So, who would take a 2 yr old ds to a funeral?

[paintforfun]

A family member passed away last week and the funerals this week. My sis has a 2 yr old and is considering taking him along with her. I'm not so sure it's a good idea. What do you think?

I took my daughters to my dad's funeral in December, they are 6 and 3 and were upset but I think it's much better than shielding them from this important part of our lives. a Muslim friend of ours told me about how his children were much more matter of fact about death when they had a funeral recently.

Expect the child to behave as they normally do in church like situations and A)dont get more stressed and B)have a back up plan . -calmly take kid outside to do what they need to do.
My two have been to funerals and behaved very well. Some tears when they got to be a reasonablr age but nothing traumatic and some good talk came out of it.
children have also been to chapels of rest a couple of times (not forced)and we stress that they have a right to say goodbye (in anyway they feel best)because they are part of the family.

I agree bundle we took dd3 dd2 and dd4 to my nans funeral last month
18 m 4 and 6 just took the baby outside when irritable, we got to see family that we had not seen for a while they got to see the girls.
We all got pay our respects to a wonderful lady and the girls understood that their nan had gone for good and said a nice goodbye.

Its my Grans funeral this week but I'm not going to take my 2 yr old. I just think he wouldn't sit still, be very quiet so I would spend all my time trying to "entertain\look after" him. Also hes not well at the moment so that doesn't help.

When my other Gran died 18m ago DD (6 at the time) and DS (just 1 at the time) didn't go to the funeral but did go to the get-together afterwards. It was lovely for the older relatives to see my Grans great grand-children and cheered everyone up.

I think its a good idea. Children should not be sheltered from the rituals of life. Death is a part of that. I think a lot of people feel that death is something to shelter a child from. Death after all is the ultimate taboo. I think this makes death seems scary instead of it seeming like the most natural thing in the world,which it is.

No I wouldn't (didn't recently). Ds is very boisterous and there would be lots of questions 'can I look in that box?' or similar I'm sure and a danger of him running up and down with dd causing chaos and not lending much dignity to the proceedings. On the other hand my dad found my nephews presence very comforting as it broke the tension for him at his wife's funeral - but my nephew was 7 months old at the time - which is a different scenario.

DS1 went to my MIL's funeral - he was 2.6. We didn't have a choice - I had to fly to SA from London on the Friday night and go straight from the Airport to the Funeral on the Saturday morning.

He was none the wiser - too little to really understand what was happening. He made a little bit of noise but nobody bothered - he was the apple of his Granny's eye and without a shadow of a doubt she would have been glad he was there.

I took mine when she was 2.

If it's a choice between not paying your respects or taking a child, then I'd say take the child every time. It means a lot to people when others bother to come and turn up to support them, even when it's obviously a bit of a faff for them to organise.

Thanks for all you thoughts on this.

Needless to say after showing my sis the responses on here she has agreed to take him along. We can take it in turns to take him out if need be. I agree that having young children there not only provides a distraction but also reminds us that life does go on and to look to the future.

Thanks again