We're talking about children though. Does a 5 year old kindergartener need to be taught the realities of death with the example of a woman they never knew? Most kids don't realize death's permanence until the age of 7.
I attended funerals when younger than that.
I'm going to come back to points above; you develop that ability to deal w/trauma by dealing w/trauma. In the grand scheme of the things, the death of someone you've never met, and have no emotional attachment to, is not
particularly traumatic.
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Really, I'm not at all religious; but I did grow up in Church in my earliest years hearing stories of human sacrifice of your own child, the murder of 'the son of God'........and the stories of plagues that killed millions.
We really must stop over-dramatizing things.
But above all that, curiosity in the younger ages ultimately leads to follow up questions, and I can't imagine a certain group of parents being all too pleased at any answer given when the first kid asks "so what happens after we die?".
A) I don't care what the parents think.
B) The appropriate answer is "I don't know, I've never died"; "lots of people believe lots of different things; talk to your parents."
Lets please remember the memorandum wasn't "don't talk about the death of the queen", but “perhaps try and avoid starting the conversation” (literal quote). Let the kids initiate it.
It still overstates the risk of this conversation. There are children in many GTA schools who were products of the Syrian Civil War....... This is nothing.
I'm not even Monarchist, and would be the first to accept an argument that Monarchy in Canada should be abolished. I'd also be happy to discuss how some deaths are given much greater publicity and apparent gravity than they merit.
Be that as it may; I won't entertain the argument of broadly preventing trauma in this case.
The last couple of years has been extremely traumatic for kids, even those who didn't lose someone due to Covid. Anxiety and depression rates are through the roof, school psychologists are creating waiting lists and the school systems don't have the resources to deal with half the cases, let alone all.
The trauma is over-stated. Most kids did not lose anyone to Covid from a statistical point of view.
Yes, some kids did see their mental health deteriorate, because of social isolation.
Which, we ought to have done less of, particularly for kids.
Be that as it may, having kids return to school only to be shielded from discussions that aren't even remotely traumatic on the risk that they might be for some students is bizarre.
Elementary kids, every year participate in Remembrance Day Ceremonies which are all about dead people; millions of them. They even go around putting fake poppies on and listening to the lament of Flanders Fields, and
and hearing mournful trumpeting.
Kids can be resilient if you let them; the first key to which is building up their tolerance to tough things, which frankly, to most or all them, this is not.