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Bereavement > Children & Death

How to Help Children Deal With Bereavement

Children of any age may be unaware of death, but they are keenly aware of feelings, particularly their own and the people around them. Even infants sense disruption when the family's rituals of daily life are altered. To ask, “Are young children aware of death?” may be the wrong question because it misunderstands how pervasive the impact of death is on the family and how children sense changes in their environment. Children are aware. Our challenge is how to help them interpret their awareness.

Death can mean many things at different times even to the same individual. But what it means to everyone all the time is change. Death of a grandparent, spouse, child or pet, whether expected or sudden, whether interpreted as release from suffering or as unwanted tragedy, changes the lives of survivors.

When death occurs, the important questions are: How will the child learn about the death? How will the child be permitted to express anxieties about the change? How will adults behave around the child?

The answer to the first question is: When the death of someone close has occurred, be explicit with your child about what has happened and why you feel the way you do. For example: “Son, I'm feeling very sad today because Grandpa died this morning.”

Don't try to shield the child from the fact of death. We can't succeed even if we try. Far better that we lead our children through the process of adapting to their loss. Adaptation is possible only when the cause of disruption is known. Otherwise, children are left to their fantasies and fears about the unknown.

The following sections will be helpful: When Fearful of Change; When a Brother or Sister Dies; When Talking is Not Enough; When Pretense Takes Over; When Feeling Depressed; When in School; and When Searching for Healthy Behaviors.

When Fearful of Change
We all have fears about change. We all have a history of how we learned to cope with our fears. Every child over the age of eight months, some even earlier, has had fears of abandonment. Our first awareness with how change affected us occurred when, as a normal part of growth and development, we became aware of our mothers being separate from us. Separation anxiety is expressed over a period of several days to several weeks.

How parents help a child cope with fears common to growth and development sets the stage for both parents and child when death intrudes into the family. If parents respond to fears with aloofness, as though nothing significant is occurring, the confused child will try to model their behavior with pretense. Insecurity, however, is the consequence.

If parents respond to fears of separation with disgust, intense anxiety, or erratic behavior, the child will try to do likewise. Displacement, however, will be the conse­quence. The child, unable to express anxiety about what is really feared, transfers the emotions to other experiences, like restless sleep, loss of appetite, and general crankiness.

If parents respond to the child's fears with consistent, loving reassurance, the child quickly works through disruptions to their daily routines and builds trust that death of someone, and the consequent change in their life, won't destroy them.

Given consistent, nurturing assurance­ — and time — we are able to help our children adapt healthily to change, even death of a loved one.

When a Brother or Sister Dies
Surviving children almost always have ambiguous feelings about the death of their sibling: both loss of a playmate and relief that a competitor is gone; anger toward the deceased for causing trouble and guilt that one's own thoughts or acts made the death occur; satisfaction about helping parents in the crisis and fears that they, themselves, will die. These, and other contradictory emotions, may be acted out by a child over a relatively short period of time.

Expressing a wide range of emotions is healthy. It helps children become reoriented to the disruption and confusion death causes in their lives. It is healthy to be able to laugh as well as cry, to work through feelings of guilt as well as anger. Expression of emotions is the only means we have to sort through confusion.

As with our own feelings, a child's emotions must be respected; but not all at once nor every time. We may need to help children find limits to the extremes of their emotions. Tantrums need definite limits. However, it is far more important to help a child use emotions to process hurt and conflict than it is to try forcing the child to suppress their emotions.

Be patient with children's poor articulation and help them express exactly what bothers them. Be tolerant with answering their repeated questions. The child's experience of the moment may be changing so rapidly that, though the same words are used, the child's repeated questions are reflecting wholly new perspectives.

When Talking is Not Enough
Most adults think the most appropriate way of communicating is by orderly talk. Part of growing up, after all, is learning how to be articulate. However, people who have studied communication patterns tell us that less than 30 percent of what we communi­cate to others is by rational discourse. We use body gestures and expressions of emotion to communicate more than we use orderly talk.

The common error adults make when a child learns about death is to talk – and too much at that! Children become increasingly confused and anxious when bombarded by answers to questions they aren't even asking. Even for older children, body gesture, fantasy language and expressions of emotion are the ways of communicating what is really important.

When a pet dies, it is inappropriate for parents to rush out to buy a new pet so the child “won't notice it's gone.” It is appropriate to encourage the child to act out rituals of leaving the pet — by burial, by talking to friends about the loss, by re-enacting how the pet died. So, too, when a parent or sibling dies.

Adolescents try to interpret death through peer group activities. Some parents may find that their children don't want to talk with them about the death of a loved one. Usually, this is the cue that the adolescents don't want to use adult styles of communication for processing their grief.

The effective mode of communication common to all age groups, however, is ritual. For some families, ritual comes from religious traditions such as prayer, reading of Scripture or participating in funeral services.

When Pretense Takes Over
The most unhealthy way to handle death is pretense. Pretense — the false emotion that nothing significant has happened — should not be confused with the child's imaginary play of make-believe.

Pretense can take a number of forms. It is behavior that refuses to acknowledge how disorienting a death has been. It is words that are dishonest about feelings, such as, “I'm just as good as ever!” It may be the use of clichés, such as: “I guess I ought to be thankful it didn't happen to me.” Sometimes theological or philosophical proverbs can be used as part of our pretense. Sometimes setting of inappropriate priorities is part of pretense, such as when we think we must maintain the same schedules of work we had before the death. When we, as adults, live the life of pretense, we force our children to do the same.

Healthy mourning requires a process of facing reality, testing how the death has affected us, finding ways to compensate for our loss, and establishing new relationships which orient us to life. Healthy children will use play as part of their mourning process.

The child's imaginary play is the use of dolls, stories of fantasy and games to act out the numerous possibilities of change in life, without having to commit oneself to the consequences. Children may even play being dead. Adults should avoid confusing the child by referring to death as sleep, God's will or fate. There are always specific reasons for a death. Share these reasons with the child. If the cause of death is not known, share your uncertainty with the child. False reassurance is to be avoided. Comforting support, physically expressed, is always appropriate.

When Feeling Depressed
Mourning is a normal and necessary reaction to loss. We all grieve over our losses, but children and adolescents have unique challenges. A child feels the loss of separation as intensely as do adolescents and adults. But the child does not have the capacity to transform feelings into logical and sophisticated interpretations of life. The language of young children is simple and built on fantasies and imagination, not concepts.

Adolescents use concepts to interpret change as readily as do adults. But the adolescent, depending on age and experience, usually does not have the maturity to put interpretations into an adult's priorities. For example, for the adolescent, loss of a class ring may be as traumatic as the death of a mother.

Adults feel, analyze and prioritize their feelings of loss. The process of adapting to loss is called mourning. The average adult takes between 18 and 24 months to adapt to the changes death makes on one's life. That doesn't mean that adults don't still have deep feelings and vivid memories about their loss. It means only that they have reworked their capacity to function.

In contrast, children don't complete their mourning of childhood losses until they reach adulthood. In each age of develop­ment, healthy children will rework their interpretations of loss if they have a supportive group of family and friends. Consequently, how children are permitted to express their anxieties about death when it first occurs tends to shape how they adapt to losses throughout their lives.

There are several things that help children cope at times of stress: Regular schedules for eating and rest; nutritious food and drink, excluding refined sugars and caffeinated beverages like colas; assignment of helpful tasks appropriate for their age; and specific times each day for activities with playmates.

Remember, a child, even when profoundly affected by the loss, has an attention span much shorter than an adult's. Their ability to stay in one place without movement is very difficult and should not be imposed. When parents and other adults become annoyed by children's activeness, it is often because of the adult's own stress and anxieties. Overreaction to children's restless­ness will only make matters worse.

Most adults will have periods when they feel quite depressed and disorganized. And so will children. Sometimes, their feelings will be expressed through illness.

Adults can help children process their feelings of grief by encouraging the expression of emotion through play. For example, when the five-year-old is unusually quiet and withdrawn, an adult can intervene by saying: “I see someone sad. I wonder if the dolly is sad because Jimmie died last fall?”

This approach gives the child permis­sion either to express feelings directly or to talk about the doll being sad. To ask, “Why are you so sad?” may be intrusive, as is most direct questioning of a child's private thoughts and feelings by adults. To state, “I want you to stop being sad!” is an example of manipulation, which will drive the child to pretense.

When in School
Going to school may be difficult for some bereaved children. All of their fears can become focused on their feelings of incompetence and insecurity around teachers and classmates. When feeling sad about the death of their loved one, they are particularly vulnerable to being teased or provoked.

If the child's fears are generalized, such as “I hate school,” “No one likes me,” “The teacher is mean,” it is important for parents to help the child be specific. The parent can say, for example: “I understand your feelings, but I need your help to understand exactly why things are that bad at school. Can you give me some examples of what happens?” Once specific fears are identified, it is appropriate to help the child look at ways to resolve them.

A parent can be supportive by asking their children whether they should intervene at school for them. If so, the parent should then encourage suggestions of what should be covered when meeting with the teacher or school counselor. If children do not want parental intervention, it is important that they be supported in how they will address their fears by themselves. Help them rehearse how they will behave and what they will say.

The role of the teacher is very important in helping bereaved children adapt to their loss. Many teachers are never told by parents or children about a death. The supportive teacher can help the child express what has happened in such a way as to elicit support from classmates.

If the child's loss goes unaddressed, it leaves classmates bewildered about the change in the child's behavior, and they will focus on the difference with teasing and provoking behaviors.

When Searching For Healthy Behaviors
Openness and honesty need to occur in as healthy an environment as possible. Research has shown that children need to have the support of peers. It is helpful to have regular, even if short, periods each day in which the mourning child can engage in familiar activities with playmates. Other familiar activities, such as household chores, care of pets and school work, should be expected, but perhaps with some assistance.

Eating and drinking of nutritious foods is particularly important for bereaved children. High protein breakfasts will help avoid bouts of depression or sluggishness. Caffeinated beverages should be avoided; milk and fruit juices should be promoted. Children with allergies will probably become even more sensitive and, therefore, will require more supervision of eating. Disruptive behavior may indicate inadequate nutrition.

Rest patterns should be maintained, even if the child complains that he can't go to sleep. Threats and reactive behavior with the restless child should be avoided. Many parents have found that preparation for bed is the time when their children most want to talk about fears and uncertainties.

It is not words that orient us. It is the process of working through our feelings with the people around us that permits us to adapt healthily to loss. Few people can mourn healthily in isolation.

The characteristics of mourning for adults and children change as we succeed or fail to resolve the disorientation and conflicts death brings into our lives.