As parents and caregivers, it is natural to want to protect your children from loss. We particularly want to protect them from losing someone important to them, such as a parent, sibling, relative or friend.
Children thrive in a predictable, noble world. When a loved one dies or a major change occurs, such as separation, divorce, relocations, their world becomes chaotic and that’s terrifying for them. As such, they respond to these major changes in many different ways.
While you cannot avoid loss, you can help children navigate through the experience of grief and loss in a healthy way. As parents and caregivers, it is our responsibility to help prepare them for the world.
In this article, I share with you how to identify signs of grief in children, how to help children learn and manage grief and when you should seek professional intervention if your child is having a hard time processing grief.
Ok, so let’s start here…. Children grieve but they process grief much more differently than adults.
Pre-school children see death as temporary or almost reversible. This belief is sometimes reinforced by cartoons where the characters die and come back to life.
While adults are able to sustain feelings of sadness for long periods of time, children cannot tolerate long periods of sadness.
You will realize that one moment they speak about the person who dies and the next moment they are running, playing and laughing.
They might ask you a question out of nowhere about the loss and then move on to another activity. But this does not mean that children get over loss quickly.
It is also important to know that children may temporarily regress (return to earlier stages of development), engage in temper tantrums (in younger children) and need more attention.
They may start wetting themselves and sometimes, younger children may believe that they caused someone’s death.
A young child might believe that a loved one died because they wished bad on that person when they were angry.
At around the age of eight years old, children are likely to understand what death means. However, they think that death is not going to happen to them or happen to anyone that they know.
Older children understand more clearly what death means and based on this understanding, they deal with grief a little bit more differently.
Teenagers completely understand what death means and they generally respond with anger and aggression or even sadness.
What are some signs of unhealthy coping that parents/caregivers can look out for in children?
Well, you might see a lot of anger in children especially after someone dies. Anger is a normal response.
However, physical anger, such as physically acting out, becoming aggressive, throwing things, breaking things are warning signs that the child is not dealing with this loss in a healthy manner.
Depression in a young child can also look like anger and irritability. In older children, it may look like mood changes, withdrawal, aggression, decreased appetite, lack of concentration in school, refusing to go to school, as well as, academic problems.
Self-harming behaviors, such as cutting or harming oneself, expressing thoughts of suicide, wishes to be dead so that they can be with the deceased loved one are also signs that the child is struggling in dealing with the loss.
So how can a parent/caregiver/loved one help a child who is navigating grief and loss?
1: Validate their grief
Seek to learn, understand and express acceptance of the child’s emotional experience.
2: Avoid forcing them
Avoid forcing them to attend their deceased loved one’s funeral. Instead, you can encourage them to honour their loved one in some other way such as, lighting a candle, saying a prayer, making a Scrap Book, reviewing photographs, retelling stories, making a memory quilt or memory box with treasures from the loved one so that you can help the child process their grief.
3. Support Them
In circumstances where children do want to go to the funeral, it is recommended that you have another family member and friend be with the child and walk them through what is happening and what’s going to happen next in the funeral ceremony.
Since funerals are usually emotionally charged, the person should escort the child out if they want to leave, so that they are not further traumatized.
4: Allow the child to express feelings about their grief and loss in their own way
Parents may also be grieving and unavailable to provide that emotional support to their children. In these circumstances, another family member or close friend to the family can assist.
5: Follow their lead
Avoid bringing up the loss all the time as a consequence of your own anxieties about it., Instead, create an environment where the child knows that they can speak about it when they’re ready.
6: Be truthful and factual when explaining the loss
Avoid hiding, lying or using euphemisms when explaining loss to children. Avoid phrases like “passed away,” “gone,” “we lost him/her.” Answer their questions honestly, directly and in an age-appropriate way.
7: Do activities with them
Provide opportunities for the expression of painful emotions. Perhaps, you can consider finding a movie that has loss in it where some important person died. Watch it with the child and it will give you an opportunity to discuss it with them.
Children love to play. Make time to do special activities with them.
8: Create opportunities for children to begin to get back into their routine.
It is also helpful when children see their parents getting back into their routines. You might also want to consider establishing a new family routine that adapts to the child’s new normal.
9: Share your own feelings and thoughts
Share your own feelings and thoughts in age-appropriate ways in order to help the child. However, it becomes inappropriate when your child is comforting you instead of the other way around.
At what point do you as a parent or loved one say, maybe it’s time to seek professional help navigating this grief?
As parents/caregivers, you can look at your child and see if he/she is having more good days and bad days. Over time, the child should be having more good days than bad days.
If after a couple months, the child is having more bad days than good days and is unable to function, then it might be useful to seek professional help or grief counselling for the child.
However, it is also appropriate to engage in an initial grief counselling session after the loss occurs to assist with processing the grief. Based on the outcome, you and the counsellor can determine whether the child should continue sessions regularly.
You may also want to consider seeking professional help or grief counselling for a child who is exhibiting the following specific behaviors for an extended period of time:
If your child is having thoughts of suicide, wanting to harm themselves or harm others, you would need to contact the national ambulance or emergency services (811-toll free) or carry them to the Emergency Room and you may have to consider hospitalization until the child is stabilized.
Helping children deal with loss is not solely the family’s responsibility. There are other resources in the community that can help children and support families, such as schools-teachers, Social Workers, community support groups, places of worship, psychologists, counsellors and so on.
You are not alone on this journey.
If you found this article helpful, share it with your friends, family and colleagues!
Also, if you have additional strategies that have worked for your child or other children and can be useful for anyone reading this article, please feel free to share it in the comments below.
Let’s continue to build a community of support for persons who have and are experiencing grief and loss.
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For more information on this topic, you can also check out this article Childhood Traumatic Grief: Information for Parents and Caregivers | The National Child Traumatic Stress Network (nctsn.org)
Here are some additional resources in Trinidad and Tobago that can also provide counselling and psycho-social support to grieving families: