ABSTRACT
The only true voyage of discovery…would be not to visit strange lands but to possess other eyes, to behold the universe through the eyes of another.
Marcel Proust
To work effectively with children and teens, one must see through their eyes and lter information in a palatable form that matches their developmental age. After a sudden or traumatic death, death notication with children or teens can be left up to the nuclear family if the children are at all to be informed of the circumstances. However, for many families, sudden, traumatic, unexpected deaths leave them little time to prepare or educate themselves on how to support children. At adult-patient hospitals, where parents, grandparents, uncles, aunts, and cousins may die, many types of staff (hospital chaplains, social workers, nurses, and doctors) have reported to me that they feel underprepared to support surviving children or teens through a death notication.
