1. Objectifs

Intentions :
«The current program of research sought to investigate the content of parent-child conversations about death and the impact of such discussions. This dissertation is comprised of three manuscripts that collectively contribute to the literature by documenting young children’s early experiences with death, exploring the role of parental beliefs and attitudes in parental explanations of death, and evaluating children’s feelings and understanding of death after such conversations. The first manuscript reports on parental use of religious and biological explanations of death. […] The second manuscript provides information on children’s earliest conversations about death and parental satisfaction with such conversations. […] The final manuscript reports on children [...] that came to the lab and had a conversation about death with their parents.» (p. ii-iii)

Questions/Hypothèses :
In the first manuscript, «[i]t was predicted that as children’s age increased, the likelihood of parents having spoken to their child about death would increase. It was also hypothesized that religious-spiritual explanations would be the only type of explanation positively correlated with parental belief in afterlife and religious and spiritual beliefs.» (p. 58)
In the second manuscript, «[f]irst, we hypothesized that age would be correlated with children’s death related experiences. Second, we hypothesized that age would be correlated with frequency of conversations about death.» (p. 89-90)
In the last manuscript, «we hypothesized that age would be correlated with children’s understanding of death […]. Second, based on those studies that have investigated fear of death and understanding, we hypothesized children’s fear would be negatively correlated with children’s understanding of death […]. Finally, […] we hypothesized that the content of parent-child conversations in the current study would be related to children’s understanding of death.» (p. 127-128)

2. Méthode

Échantillon/Matériau :
In the first manuscript, «[p]articipants were 130 parents of children 1- to 7-years of age from two provinces of Canada who agreed to participate in a larger research study on children’s developing understanding of death.» (p. 59)
In the second manuscript,«[p]articipants included 140 English speaking parents from two provinces of Canada involved in a larger research project on children’s developing understanding of death.» (p. 90)
In the last manuscript, «[p]articipants included 48 parent-child dyads.» (p. 128)

Instruments :
- Children’s Experiences and Conversations with Death (utilisé dans le premier et le deuxième article)
- Smilansky Death Concept (utilisé dans le troisième article)
- Koala Fear Questionnaire (KFQ) (utilisé dans le troisième article)

Type de traitement des données :
Analyse de contenu
Analyse statistique

3. Résumé

The first manuscript «revealed that parental beliefs in afterlife and death anxiety accurately predicted whether parents provided a religious-spiritual explanation. […] Interestingly, parents who participated in this study generally reported feeling satisfied with the explanation of death that they provided their children. Yet, conceptually this makes sense, as parents were providing their children with explanations that were in line with their own feelings and beliefs. […] In the second manuscript, […] three quarters of parents indicated that they had spoken to their child about death and the majority of conversations were first initiated when children were between 3- and 3.5-years of age. Parents provided free-response narratives of the explanations of death they had recently given their child. Interestingly, over half of parents made reference to existence after death and satisfaction was higher in these parents. […] [In the third manuscript,] perhaps not surprising, children’s understanding of the cessation of bodily functions at death was predicted by discussions that addressed the physical causes of death. Understanding of the irreversibility of death was also related to the content of discussions. Conversations about a continued existence after death were related to lower understanding scores whereas discussions about the causality of death were related to higher understanding scores.» (p. 155-157)