Death through the Eyes of Innocence: Perceptions of Death in Childhood
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Throughout human history, death has been represented in various ways, depending on the customs, culture, ideology, and the way we look at life. We note that in general adults hesitate to let children get close to someone who is dying or is dead. For adults, death and children appear to be contradictory terms, but in fact, children realize very early that death exists, and thinking otherwise is a mistaken idea common among adults. Providing children with incorrect information about death leads them to feelings of anxiety, fear, imprecision and distrust. This study aimed to realize how death and life are understood by children between 8 and 11 years old. Through free associations of words, we asked the children – one hundred boys and girls – to tell us what they think, imagine and feel about death and life. The data were processed by factorial correspondence analysis. The findings indicated that girls, more than boys, represent death with fear and in a ritualistic way, while boys mostly perceive it as a feeling of uneasiness and impotence. Regarding life, boys show a more hedonistic perception than girls; girls give relevance to the interaction with others, and to the affective and emotional issues. The perceptions of girls are close to those of the 10-11 year old subjects, while the representations of boys are close to those of the 8-9 year old children. We hope to contribute to the understanding of the child’s universe, so symbolically rich in its various forms, and especially to the way that children represent death. We may also contribute to an education for death (and pain) as well as for life (and pleasure).