ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a developmental context for understanding experiences with death, dying, and bereavement. It explores the likely types of death when children do die, and they are different in infancy, toddlerhood, and childhood. The chapter looks at how healthy children acquire their conception of death. It explores the emotionally moving topic of gravely ill children. Death among older teens and young adults is qualitatively different than it is for children. The chapter also looks at the common causes of death in these age groups, explores the nature of our social development. It considers Erik Erikson's eight-stage model. The chapter examines the common causes of death among adults and older adults before attempting to move beyond Erikson's original model of social development, explores a proposed ninth stage, which he and his widow, Joan, suggest is life's "final stage."
