Kids to funeral?

[80skid]

We have a family funeral coming up. My primary aged kids have said they don't want to go. They didn't have a particular relationship with the person although you would expect that from the relation to them. There will be other family members there who they are close to, so the wake is likely to be well attended by relatives they do have a good relationship with but don't see that often.

Would you encourage them to go? I don't want to pressure them but I am aware that there may be eyebrows raised at non attendance and also they will miss out on the opportunity to see other family members. Is it unreasonable to allow them to go to the wake but not the funeral itself?

Primary age, no.

Older, it would depend on their reasons

No, I would respect their decisions. I think attending the wake but not the funeral is absolutely OK, especially for children.

I wouldn't insist young children go to a funeral if they don't want to.

No you shouldn't make them go. They don't need that closure especially if it's not even a relative They were close to.

It wouldn't have come up as a discussion in my house. If it's Aunty Mabel's funeral on Wednesday that's what we are doing on Wednesday.

Wake but not funeral is perfectly acceptable, especially for primary aged children.
I wouldn't make them go to either if they did not want to though

Sorry for your loss. Agree with this post^.

I’m with @DappledThings.

Yes same with us. Funerals are family occasions just like weddings, major birthdays, birth related ceremonies etc.

If they don't want to go fine. Let them raise their eyebrows.

I wouldn't ask the children. I would expect us to go as a family.

If you ask your children and they say no you can't say they have to attend.

No, I would listen to your children.
If they go and end up feeling traumatised over seeing the coffin or family members upset they will never forgive you for it.
It doesn’t matter if other family members will be there, wakes are rarely a jolly event and are usually an excuse for adults to start drinking. Kids don’t need to see that, especially when they’ve expressed that they don’t want to.

I see no value in pushing or mandating it when they are younger. Can they just go to the wake after? We did that with primary aged ds when my dad died and after chatting with him about what would happen he really wasn't keen on going and I respected his choice. When he was a couple of years older he was more mature and was fine to go to my mums funeral.

A friend watched him during dads service and we took him to the wake after, but to be fair he was bored senseless there as no-one is really interested in kids at a wake and dh felt he had to keep an eye on him rather than freely mingle and catch up with people.

It was similar at my grans funeral (ds was just a toddler so we left him with dh's family for the day) when my cousin brought his primary aged dc to the wake, the rest of our large family were up, mingling and having a good old chin wag/trip down memory lane about gran while cousin and his wife were missing out on that important part of the wake, sitting at a table with their young dc - the occasional person would go over to say hello and then leave them to it because they didn't want to upset the children talking about gran too much or wanted to get back to the adult groups.

The dynamic and atmosphere of a funeral and wake is obviously very different from other family events like a wedding, christening etc, especially for a younger child.

I wouldn't take primary age children to a funeral if it wasn't a close family member or if they didn't want to go. They'll see enough funerals for people they choose to mourn when they are older.