
S3/Ep 15: What Kids Need to Hear When Someone They Love Dies
From Guardians of Hope: Empowering Child Advocacy by Cynthia Ramsaran
March 29, 2026 · 29 min · Season 3 · Episode 15
About this episode
Dr. Elreacy Dock discusses how parents can communicate with children about death and grief in a healing manner.
When death enters a family, most parents freeze — reaching for euphemisms, changing the subject, or shielding kids from grief entirely. But that silence does more harm than the conversation ever could. Dr. Elreacy Dock [https://www.elreacydock.com/]is a thanatologist, death educator, and professor of thanatology trained by David Kessler. In this episode, she helps parents talk to children about death, dying, and grief in ways that are honest, age-appropriate, and ultimately healing — from what to say to a four-year-old versus a teenager, to whether kids should attend funerals, to how to grieve alongside your child while processing your own loss.
People in this episode
Host: Cynthia Ramsaran
Guest: Dr. Elreacy Dock
Topics covered
- grief
- child advocacy
- death education
- parenting
- communication
- thanatology
Keywords
- death
- grief
- children
- parenting
- thanatology
- communication
- funerals
Mentioned in this episode
Organizations: David Kessler
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