dd1 was taken to a cemetery by the school today, and saw a dead person

[Nightynight]

I probably wouldnt mind if it was one of my sons, but dd has recently been through a phase of being v scared of death/dead people. She was fairly upset.

why do the school think its ok to take the children out of the blue? I am pretty cross, but there is no point complaining, it is a bavarian school so the only answer they know is "we know best what is good for your child"

being taken to cemetery i mean

Agree with aol.

I think as janh said people maybe didn't realise that this thread was about Bavaria and ploughed in on the basis that this would be a very surprising event in the uk...

I would be worried and upset on many levels if my children were taken to see an open coffin without my knowledge or permission. Could they be respectful enough when they don't really understand the sorrow others are feeling? They are lucky enough not to have experienced any deep sorrow from bereavement yet and I would worry that they would not know how to behave and might approach the experience with a matter of fact curiousness that would upset the deceased person's family and friends. I have winced (once or twice with a feeling of genuine but irrational hurt) a few times at the questions they have asked about my mum, who died many years before they were born, for example. Or would they themselves feel traumatised? They tend to react to and vent deeper emotions by becoming silly and boisterous when they are in a bigger group. Clearly unacceptable in such a situation. Yet forbidding it might have repercussions in terms of forcing them to confront things in a way they are not quite ready to do. This behaviour sometimes masks quite complex emotions (and at other times is just the flea brainedness of normally silly little boys) and I would also worry about them brooding and feeling frightened when they were alone. Yes, death is part of life and cannot and should not be hidden but it is also something that touches us all deeply and that we will want to make sense of with our children in our own personal ways. I really hope you and your daughter will be able to come to terms with this experience, nn.

It'll be a total waste of time NN speaking to the Head about this, unfortunately.

NN, I'd imagine the Evangelical religion class is very small since you're in Bavaria and the vast majority will be Catholic kids. How about speaking to that teacher for religion directly? You may strike lucky for a change and have someone there who could help dd with this, maybe help generally with the school. I would leave a message with the school secretary, asking that teacher to call you.

at some of the spectacularly unhelpful comments further down this thread. Really hope none of you have to go through what NN is having to deal with at the moment. Big help you all were.

Presuming the corpse was in good condition, I don´t think this experience has to be traumatic. The Bavarians must be very matter-of-fact about death and this can only be good thing imo. Maybe your lo will pick up on this in the end NN and you can encourage her to think about this experience in a this-is-part-of-life way.

Nothing will surprise me about Germany We do usually get a note about any school outing, even within the village, though the kindergarten take the children to the playground or vineyards etc without notification, which I'm fine with.
Schools have different rules but again, I'm not surprised they did this. Think it's wrong but can well see it happening.
V glad I'm not in Bavaria - though must admit I was surprised how few children take the ethics option here. DH gets all irate when they have the school start of term assembly in the church because of the separation of church & state.
Hope your poor dd's OK.

I think that Twigs idea of the glove is a great one, and I don't understand why NN dismissed it saying she would only do the washing up with marigolds on if she had the time??

Unless I am missing something here, surely taking 10 minutes each night for a few nights to help your daughter is more important than anything else???

I lived in Germany half my childhood and understand the religious schools and their views. Luckily for me I had very strong non-believing parents so I studied some type of 'citizenship' instead of religion.
Unfortunately the 'we know best' attitude is one that the Germans excel at. So if NN feels strongly enough she should speak to the school and get her dd excused from these religious lessons. Or if not, then all she can do is help her dd understand (using Twigs glove method if it would help) and put up with the religious aspect of the school.

my apologies NN - having now read more on this thread I realise the circumstances are very different to my own (in London) and that this sort of thing is not unusal where you are living. The comment you made in response to Twiglets marigold analogy (which a lot of people seem to thing is a good one, me included) stopped me reading more last night. But coming back to it today, if I was you, I would be feeling upset about the trip. How is your DD now? Did she sleep okay?

NN's post on Thu 22-Mar-07 21:36:18 - 'twiglett, I work full time, if I have time to put marigolds on, I do the washing up.'

i think you need to make time, you can't start a thread like this then, then when posters are giving you ideas on how to tackle it with your dd, say you haven't got time to follow it through. are you worried about your dd's reaction to seeing a dead body or not???

i think twig's idea is excellent and one that a child hopefully will understand.

i don't think its worth spending time being annoyed about the trip, its happened, the damage is already done.

spend time with your dd helping her deal with what she's seen.

Hathor asked if anyone else's child had seen a dead body. My 10yo dd saw a body just a few weeks ago and it wasn't in a coffin. It was that of a beggar who'd died on the street where he scraped a living. He had a few rags on and his crutches lay nearby, while his body slowly rotted away for four or five days in 90+deg temps until the local authorities removed it.

Dd wasn't really at all phased by it. She has a matter of fact attitude to life and death which is just as well because the culture here is so different that bodies lying in public are not an uncommon sight. Recently dh has seen RTA victims left at the roadside and last week there was a body on a main road that had been lynched and burned.

I think you will have to find the time to talk to your dd about her issues, NN, there's no other way it's going to fix itself. Twiglett's idea is quick and easy and if nothing else it can pave the way to more discussions that might ease your dd's mind.

The point is that NN's dd was upset, and was having issues around death before this unexpected trip.

I think Scummmy's post is spot on, actually. I am flabbergasted that they would be traipsing thourgh someone's funeral, however matter f fact they population in bavaria might be about bodies.

NN, I realise this thread has been unfortunate. i think it did sound so outlandish...and it was a while before your dd's response came up.

Maybe her classmates attitude will help her quell her heightened fears, if they are all calm about it?

Are there really no open coffins in funerals in the UK? In Ireland it's quite common place and not just for the funeral but for the removal the evening before.

I hope you can find a way to explain it to her that she understands and is not frightened, NN.

don't fancy living in your town, nightynight. S'like transylvania.

Sorry haven't read complete thread, but this is v interesting. I am English and in England and do not feel nearly the anger or anguish of many other posters. Agree with MP that wouldn't like a funeral I was attending to be gatecrashed by gaggle of 10 yos; but wouldn't mind my 10 yo seeing dead body of some one she didn't know in life, even if it might upset her a little in the short term. Much prefer it to her seeing body of some one she did know. Presumably at a funeral, the body would be decently arranged to look peaceful.

I have a student from Bavaria staying at the moment. Shall ask him about funerals when he comes home. This will tax his English skills I suspect!

emat - yes, I have been to a few funerals where there has been an open coffin. But I haven't seen random school groups who happen to be vsiting led past for a peer in.

PMSL Blu

dd appears to be getting over it. We went back to the cemetery today and read some of the inscriptions on the tombstones.
Number of mentions of death this evening: 1
Number of mentions of the Polly Pocket Disco that she wants: approx 6 billion.

She has told me some more details about what happened, and how the other children reacted (predictably tactless), and I just cringed at the thought of my dd being part of such a scene. The vicar, who was leading this trip, must have been crazy to let the children near a funeral without preparing them and warning them to show some respect.
(as he is the vicar, I assume the funeral was for someone from the other lot)

I am pleased that she is getting over it, Polly Pocket distraction therapy is obviously the way forward.

It does sound as if he was monumentally tactless, NN.

I winder if this is the german bashing thread that emkana was upset about the other day!

Not Bavarian, but norhtern germany, and don't think I have ever seen a dead body in my religious studies at school.
I agree the Kids should have been prepared, and taught how to be respectful, but other then that I really don't think it's all that mighty an issue, and considering that the op's daughter seem to have gotten over the initial shock and may have even been helped through her fright in the end...wasn't all that bad then, was it!
But of course I am just crass, because I am german....

I must admit that I would be horified if my DS was shown a dead body. I haven't ever seen one and to be honest I don't really want to.

Probably more to do with being A nURSE RATHER THEN BEING GERMAN, BUT i REALLY DON'T UNDERSTAND WHY PEOPLE ARE SO FRIGHTENED OF THE DEAD... ooops sorry capslock, wasn't shouting at anyone....!

can testify to the utter nuttiness of bavarian education as i was in a school there for 2 years. to say things are done differantly is an understatment of epic proportions!

and it's very possible to see bodies in cemetaries there as many european cemetaries have a hall or chapal on the cemetary grounds where the coffin could have been on display with the lid off, depending on the families wishes.

lol, I must admit, that Bavarians are of course very different to other germans (like us Northerners in niedersachsen), or so we would like to believe anyway IT's a similar situation to scottish, welsh, irish and english and those lil differences..not necessarily obvious to "foreigners" but to the nation/s themselfs very obvious!

I'm not frightened of it but it's the end of a life and i would rather not see it.

but why is death such a taboo? Iykwim...it's a shame really, if people would be more open about it and maybe as in the ole days were more "involved" in it...i.e. have those wakes, etc...maybe then it wouldn't be so frighteningg or unpleasant...not that death is somehting beautyful, but it can be a relief for the person that died, etc...