Browsing by Subject "11-vuotias lapsi"

Objectives: The objective of this study is to search and clarify 11-year-olds perceptions on death. While there has not been a lot of research on children's perception on death, Reetta Ikola wrote her thesis about this topic in 2013. However, researching this is important, so that people that work with children know how to act and relate when a child is faced with death. This study focuses on how children perceive death and the after life. In addition, the study concentrates on how the religion in the children's home affects their perceptions and where children receive their information on death. This master thesis examines children's death perceptions, concerns and how to deal with death. Methods: Thematic interviews were used as the main research method in this study. The interviewees were twelve eleven-year-olds. Seven of them were boys and six of them were girls. All them were individually interviewed by using semi-structured interview method. The material was then analysed by using content analysis. Findings and conclusion: The interviewees' perceptions on death were found to be very similar than in previous studies. Interviewees' perceptions on death and after life were all individual and different, but all of them were already realistic. All of the interviewees thought that death is something irreversible and a deceased person cannot feel or experience anything. Interviewees explained death both from a religious as well as biological viewpoint. Also the after life was described from a religious as well as atheistic standpoint. The perceptions of death were not always consistent with the religion at the interviewee's home. The perceptions were based more on everyday life experiences. The feelings surrounding death were clearly negative. Every interviewee connected sorrow and sadness to death even though they have not previously perceived death as a negative thing. The interviewees did not actually have fears relating death, even though some issues were problematic.