I was asked the other day what I thought about young children attending funerals. The father of three kids under the age of 8 had died suddenly of a heat attack. The family was in a bitter argument about who should and shouldn't go to the wake and funeral. Some thought the kids should have a place to say goodbye. Others thought it would traumatize the children forever if they had to see the casket lowered into the ground.

Arguments are sometimes a helpful way to keep people from experiencing their own grief or for channeling anger away from the painful issue at hand. But they don't do much for the kids involved in a situation like this.

These children lost a good Dad and are struggling to even begin to understand what it means. Each is responding in predictable ways for their ages. For the younger two, ages 6 and 4, it feels like Dad has only gone off to work or to a meeting. To them, the adults are mistaken and he is due back any minute. The 8 year old remembers when his cat was run over. He knows what death means and he's mad - at Dad for getting himself dead, at the other grown ups for pretending that he doesn't understand it, at himself for not being a better son, and at the whole world for everything.

The most helpful thing the adults in these children's lives can do is to let them participate as fully and completely in the family grieving process as possible. The well intentioned family members who are trying to shield the kids from the rituals of grief are doing everyone a disservice. To"protect" the kids by keeping them away from the wake, funeral, and burial is to close them off from the process of grieving and healing.

Children do need a time to say goodbye. They need loving adults around them to signal that it is okay to cry, to be angry, to wish it were different, and, especially, to remember. A good wake or memorial service is where there is laughter as well as tears as people move in and out of their grief by remembering the good times and the sad. Children can be encouraged (not pressured) to also share their memories and feelings. If adults need a time without the children present, the kids can be invited to share in some parts of the events, and then taken off by someone who isn't afraid of their questions, their anger, or their tears. Whoever is with the kids needs to be able to respond to kid questions honestly.

There is comfort for a family when everyone is included in family grief. There is nothing like a small person's hug (and needs) to help anchor a grown-up. There is nothing like a grown up's hug (and reassurance) to anchor a child. Everyone needs the sense of being together to get through this terrible event in their lives. The funeral and the time around it serves as a marker or reference point. It's an event everyone will refer to later as the point at which life became different. Death is too abstract for children (and for many adults). A funeral (or equivalent) is a concrete demonstration of a new reality.

Don't leave the children out. And don't lie to them. In more than one case I know of, families told children that their parent was in the hospital or away because the adults couldn't manage what was happening. Kids know when something is amiss and they are capable of imagining far worse than the reality. More to the point, how will they ever trust the adults around them again if they are lied to about something as central to their lives as a parent's death? Better to deal with the one difficult problem of a child's grief than the multiple and complex problems that are the inevitable result of adult betrayal.

Grieving may well take a very long time. It's not at all uncommon in situations like the one in this article (where a young person was ripped too soon from family and life) for the family to be reeling for several years. Different cultures and families have different rituals for helping those left behind deal with their loss. Putting flowers on the grave each week, participating in an anniversary mass, and unveiling a tombstone at the one year mark, are all examples of rituals that various groups have evolved to support people through the process of grieving. There are good reasons why such rituals are found in almost every religion and culture. There is something in the human condition that needs ways to mark events, to remember, to bind us together in our pain as well as our joy.

Dr. Marie advises:

To help children in times of family bereavement . . .

• Understand that all members of a family need to participate in whatever ceremony helps them mark the event.

• Respond to children's questions about death honestly.

• Don't lie to children about a death. Adult betrayal is far harder for a child to manage than even death.

• Be patient. Remember that it often takes years for a family to work through a significant death.