Should children go to the funeral?

The bereavement charities, for children and for adults, give the same answer to this question: yes, usually, if the child wants to come and if someone prepares them. Funerals are not too much for children. Being left out is. This guide is the advice, how to give a child the choice, how to prepare them, and what to do if the funeral is not a funeral at all.

Give them the choice, with information

A child cannot choose between going and not going without knowing what each means, so tell them. “There’ll be a service in a room at the crematorium. Grandma’s coffin will be there at the front. Someone will talk about her and we’ll listen to some music, and some people will cry. It lasts about half an hour, and then we all go to the pub and have sandwiches. You can come, or you can stay with Auntie Sue, and either is fine.” Then let them decide, and let them change their mind, including on the day.

Very young children, under about four, are unlikely to remember it or to sit through it, and the choice is really the parent’s; many parents bring them anyway, for an hour, with an exit ready.

Prepare them for what they will see

The coffin, and that Grandma is inside it and cannot feel anything. The curtain or the coffin going out of sight, if there is one, and what that means. People crying, including you. The hearse, and the flowers. If there is a burial, the grave and the coffin going into it. A child who knows what is coming can watch it; a child who does not is frightened by it. What happens at a cremation service is a useful page to read with an older child the night before.

Give them a job

Children do better with something to do: carrying a flower, choosing a song, reading a short poem, handing out the order of service, holding a grandparent’s hand. A job says they are part of the family on the day, and it gives an anxious child somewhere to put the anxiety.

Have one adult whose job is the child

Not the widow, not the chief mourner, but an aunt, a family friend, a godparent, whose only task on the day is the child: to sit with them, to take them out if they need to go, to answer questions, to get them a drink. Tell the child who that person is. Then the parent can grieve and the child is safe.

If they say no

Then they do not go, and nobody makes them feel bad about it. Offer another way to take part: writing a card to go in the coffin, choosing the flowers, coming to the gathering afterwards but not the service, visiting the grave or the place the ashes go another day. Some children want to see the person at the chapel of rest and not come to the funeral, and that is a fine choice; saying goodbye when there is no funeral to attend covers the viewing.

If there is no funeral

A direct cremation has no service, and a family who chose one may wonder what a child can attend. The answer is the same as for adults: the goodbye happens afterwards, in the family’s own time, and a child can be at the centre of it. A memorial in a garden with the ashes, a walk to a place the person loved, a tree planted, a balloon released, a cake on their birthday. Planning a memorial service after a direct cremation is for that, and children are often the ones who make it work.

Afterwards

Ask them how it was, that evening and again in a week. Expect questions, some of them odd, and answer them plainly. A child who came to the funeral will talk about it for years, and that is the point; they were there. Telling a child that someone has died is the page for before this one, and the children’s charities in when to get bereavement counselling are there if the weeks after are more than the family can carry.

The adult taking the child is grieving too, and coping with grief in the first weeks is for them.