My 11 year old wants to go to his friends funeral???

Question

hi my son who is 11 recently lost of friend of his,would you allow your child to go to a funeral ,i am against it cause of his age ,its extremely sad and the whole school is gutted about it ,i dont know what to do they werent really close is it going to scar my child going to it ,i dont mean to sound uncaring i am gutted about it to and i didnt even know the little girl ,would you go with your child ,would you let your 11 year old go ?

Answer 1

I think he should be allowed to go because he apparently liked the friend and cares about seeing them off to heaven. As a minister I say if you fail to let him go he may hold it against you later on as he gets older and then you could have some serious issues. He may act out later on because he feels you are overprotective. Go with him and be supportive of him should he need his mom. I hate my job sometimes when it comes to burying someones child but death is a reality of life and after losing my son at 13 I can relate best with the parents.

Answer 2

Last year, a child that my family knew passed away. My husband and I debated for a day about asking our son if he wanted to go to the funeral. While I wanted him not to go at some point we knew he would have to see the sad and dark side of death. This was a decision that we all discussed, how he would feel, how the other kids would feel, what the proper behavior would be while we were there. (we were not going to hang out like we would with friends at the mall) After all the discussion, we let our son choose. While this kid and your son were not the best of friends, letting your child show compassion to a grieving family and saying good-by to a fellow classmate, make make him a better person for it in the long run. (This may help especially later in teen years when kids talk of death and suicide...he will have a memory he can relate emotions back to.) Discuss it with your spouse or partner, then discuss it with your son...Why does he want to go? then make a decision together. Most importantly, if he goes you go too. You need to be the support that he will need if and when his emotions get the better of him. Good luck with this as I understand what a hard decision this is for you and your family.

Answer 3

I would let him go and you go with him. sit down and talk with him. answer any questions he may have about funerals, death, anything that would help him understand. death is a part of life. if there are a lot of his classmates going, it would be better for him to go. it may be easier on him that other classmates are there with him and they can all get thru it together. they went to school together and knew each other. it doenst really matter how close they were as a measure of going to the funeral or not. just because you didnt know her doesnt mean they didnt have a close relationship or spend time together in school. 11 is not a young age to attend a funeral, it is too young to be the one the funeral is for. yes it is extremely sad, but it is also extremely sad that she is gone as well.

Answer 4

Eleven year olds understand in theory what death is. I don't know if they truly understand that death is forever. This little girl dieing is a very sad thing and her friends are feeling very sad. A funeral is for the living. A means of saying good-bye. What I would do is sit down with my child and explain what he will hear and see at a funeral. I would decide after the talk if he should go. You will see his reactions to what you say and will know if he is ready for a funeral. If you decide to let him go you must go with him. If it proves too much for him you must be available to take him home.

Answer 5

In my opinion I think he should go if he wants to. Has he ever been to a funeral? It might help him understand that things happen to people and they don't live forever so when another death/funeral comes by he will be able to understand what happened and he may be able to take it much easier. I think you should go with him because it will suppot his desicion of wanting to go and he might be a bit afraid of what he sees. With his mom by his side explaining and reassurring him he will feel much better about his decision. Yes, funerals are very sad, but when people show up for a funeral it shows respect to the family of the lossed one and they will know that their lossed one had people who cared about them. Think about it as if you were the little girl's parents. you would probably want alot of people from school there or just a large crowd to know that your little girl was loved and will always be remembered. I went to my first funeral when I was five and i am not scarred by it. Yes I do miss my grandmother and yes I do remember parts of the funeral like looking into the casket, watching her casket be put into the ground, and having all mourners put dirt into the grave, but my mother was there to help me understand what was happening and I learned to live with it. I am now 14 and I have to say that I was glad that I had the chance to go to the funeral (even though it is a very sad thing) because now I know how other people feel when it happens to them and I can comfort them better than I could without going to one. Hope that helped. May god watch over that family.

Answer 6

First I want to say I'm sorry for the loss of his friend. I've lost a few friends and loved ones, so i know it's a hard process to deal with. You don't sound uncaring at all, trust me. It's a tough decision. I think you should talk to your son about it and see if he wants to go first, and then explain to him the process of a funeral and that he may not like what he sees. If the casket is open, she will look like she's sleeping. If you do decide to let your son go, I think it'd be best for you to go with him so he has someone there to comfort him, and who better than his father. Let him know that you'll be there for him if he needs to talk or anything.

Good luck on your decision and again, I'm terribly sorry.

Answer 7

What's really sad is the amount of scarring and psychological damage you're going to do to your son if you prevent him from going. It is more than conincidence that every known culture on earth has had last rite ceromonies. His friend is already dead, what more trama do you think that saying good bye is going to do to him?

I would not prevent any person, at any age from attending a funeral.

Also, if he DOESN"T go, it could come off to his peers that he doesn't care.

Its not like he's going to preform an autopsy. He's going to go, be part of a group closure to the situation, be with his peers who see it more the way he does. And walk away with a greater sense of closure.

Let him go, both of you will regret it if you do not.

Answer 8

I think it is important that if your child feels that he needs to go, that you should take him. People grieve in different ways. Some would want to go and some wouldn't. Alot of people actually need to see for them selves to really believe and to be able to move on with their grief.I had gone to a funeral of my friends when I was younger and I will admit it made me feel a little strange but I never regretted going because I realized then that death had no respecter of persons no matter what the age and I found a new respect for life and for how to treat people in general. All in all, you know your own child better than anyone else so go with what your heart tells you.God Bless!

Answer 9

sure it particularly is and it particularly is a robust way for her to make certain approximately loss of existence. The open casket should not be a issue; I attended an open casket funeral and the guy regarded like a wax parent and grow to be no longer frightening in any respect. 11 isn't too youthful to income approximately the different fringe of existence, that's loss of existence.

Answer 10

Everybody has to learn about death at sometime. It is not like sex where the child learns that it feels good and wants to try it. This will be an opportunity for you to teach your son that everybody dies and it does not have to be a scary thing or necessarily a sad thing. I acknowledge that it is sad to die at such a young age but you can explain why it is sad to die at a young age and not so sad to die after living a long fulfilling life.
Also, if you have any spiritual/religious beliefs, this would be an opportunity to explain what happens to us after we die.
Most of the time, the only death kids get exposed to is the death of a character in a movie or a video game which desensitizes them to the idea of death because it is only pretend. Why should he feel sad?
Perhaps you might prepare him by letting him watch a movies in which the audience is made to feel sad at the death of a character like Bambi or Old Yeller.
You said that your son was not very close to the child who died. Maybe it is good that he gets to learn about death from a friend whom he wasn't very emotionally invested in. He may not even cry for her but he will learn how her loss has affected her family and her close friends. He will learn how people mourn and you can help him express any feelings he may not be used to expressing.