Parental reactions matter, too. Adult experiencers can at least speak up for themselves or exercise a fair degree of choice. Should a child say anything, he or she is generally ignored or hushed. Thus, child experiencers are six times more likely than adult experiencers to forget, block, or hide what happened to them. The full impact of their experience seldom takes hold until adulthood.
Spontaneous recall is common, even decades later, when something triggers memory.
To an adult, such a phenomenon is only one of many life occurrences. But to a child, a near-death experience is the world itself, or 'all. This colors everything children think, say, and do. Kids face the same pattern of aftereffects adult experiencers do, but without the same options. Among adults, the near-death experience is, for the most part, a suicide deterrent.