Understanding Your Child's Grief

If your child has experienced the death of a family member, friend, or neighbor, you can expect that they will experience grief. But if we expect a child's grief to look like that of an adult's we may miss it altogether. Adults in their middle years tend to show grief through emotional reactions such as crying, sadness or a need to reminisce about the departed. Older adults may also tend to express their mourning through physical symptoms, especially if they are in declining health.

With children, the feelings of grief are more likely to be expressed through behavior. They may act out their feelings in their play - staging funerals, having dolls get sick or hurt, having stuffed animals play dead. Therapists who work with children routinely use play therapy as a tool to allow children to express their feelings and work through them. Observant parents can do likewise, although it may be helpful to consult with a therapist for guidelines.

Anger often appears when children are grieving. Imagine the frustration of experiencing the death of a loved one and not having the words or concepts to think it through. Younger children may also have a sense of responsibility for the death, believing magically that their actions or even thoughts could have caused it. It is unlikely they will reveal this spontaneously, however. Careful attention to your child and gentle questions will provide you with important information about their possibly distorted concepts.

As adults, we typically are involved in multiple tasks and rituals surrounding a death. We may have visited the deceased while hospitalized, handled funeral arrangements, attended services, comforted family or taken meals to loved ones. While stressful, these activities nevertheless serve the important function of providing structure and stages to our grief. Children usually have little if any role in these healing actions.

Children frequently experience fear of abandonment after a death. They may believe that if one person has died, others are to follow. Particularly if they have experienced the death of a parent, they may fear the loss of the remaining family. This is a time when they need a great deal of extra reassurance. This
needs to be both verbal and physical - extra I love you's, direct statements that the parent will not leave them, and extra hugs and closeness.

Some children tend to exhibit the opposite of what we picture as grief. They may become especially noisy, talkative, or silly. They may laugh at inappropriate times and situations. Remember that even as adults, we sometimes cover our sadness with exaggerated pleasantries and smiles.

With information and reassurance most children will progress through the stages of grief naturally. Unfortunately, during times of grief, the adults in the child's life may be too immersed in their own mourning to be fully present when the child most needs them. They may also feel uncomfortable discussing death and therefore avoid bringing it up. But children need solid facts to hang onto. When they are not provided, you can count of them filling in the blanks themselves - often with distortions, misconceptions, and needless anxiety.

If you are unsure of your ability to help your child during their grief, or if they appear to be stuck in their feelings, a professional consultation is strongly advised. Unresolved grief is known to lead to depression in children as well as adults and can be avoided by talking with a therapist.

Your child's grief is real and will be expressed as individually as his or her own personality. By providing understanding, information and reassurance, you will help your child grow stronger through this painful time.