Life values and death: a qualitative study on spiritual concepts and understandings of young children in Denmark

In secular societies, the adults’ vocabulary for talking with children about spiritual topics is limited. This negatively affects Danish children’s spiritual development as well as hinder spiritual care and conversations with adults. This study explores the spiritual understandings, needs, and language of Danish children by means of focus group interviews with 6–9-year-old children in elementary schools. Results suggest that Danish children exhibit spiritual thoughts and emotions despite being embedded in a secular culture. The children interact and relate to dilemmas and life values with a spiritual language which they acquire through narratives and dialogue. Conversations with adults seem to be central to setting the spiritual development in motion. In a secular Danish school context, adults should support children’s spiritual development with a pedagogical didactic where spirituality is taught from the perspective of or with the child and use spiritual stories to facilitate dialogues about these.