ABSTRACT
Death is difficult for children to understand. It is an abstract idea and one that is hard even for many adults to grasp. Children gradually understand more about the “deadness of dead” as they grow older. In addition, an abstract topic such as death or killing may be better understood by a child who has had first-hand experience of a family member, friend or pet dying and less understood by a child who has only heard the terms on television. In the light of this, we cannot assume that young children fully grasp what words like “kill”, “dead” and “die” mean and therefore we must not be concerned if children are using them in their play. Within the human world, as opposed to the superhero one, every living thing will eventually die. This is universal truth relating to death and one that children need to learn about in the same way that they need to learn that it is inevitable.
