Schools should prepare children for death and dying so that loss will be less of a shock for them later in life, a leading academic said this week.
Speaking before a conference on death education at the Hong Kong Institute of Education yesterday, Allan Kellehear, head of social and policy sciences at the University of Bath in Britain, said the subject should be treated in the same way as sex education. 'Most people in modern society don't really cope well with dying and loss,' Professor Kellehear said. 'It's not just a problem in Hong Kong.'
He said traditional rural societies handled death and dying much better than urban societies as there were rituals and customs to support those who were dying or confronting loss.
'It's public, it's shared [in the rural areas],' Professor Kellehear said. 'It doesn't involve professional intervention. But these all changed in urban modern societies. There are a lot of young people who don't grieve.'
He said most people had grieved with friends and family in the past but the support system could no longer be taken for granted. Traditional family structures and communities were breaking down due to workplace migration, smaller family sizes, longer life spans and changing values on friendship and spouses.
Professor Kellehear said death education needed to start in school. 'Even children have experience with death and loss,' he said. 'It's important for them to share their experiences. . The taboo is not on death and dying. It's on frightening children. We think children should be protected. The prospect of talking about death and dying in school is going to make some parents anxious.'
