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Educare

Educare

MAYO 2009 N° 5 Volumen 7

Children and death

Section: LEARNING TO TEACH

Authors

Saray Gómez Zahino, Alba P González Jiménez, Helena Ramírez Pérez, Mª Isabel Robles Sánchez, Sheila Selma Domenech

Position

Alumnas de 2º curso de Enfermería de la EUE La Fe, Valencia.

Contact email: shany98@ono.com

Abstract

The aim of this work is to gain further insight into how children deal and react to death.  As we all know, in our culture, although death is an inevitable fact of life, we all tend to avoid talking and thinking about it and in doing so make it more difficult to accept it and come to terms with it.  The way children see death, their doubts and how they cope with it changes depending upon their age.
The dwelling process in children has its own characteristics and it is different to how adults dwell on death. Because of this, children need to be given a different explanation, a different type of care and ways to cope with their different concerns.
The most important recommendations that we, as nurses, must give to parents is to inform the children of the death, avoiding calling death by different confusing names, emphasising its irreversibility and accepting their particular way to express pain,  suggesting they attend the funeral, and to keep emotionally and physically close to them.

Keywords:

death; children’s homes; dwelling; palliative care of children; copingterminal illness

Versión en Español

Título:

El niño y la muerte