Can’t Believe - or definitions of Death
This news from the Asahi shinbun, kinda blew my mind. Apparently, an year ago a girl commited Suicide in Hokkaido due to extreme bullying in school. The point, here, is that the girl was 6 years old.
Yes, it is some horrible news, yes it is shocking. Yup, that’s a pity. But this is not what I wanted to talk about.
I always had this idea that the concept of death was one that developed later in one’s mental development. I can’t remember the exact numbers, but children up to a certain age were not supposed to be able to understand the concept of death because they lacked some abstracts constructs needed for this concept.
I wish I had paid more attention to my Piaget now.
So I wonder how this 6 year old could have killed herself - maybe she was mimicking something she saw in the adult world? Maybe I’m wrong about the age when the concept of death develops?
Any insights?
Ah, BTW, sorry, but the news link above is only in japanese. I tried googling for an english link without success.
October 7th, 2006 at 1:39 pm
Is it 6 years old, or primary 6th year? I think by the age one is in primary 6th, there is some idea of death. But still,……. not so much I guess.
October 9th, 2006 at 2:14 am
concordo contigo… nao vejo como uma criança de 06 anos possa entender que o conceito de morte. Lembro mesmo que li em algum lugar que o suicidio de criança se dá especialmente pela falta de entendimento da morte, especialmente de sua irreversibilidade. Uma coisa interessante que aprendi com alguem, quando voces eram criancas.
Conversando sobre morar em prédio, e a questao da altura, essa pessoa falou que nao era bom dizer algo tipo “se voce cair da janela morre”. Porque o que as crianças normalmente ouvem é que quem morre, vai para “papai do ceu” ou “vira anjo”; o que, para a criança, nao é nada mal nao?
entao, nessa mesma conversa, a pessoa me disse para dizer algo mais concreto, tipo “se voce cai, quebra todinho, que nem um copo”, e de preferencia, quebrar um copo para voces verem. Fiz isso e tu e teu irmao Abriram um olho GIGANTE; e nunca tiveram interesse em subir janelas.
bjs
October 9th, 2006 at 8:39 am
not entirely the same, but an article on precisly this same issue and in english: http://www.asahi.com/english/Herald-asahi/TKY200610040130.html
October 9th, 2006 at 3:38 pm
Hey, Chaminda, Pamela;
Chaminda, I reread the article, and it seems you’re right… it was a 6th grader (12, 13 years), not a 6 year old kid. I need to brush up my newspaper reading skills :-(. Actually, it is the very same incident related on Pamela’s link.
However, when I talk about “has no idea of what death is”, I’m not talking about experience, or temperance, or understanding the consequences to yourself and to others, but really the basic understanding of the concept of death.
Like my mother said in her comment in portuguese, she was once told that telling a very young child that you may die if you fall from the window has no effect, because the child doesn’t really know what death means. She was then told that a more effective manner to teach young children the risks of playing near windows was showing them what happens with a glass cup falling, and teaching them that the same thing happens to people who fall from windows.
…
Maybe that’s why I’m afraid of heights, perhaps?
(j/k)