kids about Death and Dying, gives us both the awareness and the tools we need for helping children and teens face the loss of loved ones—a parent, a sibling, a close friend—and gain lifelong skills of resilience and sometimes even wisdom in the process.

Many children who have suffered an early loss have learned to “number their days.” With the love, support, and honesty of those around them, many of them indeed “get a heart of wisdom.” Even in the wake of tragic death, they are able not only to survive but to live healthy and meaningful lives after loss.

Former hospice chaplain and CEO of Good Grief—a community organization designed to help children and teens who have experienced the death of a parent or sibling—Joseph Primo gives us the practical tools we need. He helps us understand the layers and complexities of childhood grief. He traces the cognitive development of children and illustrates, with story after story, how the best-intentioned words of comfort often go awry. Through both humorous and poignant anecdotes, he helps us understand the child who became terrified whenever he went outdoors, deathly afraid that the “angels would come and take him away” as they had his mother, or how another child was frightened and confused to learn that his “mommy was in heaven with Jesus.” What could that possibly mean when he saw with his own eyes that Mommy was put in a box and buried in the ground?

What Do We Tell the Children? sticks to the basics. It helps us understand the importance of children and families developing the kind of coping skills that will serve them now and in the future, as they rebuild their lives after the death of a loved one. Often it is our own misplaced expectations of children that make us ineffective at being helpful to a child and cause us to feel powerless. However, this book will engage your curiosity and answer your many questions when you learn how children process and understand death and the best ways to speak openly and honestly with them.

I have repeatedly invited Primo to speak to my classes on pastoral care at Princeton Theological Seminary because this book has become, for me, a call to action. His observations and stories of grieving children beg us to educate our communities and churches about children’s grief. Here is a good place to start.

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books
Community
grief
parenting

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Fall 2019 I Building a Vibrant Health Ministry: Mobilize Strengths in Your Congregation

Summer 2019 I Aging and Well-being: Navigating New Pathways for Health and Faith

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