There is a wonderful website that I recently read that contains a lot of great information on talking with children about suicide.  It is at www.helpstartshere.org and the article is “Grief and Loss Tip Sheet - Explaining Suicide to Children” by Lauren Schneider, LCSW.  It has a lot of excellent information in it and I will summarize some of that information in this article.

When talking to children about death, age is a factor.  There are definite age related ways children respond to death.  When you are helping children understand suicide, it is best (as with all subjects) to be honest and phrase your answers with words and concepts that will be understood by the particular age child.  With younger children, it is best to give short one to two sentence answers and be direct.  Avoid euphemisms for death such as “sleep”; “God took him/her” or “we lost them”.  Remember younger children are pretty literal and will hear what you say in a literal sense.  When a child hears the word “suicide”, it is likely this is a new word and they will not know what it means.  Accurate and understandable information is the key to talking to children.

From the above mention website, are some explanations you might be able to use when talking to children about suicide and death (quoted from the website):

Suicide: The act of killing yourself so
that your body won’t work anymore.
People who kill themselves often do
so because they feel there is no other
way to solve their problems or to end
the pain they are feeling. Sometimes
they feel hopeless that things will never
get better and that life is not worth
living. But, there is always another answer.

Death: When a person’s body stops
working.

Depression: Extreme feelings of sadness
and hopelessness that lasts a long time.

Guilt: Something we feel when we think
we have done something wrong or are
the cause of something bad happening.

Grief: Natural feelings when someone
close to us has died.

To explain to very young children what happened it is essential that you be direct and honest.  If depression was the major cause of the death, then tell the young child that the loved one had been feeling very, very sad for a long time and could not think of any way to end the sadness.  You can explain to them how the person died.  Tell them the person took a gun and shot themselves which caused the body to stop working, or took a whole bunch of pills a doctor ordered and then she died. Schneider in the web article says to “always end with saying that there was a better way to solve the problem.” You may want to discuss ways that could have helped the person. 

Sometimes young children feel responsible for the cause of the death particularly if they were very close to the person (such as a sibling, parent or grandparent).  It is especially important for you to assure the child that no one could have prevented the suicide.  This assurance may need to be made many times with hugs and your full attention.

With older children it is important to let them ask questions or if they don’t give them a thorough explanation and again many assurances they were not to blame in any way.  Everyone touched by suicide has guilt to some degree and the older child needs to about any guilt you may feel too.  One harmful suggestion that adults often make to adolescents when a parent has died, is that they have to step up and be the adult now.  This suggestion stifles the natural development of the adolescent and can cause many problems.

Remember that children will eventually find out the truth from friends, neighbors or relatives so be proactive and tell them first so the information they have is accurate and comes from someone they can dialogue with. 

Keep memories and talk about the person who died by sharing memories.  Do not let the fact that they committed suicide be a shameful thing.  The child who loved the person will be very confused if suicide is never talked about and becomes a stigma or a family secret.  Finally, remember children feel grief at 100%, just like you do and you can model for them how to grieve in a healthy way.  It’s okay to cry and be sad around your children.  When you are strong for them, you have to stuff your feelings, and that is never good.

Memories are the best way to keep healthy grieving going.  Remember the laughs, the fun times, and the other times too.  A person should never be forgotten and they will not as long as we use their name and share memories.  Keep the memories alive.