How to talk to a child about ghosts

[Vampire07]

Many children have reported having unusual experiences that may have been related to genuine haunting activity. Perhaps the most important role a parent or guardian can play is that of being a good listener.

Like all new experiences, the unknown can be confusing and frightening. Most children do not know what to expect following the identification of a ghost in their home. Young children may not understand what death really means, let alone about some of the more abstract principles related to 'life after death', and may be confused or even frightened by the reactions of other family members. In the case of a particularly active or noisy ghost, the confusion and fear are likely to be even greater.

For adults, ghosts are more familiar and hauntings are something many adults have at least some knowledge about. Many adults have experienced the fear, confusion, and anger that can come with active hauntings and have learned ways to cope with such feelings. This may not be the case for children, particularly young children.

Children seek answers and comfort from the adults in their lives, yet in the face of active hauntings, caregivers often feel helpless in this role. While adults can not have answers to all the questions that children may have about ghosts, they can help children better understand haunting related anxiety.

 
 
DO talk about the events.

Children do not benefit from 'not thinking about things' or 'putting them out of their minds.' If a child senses that you are upset about the events, they may not bring them up, even if they want to. In hauntings, there are two challenges for the child, processing the actual sights, sounds, and activities of the haunting, and being faced with having to cope with a new view of 'reality'. During fresh haunting activity, the thoughts of the child may be dominated by terrorizing events and the new discovery of a haunting looms heavily in the first weeks. Over time, however, the child's thoughts and feelings will turn from fear to wonder.

Children model their emotional expression and behavior after their adults. It can be very helpful for a child to know that you feel confused and for you to share with them the ways you cope with your feelings. In hauntings, especially if the child is being directly affected by them, until the child can cope somewhat with their situation, their capacity to respond to it can be impaired.


Use a moderate and common sense approach.

In the first few days or weeks following a new haunting, the caregiver should sit down with the child and tell them how very normal it is to think about the traumatic events. Share some of your feelings and thoughts about the events. Use language and explanations that are appropriate for the child's age, and ensure you'll have plenty of time without being distracted. The child may remain very quiet but don't worry about that. Immediately following the discovery of a new haunting, the child will not be very capable of processing complex or abstract information. Invite them to come and talk about things anytime they want. From then on, let the child take the lead as to when, how long, and how much you talk with them about their experiences.

As children get further away from the first events, they will be able to focus longer, digest more and make more sense of what is happening. Don't be surprised if the child even acts as if the ghost is someone or something else. Sometimes young children act as if they have not 'heard' anything you have said. It may take many individual moments of explanation for the reality of a haunting to actually sink in for young child, and children may use a variety of coping techniques, some of which, such as asking difficult questions, can even be confusing or upsetting for adults.


Listen to children and answer their questions.

Even if a child's questions are uncomfortable, listen carefully, and provide comfort and support as you answer. We often have no adequate explanations about haunting activity. It is just fine to tell children that you do not know why something happened or that you get confused and upset by it, too. In the end, listening and comforting a child without avoiding or over-reacting will have important and long-lasting positive effects on the child's ability to cope with traumatic experiences.

During this long process, the child continues to 're-experience' the first events. In play, drawing and words, the child may repeat re-enact and re-live some elements of their traumatic experiences. Adults will often hear children ask the same questions over and over and may be asked to describe 'what happened' again and again.

The child may experience and process the very same material differently at various times following the haunting. In the long run, the opportunity to process and re-process it many times will facilitate healthy coping. This re-processing may take place throughout the development of a given child. Even years after the discovery of a haunting, a child may 'revisit' the fear and wonder to understand it from their current developmental perspective.


DO NOT associate sleep and death.

One of the most important elements in this process is that children of different ages have different styles of adapting and different abilities to understand abstract concepts such as death. Children at different ages have very different concepts of death and very young children may have little appreciation of the so called 'finality of death'. When sleep and death become associated, it is not surprising that children become afraid of sleep. Children may become afraid of going to sleep themselves or of loved ones going to sleep.

Try to get some understanding from children of what they think death is, i.e., Do they have a view of afterlife?, Are there specific fears about death?, and so forth. The more you understand about the child's concept of death, the easier it will be for you to communicate with them in a meaningful way.


Explore the child's evolving ability to reason.

Correct and clarify as you see false reasoning develop. Over time, the ability of the child to cope is related to the ability of the child to understand. While some elements of death and hauntings will always remain beyond understanding, so explain this to the child. If the child feels that they share the unknown and unknowable with a caregiver, they may feel safer. Also, don't let the child develop a sense that there is a big secret about the events, as this can be problematic too, but let the child know that adults can not and will not understand some things either.


Be honest, open and clear.

Give children the facts regarding the haunting. While there is no need to describe things in great lingering detail, the important details should be given. These often potentially terrifying but it is important to give factual information to the child. The imagination of a child will 'fill in' the details if they are not given. Too often these imagined details are distorted, inaccurate, more terrifying than the actual details, and can interfere with the long-term ability to cope.


Do not avoid the topic when the child brings it up.

Similar to other trauma, the adults around the child need to be available when the child wants to talk but avoid probing when the child does not want to talk. Don't be surprised if in the middle of your struggle for the 'right' answer to a question, the child returns to play and acts disinterested. The child has been unable to tolerate the level of emotional intensity and is coping with it by avoiding it at that point.


Children will sense if the topic is emotionally difficult for adults around them.

Children will try to please caregivers, either avoiding emotional topics or persisting with topics that they sense the caregivers find more pleasant. Try to gauge your own sense of discomfort and directly address this with the child. It is reassuring to children that they are not alone in some of their emotional upset.

Children look to adults to understand and interpret their own inner states. Younger children will even mirror the nature and intensity of an adult's emotions, so if you feel you will be unable to control your emotions when you are trying to help the child, you will need to use some coping strategies yourself. Take a few moments, collect yourself and then try to help the child. It is only human to lose control and be emotional in some circumstances. That is not bad for the child if, after you feel more composed, you can help the child understand how you were overcome with emotion because you struggle to understand things too.


Be prepared to discuss the same details again and again.

Expect to hear things from the child that seem as if they didn't 'hear' you when you told them the first time. The powerful, pervasive implications of hauntings for the child can be an overwhelming, traumatic event. The child's responses to haunting will be similar to the child's responses to other traumatic events. This may include emotional numbing, avoidance, sadness, regression, episodic manifestations of anger, frustration, fear of the unknown future, helplessness, and confusion.

The child may have recurring, intrusive and emotionally evocative recollections of the events and may 'imagine' various scenarios. These images will return and return. As they do, the child (if she feels safe and supported by the adults around her) will ask about hauntings, the specifics of this haunting and the ghost.


Patiently, repeat clear, honest facts for the child.

If you don't know something or if you also have wondered about the nature of death or a detail in this specific haunting, tell the child. Help the child explore possible explanations. Let the child understand that you and others can and, often, must live with many unknowns. In this process, let the child know, however, that there are things we do know and things we do understand.


Be available, nurturing, reassuring and predictable.

Do your best to be available, loving, supportive and predictable. All of these things make the child's work easier. The child will feel safer and cared for. An active haunting can be traumatic and can forever change these children's lives. The child has, in some sense, a life long task of working, re-working - experiencing and re-experiencing their feelings.


Take advantage of other resources if necessary.

There are medical professionals willing to help you and the child in your care with these problems. The traumatic discovery of a haunting will always be with these children but with time and understanding, children can learn to carry the burdens of their unusual experiences more easily.

Finally, reassure the child. Let them know you love them, that you will remain safe, and that you will keep them safe.


References:
ChildTrauma Academy.org
Bruce D. Perry, M.D., Ph.D.
Jana Rubenstein, M.Ed., LPC.