When Children Know Someone Who Has AIDS

When Children Know Someone Who Has AIDS

The first person children know with AIDS may be a classmate, a church member, or a relative. In all cases, the facts about AIDS and how sick the person is should be discussed with children. When children learn that someone they know has AIDS, it is best that they have already been taught about AIDS and death. Even if children have been taught, encourage them to ask as many questions and share as many feelings as possible. They will not remember everything they have been told.

Children need to be taught over and over again about AIDS, death and grieving. Once is not enough.

Earlier, I related how my friend had talked to her daughter about AIDS. Later Michael came and played with her daughter, age 8, and her brother, age 6. Both were informed that Michael had AIDS. The children saw how thin he was.

When Michael died, they were angry. "Why didn't you tell us Michael had AIDS, " they asked. The mother patiently explained that she had told them. Then she dealt with their present feelings of grief.

If the person who has AIDS is a student, many public schools will (and should) bring in a social worker or a trained counselor to talk to the children about AIDS and about their classmate.

Chris Barnoski was a 9-year old boy with hemophilia and AIDS who attended Kelly Lane School in Granby, Connecticut until he died in 1987. One day when Chris was at the doctor's, a social worker spoke to his class. "Later, a few wanted to talk with her alone. A boy who shared a snack with Christ years ago asked if he would get AIDS. A girl wondered what a funeral was like."2