In every parent’s life you come to the point of deciding when to take your children to funerals. Sometimes this decision is made for you if the deceased person is a close relative and the child needs to go in order to have closure. Sometimes the choice to take the child to the funeral is optional; the deceased is not related and there are no close ties with your children. However, eventually, a close relative will die and the children need to be prepared to deal with death.

For our family, the scriptures dictate the parameters of the “hereafter” and the “state of the dead”. But I was apprehensive about dealing with my children’s emotions of standing in front of the casket. I had been protecting them from what I perceived as a “dead body” trauma. So, I did not take them to funerals of non-relatives and even some relatives. My Mom kept telling me I was wrong to shelter them because they were five and six years of age and death was a part of life. Read more