Dziecko wobec śmierci

Abstract

There are attempts to remove death from the everyday life of the contemporary people. In view of the this the paper seeks to reflect on the child towards death. The author discusses death as a biological fact and a social event. He pinpoints that in recent years dying has been entrusted to professionals (in hospitals and old people’s homes), and this becomes inhuman. Natural death is an end of the biological life, but in fact death belongs to life and life belongs to death. The Christian doctrine about the understanding of death is based on the Bible, where God "is not God of the dead, but of the living". (Lk 20:38) The paper pinpoints the specific, from the psycho-pedagogic point of view, reactions of the child towards death, connected with its development of the understanding of time (according to J. Piaget) and child’s images of death. The paper shows how deeply a child experiences the phenomena of passing and death, especially of the closest persons. Various reactions have been discussed, mainly emotional, with which the child reacts to mourning, with a particular emphasis on the need to have parents around. The talks about death must be based on the truth and should be adjusted to the perceptual abilities of the little interlocutors. Duly selected common prayers bear a reassuring and pacifying value. The final part of the paper contains some useful, practical guidelines concerning conversations with children about death, while taking into consideration their religious aspects.