Dear Kerry,
We just heard from the director of our child’s preschool that one of the teachers is terribly sick. She may not make it. We are all pretty devastated and don’t know what to say to our kids. We need some ideas, please.
-EP, Forida

Dear EP,
I am sorry to hear that your school is going through such a hard and scary time and hope that it turns out well. Nursery school teachers are precious to parents — we entrust our children to them to cherish and teach and be part of introducing the wider world. They are also very precious to children — as trusted extensions of parents, they keep the world safe. They offer the excitement of new experiences and the opportunity for mastery, a deep pleasure and essential building block for self-motivated learning.

When a nursery school teacher has to leave before the end of the school year or is even absent for a few days, either sick or on a trip, everyone reacts. Parents feel unsettled about how the routines will be maintained and about the special understanding that teacher may have for their child; children may be angry, act up or not want to go to school. Or they may act like they don’t care, but just withdraw a bit inside.

If a teacher falls gravely ill, fellow teachers have to struggle with terrible worry for their friend and colleague while carrying on with duties and supporting the rest of the school community. Parents wonder about how to talk with their children about the situation and wonder what will happen if the worst happens and the teacher dies.

Many people react with a well-intentioned impulse to shield the children from anxiety or bad news. It’s true that children can be overwhelmed by information that is too extensive, over their heads, or too detailed. But honesty from grownups teaches children we can be trusted. Careful and appropriate explanations of the reality of difficult things can be opportunities for eventual mastery and growth.

A hard thing becomes manageable when we talk about it with understanding of the meanings and confusions that children may have at different ages. Children often get sick, and sometimes their parents do too. We know the difference between a serious or terminal illness and the flu, but little children don’t. So the first distinction to make is to say something like, “There are two kinds of being sick. One is ordinary, like last month when you had to stay home from school with a cough and a cold, or when I was throwing up last summer. We all get better from ordinary sicknesses. But another kind is very bad, because it can take a very long time, and sometimes people can’t get well from a bad sickness.” Clarifying the difference helps reassure children that nothing terrible will happen if they get sick.

If you’ve raised the notion of someone not recovering, however, you may get the next logical question — “What if she can’t get well?” It’s hard for everyone to think about death and even harder to think about how to discuss it with little children. If you have talked about death in the context of the life cycle already with your child, then she knows the answer to her question, but may not want to apply her knowledge to her beloved teacher’s situation. If you have also talked about death as being something that people try to prevent by taking care of themselves and asking doctors for help, you may also have included the idea that death is ultimately one of those things that people are not in charge of. If the three buckets are what kids are in charge of, what grownups are in charge of, and what no one is in charge of, death goes in the third.

So a teacher’s illness makes a context for talking about some of these hard things. It also provides an opening to emphasize another important distinction. “Some things happen often, and others are very rare. When they have lived a long, full life, old people die. But it’s very unusual and unexpected for people to die before they have lived their full life. Even if it happens with someone you know, it doesn’t mean that it will happen with other younger people.” Children often figure out the world by generalizing; we can help them use that cognitive tool appropriately by pointing out when it doesn’t apply, that is, when something does not happen often.

Lastly, it’s tremendously important to be honest about feelings, with grownups allowing themselves and giving children permission to put their sadness and worry into words. Words structure our experiences and offer the chance to share them with others, strengthening children’s capacity to handle their feelings in these two significant ways, through internal growth and cementing of relationships. It’s all right to share your concern and sadness with your child, again gauging carefully the intensity of what you say. “I’m worried about Mrs. Brown, and I’m sad that she is so very sick. It helps me to know that her family and the doctors are doing all they can to try to help her get better. Maybe we can make a card together to tell her that we miss her.”

Kerry Kelly Novick is a local child, adolescent and adult psychoanalyst, affiliated with the Michigan Psychoanalytic Institute and the Michigan Psychoanalytic Council. She is a founder of Allen Creek Preschool and author, with Jack Novick, of “Emotional Muscle: Strong Parents, Strong Children,” available through http://www.buildemotionalmuscle.comand at amazon.com. She welcomes your email with comments and questions for future columns at kerrynovick@gmail.com. The ideas and opinions in this column are Kerry Kelly Novick’s and do not necessarily represent the views of Allen Creek Preschool, MPI or MPC.