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Coping with Grief© Sylvia Cochran
- Lesson 4: Helping Others To Overcome Personal Grief
Lesson 3: Children And Grief
Introduction
Children are quite frequently the forgotten mourners. This section will deal with the feelings many children may experience at the time of a loss. Please note that while each child experiences grief differently, the statements in this section are a summary of findings reported by caregivers. Hence, if you are in the position of dealing or working with a grieving child, please do no seek to impose adult-specific stages of grief to the youngster; instead simply listen for clues as to where the child finds her/himself in her/his own personal grieving process.
Grieving in Children
A large group of individuals often forgotten in the grieving process is children. Children grieve differently than adults, which in part is due to their emotional maturity, as well as their understanding and perception of time. Younger children cannot truly understand concepts such as “forever“, and often their grieving may be delayed, until such time that they realize that a person is not coming back to them. Parents or caregivers sometimes worry at such a delay in a child’s grieving process, while others take it to mean that the child is “over” the loss and is finished grieving. Neither is correct! Young children will grieve once they realize they miss a person. If, for example, a beloved aunt has died, the child will begin missing her shortly. When she fails to come to visit, the child will miss her even more. Once the explanation is added that the aunt will not come to visit anymore, whenever the child misses the aunt, s/he will grieve for her. Children in general are also very hands-on; they may miss the particular song the aunt sung when she visited; they may miss the places they would visit together and the activities they used to engage in. This may sometimes result in angry outbursts when a caregiver seeks to fill the vacant spot the aunt left in the child’s routine. As a parent or caregiver, it is imperative that you understand and respect your child’s grieving process. Similarly, it is vital to understand that each child will grieve differently, and that there is no hard and fast rule as to the length and manifestation of a child’s grief. To this end, when the situation arises, equip your child to deal with the emotions s/he might be experiencing: Tell the truth. Do not say that someone “went on a long journey” or “fell asleep”1
. This will leave you with a child who will not let you out of her/his sight and will not go to sleep or allow you to do so without fear.
Spare the details. It is not necessary to let your child know the intricacies of the aunt’s illness that may have led to her death. Similarly, avoid such discussions within earshot of the child.
Expect seemingly irrational fears. If the aunt died in a hospital, the child may fear entering a hospital, because s/he may see the hospital in itself as being a contributor to the aunt’s death. Be prepared to talk through such fear rather than dragging a kicking and screaming child to visit a sick relative, or, worse yet, by seemingly confirming her/his fears by leaving the child behind when you go.
Be prepared to repeat. Children will steer the conversation back to their loss in infrequent intervals. This may continue for months, perhaps years. As the child’s understanding of its surroundings matures, s/he will continue to work on wrapping her/his mind around this loss, and the parent or caregiver must be prepared to discuss and relive the loss at those times.
Offer choices. Even though the child will not understand the death the way the adults do, allow her/him some small input in the decisions, which are being made. By giving the child choices to make, such as which kind of flower display should be used for the wake -- the pink one or the yellow one, the child will be able to understand that life is continuing for her/him and that they are still an important part of the family.
Be honest with your grief.2
Do not hide your grief from your child. Allow her/him to see you cry. Explain that you, too, are very sad.
Keep routines. Children thrive on routines. If they are disrupted because of the aunt’s death, restart them as soon as possible. If this is not done, it will add another dimension of grief to the child’s grieving process.
Expect acting out. A child’s grief may be displayed in a variety of actions. Some are unconscious, such as nightmares, or the fear to go to sleep without the light on. Others may be puzzling to observe, such as the taking on of mannerisms of the deceased, such as a limp or a certain word or phrase. In younger children, it may be that potty-trained children regress and will soil themselves again. This is a normal stage of a child’s grief and not grounds for discipline. Instead of seeking to correct the child’s acting out immediately, allow her/him some space and compromise if possible. Buy a nightlight, which the child may pick out, allow the child to wear training pants again for a pre-determined period of time, i.e. by the end of the week you need to use the potty again.
Recognize unrealistic guilt and deal with it immediately. Unresolved conflict with the deceased, or the mere presence of the child when death occurred may trigger feelings of guilt in a child. If the aunt died in a car accident and the child was present, s/he may feel that her singing in the background was the cause for the accident and the death. If you notice that your child no longer sings find out why. Explain that the accident happened because of the weather condition or the other driver’s intoxication, etc. Make it very clear that the child is not responsible for the course of events and the death. The question that most often comes up with grieving children is whether or not to allow them to come to a funeral. This is a choice that a child should be allowed to make. Explain what a funeral is and what will happen. Ask if s/he would like to come. Respect a “no” and prepare yourself and others if the answer is “yes”. If you are grieving yourself, it is likely that you will need to bring a trusted friend, such as a beloved babysitter, or family member with you, who will primarily keep an eye on the child and assure that s/he is doing ok, and who is also able to remove the child from the situation, should s/he ask to leave.
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