Children and adolescents have different understandings of death. For the baby, death is equated with separation. For toddlers, grief occurs when they realize the person is not returning. The preschool child who tends to live in the present with no clear concept of past or future will not understand the finality. Around ages 4 and 5, death is often personified as a "boogie man." Eventually by the age of 6 or 7, children have developed a clear understanding of death very similar to that of adults. Children and adolescents' experience of a sibling's death usually includes sensations of somatic distress, intense preoccupation with the image of the deceased person, strong feelings of guilt, loss of warmth towards others, and disorientation. Later adjustment problems of children and adolescents whose sibling had died include guilt that they should have died too and distorted concepts of illness and death. Parents have reported that these events were helpful in adjustment to the death: having knowledge of the diagnosis and the likely fatal outcome; participating in the patient's care; having the opportunity to say good-bye in the terminal phase; having the sibling die at home; seeing the dead body; attending the funeral or cremation by choice; being given some of the patient's possessions; and previously experiencing the death of a close relative or pet. (ABL)