Should grandchildren attend cousins funeral?

I think you decision to make it a celebration of her life is a very wise choice and the children should be included if their parents agree. many condolences on your loss.

Oh no, just realised this has been bumped

Suzied I'm so sorry for your loss and for what your family is going through now and the pain the future holds fir them
Re the children and the funeral that is fir the family to discuss and decide. All I can add is that my 6-year old GS often asks about the death of his young cousin and his questions make it clear he has a a dawning understanding of the realities of dying. Other children this age at not react the same way. It so depends on the children.

Suzied - condolences from me as well. I agree with so many of the kind and thoughtful posts here. I had read the Guardian article that Bags has posted over the weekend, and thought it excellent. My mother took the view that as young children we should be protected from funerals. She maintained this view even when was I was 13 and her own mother died. I wasn't allowed to go to the funeral. Mum was a kind, thoughtful person, and this was one of the few occasions when I think she got it wrong. I do know that her views were based on what she and her sisters had felt to be over exposure to deaths/bodies and funerals during their own childhood. Your plans sound very appropriate.

Good article Bags

Article in Guardian about this subject.

lindylooby That was a lovely way to deal with it with a child.

May I add my deepest sympathies Suzied.

I went to my first funeral when I was 8 and I was ok. I don't think there had been any deaths in our family during my life up to that age.

Unfortunately some of us have to come accustomed to death at an early age.

I was walking to school with some friends when I was 9 and we saw an elderly gent sitting down on a public seat. Our first thoughts were it was a little cold but he said he was just having a short rest.
He had a coat on so we were not over concerned.

When we were walking home he was still there. We don't know if he had been there all day or if he had gone away and returned.

We went up to him and got no reaction so we phoned for an ambulance.
By the time I had walked back from the phone box the ambulance had arrived.

We did learn the man had died and the police took our names and addresses but we heard nothing further in relation to the gent.

A woman visited the school to check we were ok. I can only presume she was some sort of councillor.

I presume the teachers were informed in case we had problems later but none of us did.

Frank

When his mum died suddenly but not unexpectedly my ex refused to speak of her in the past tense, so the first time we went to visit his father the two year old kept going round the house opening cupboard doors 'looking for nanna'. His family always brushed such things under the carpet, whereas in my family we were always very open about it. I do remember my daughter holding the hand of a remote family member at my mothers funeral service, and being quite touched by it. Maybe the children will feel more upset by picking up on the general mood of the family but not being part of the funeral arrangements? Even so, all I can say is how sorry I am for your family. My friend's little pony died very suddenly, and his son who was very young at the time believed that he had gone 'to the end of the rainbow', and thought of him whenever he saw one.

I am not sure about small children being exposed to the realities of death too soon. Yes death is something that children need to have explained to them (the death of a pet or a relative) but being exposed to the reality is a different matter. I would not want my small grandchildren to see a coffin and have to explain that grandma or auntie whoever was actually in there and was soon to be be buried underground forever or worse.

My grandchildren lost a beloved horse that their mum had from being a foal. The girls were devastated and my DIL made the decision that they would not be allowed to see "the body". The horse was cremated (at great expense) as the alternative was too upsetting to contemplate. The girls now believe that Blaze is a beautiful winged horse Pegasus that flies through the sky with the angles and looks down on every thing they do. At 5 and 7, I am very happy that they have this locked into their mind rather than the harsh reality.

On a recent parents evening at school my DIL and I had tears in our eyes reading my 5 year old GD's story about her horse that was now in heaven with the angels.

There is time enough for small children to worry about these things.

My brother was killed when I was 7 and I was excluded from anything to do with the funeral. I have never come to terms with that.
Ask the older ones if they want to go and if they do the younger ones go too. The young are, hopefully, resiliant and work on a different emotional plain then adults. Let them attend and let them grieve in their own way.
My deepest condolences for the death of your niece,

My grandson went to his granddads funeral last Friday. He is 3 years old. We had told Daniel that Grandad was too ill for the doctors to make him better in hospital so he went to the Moon, (Grandad has become the man in the moon in his eyes and he says goodnight to him each night and tells him he loves him. We told Daniel that the funeral was a chance for everyone to say bye bye and the coffin had lots of presents in there to send to Grandad (we had put lots of photos and bits in - so it wasn't actually a lie! 7 of the grandchildren attended aged from 3 to 19. It was a good celebration of his life and the celebration continued in the local Leisure Centre with everyone remembering Mike. In the end I would say it was right for Daniel to go as he knows that is it and Grandad won't be back but he is comforted knowing Grandad has some precious things with him. Lynne x

suziedI'm so sorry for you and your family.So many wise words here from GNs.I agree that children should if possible be included,surrounded and supported at a relatives funeral.
At age 4 I went to the funeral of baby brother.At my mums funeral I was persuade by MIL to leave my 3 children with her -I regretted it later for myself and for them.
I've heard that 'Cruse' are very helpful in bereavement especially with children.Started in Bristol they now have many branches.

suzie, what a terrible tragedy - and so difficult for all the family.

I have never thought twice about taking children to a funeral. DGD attended her great grandfather's funeral at 6 months, and brought some light into darkness and I have always taken my children to all family funerals. It is easier to talk and explain things to them at and around the event than live with regrets later when they say, ' I wish I could have gone to xxxxx funeral, I loved her/him so much'

In past times funerals were held quite quickly and my own Father was kept at home for the four days until the funeral but now sometimes two or more weeks pass and I do not think that is practical.

"keep the deceased person at home until the funeral"

Why don't we all do that? Seem so much more loving.

suzied I'm sorry for your loss, the death of a young person is a dreadful thing for a family to suffer.

In my family (large, extended, Irish) it has always been the case that children are not completely shielded from the grieving process. We traditionally don't use funeral homes but keep the deceased person at home until the funeral.

It has been my experience that parents know their children and are able to judge what is right for them regarding viewing the body and attending the funeral. My own children attended this type of wake and funeral from about the age of eight. They were naturally full of curiosity and questions and as they had had a relationship on some level with the persons who had died, it always seemed like the right thing to do.

Deepest sympathies Suzied, not really sure what to advise. When my DIL`s dad died a couple of years ago, they took their little boy to the funeral, because he`d had a special bond with his granddad, but he wasn`t quite 3 at the time, and had to be taken outside halfway through, because he kept chattering.

I'm so sorry for you and your family, the sudden death of a child or young person is unbelievably painful. I'm sure you and your family will decide for the best re the children attending her funeral. There is no easy answer.
You and your family are at the start of a long grieving process. My thoughts are with you all

suzied My deepest sympathies go out to you and your family and I think it is a lovely idea to have a celebration of a young life that is taken to early and we did the same when we lost our son and many children attended because they knew him and wanted to do something to commemorate his life. It did not have anything to do with closure as most of them probably did not even know what that meant. I think you are handling an extremely sad and very difficult time with great thought and feeling. It will be hard for everyone on that day, and all you can do is what you think and feel is the best for these children. There can be tears of sadness and tears of remembering the joy that this young girl brought to your lives.

I think that it is emotionally healthier for children to attend funerals. The very young ones probably won't understand everything but the older ones will be able to express their grief and recall the loving relationship with their cousin.

We had two pupils at my infant school who died. We had a memorial assemblies. Children were all asked if they would like to say anything about their friend/s and several wanted to. All children were asked to write something they would always remember about the child who had died and we put them in a memory book. I think it is important for children to learn about rituals that are there to help manage the grief process. Ignoring and / or not mentioning death or the deceased is more worrying for young children.

Condolences toy you and our family.

We are planning a celebration of her life at her local church which we are trying to make as uplifting as possible with beautiful live music played by some of her friends and my youngest son is singing and there will be some poems and readings we haven't finalised it yet, as because of the circumstances of her death we have to wait 3, weeks. This will be followed by a short private family committal in the crematorium. We wouldn't take the children to that bit of it as it will be more solemn, though we will play some of her favourite music then as well. But I think they should be fine with the first bit, but we will talk to them about this and ask what they would like as well. We won't be wearing black .

What an awful thing to have happened . If the funeral is to have modern upbeat music and involve her friends I see no harm in allowing the children to go - provided they want to and provided your niece's friends are the sensible sort and there's no likelihood of mass hysteria. They may feel more hurt and bewildered if they are excluded.

I would not let young children near a graveside though - that would be inviting nightmares!

Sorry. Should have said too young

Definitely not. What good could it do? They are too find any sort of "closure" from the funeral. Bad enough that they have lost their cousin. So sad.