6 responses to “Preparing children for the medically assisted death of a loved one”

  1. This a beautiful, thoughtful piece. Thank you

  2. Thank you for this insightful approach. It helps to enter into discussion about death with children.

  3. I am saddened that you think that we should be involving children in MAiD.

  4. Very thoughtful and sensitive article.

  5. I don’t think we should encourage children to be involved in MAiD as they don’t have the maturity to deal with it. They think concretely and aren’t able to abstract yet. I see children coming into the ER who are suicidal. I am concerned that MAiD is contributing to the increase in suicidal thoughts in children.

  6. Note from the editor:

    We’ve received several comments from readers, many about medical assistance in dying (MAiD) in general, which are beyond scope of this article or outside of our posting guidelines (thus not posted above). As expected, the topic of MAiD remains controversial and deeply personal, and even more so when introducing children to the conversation. Our site is not the forum to discuss MAiD as an overall topic, however we have posted this article because availability of MAiD is the reality of practice today, and children will eventually be part of the discussion (even if the decision is to not involve them in any way). Much of the advice in this article is applicable in situations (even outside the context of MAiD) where one would need to prepare children for death of a loved one.

    Steve Wong, MD, FRCPC
    Medical Director, This Changed My Practice, UBC CPD