Helping Children Cope With Death

Dr. Emilie M. Storch, PhD

It is likely that 20% of today’s children will have experienced the death of a parent by the end of high school. We know that the outcomes of these losses are affected by how adults encourage children to accept whatever feelings they have about the death. The helper must understand that the road to recovery involves pain... children are not healed through shortcuts. If the adult is available to the hurting child and validates his or her feelings without judging them, it allows the child the freedom to press through the pain. There are no right words and no right actions. It is the ability to allow the child to take you by the hand and lead you through their grief that helps them. The willingness of the adult to listen tells the child that they are cared for. If grieving children are allowed to express even their darkest fears and deepest hurts, they can feel free to share anything they need to with someone who will help them cope with their inner terrors. As adults we must enter into their world and try to understand how they are experiencing it.

Developmentally, children experience death differently. Since very young children are concrete thinkers, they have no obvious perception of death. Separation to them of any kind is very frightening and feels like death (ages 0-3). Death to a very young child feels the same as absence. Between the ages of 3 and 5, children are aware of death but it is not experienced as permanent. They see dead people as having life and consciousness. Death is viewed as temporary and reversible. Therefore, if a preschooler wishes that someone were dead, it does not necessarily mean that they want that individual gone forever. Until about the age of 7, children often think that their thoughts or actions can cause death. Between the ages of 5 and 9, death is personified and is much like "the boogeyman" that works in secret at night. There is an increasing sense of the reality of death and the acceptance of its permanence, but these children also vacillate to denying death. Often they believe that you live if you are good, and you die if you are bad. Over the age of 9, children begin to recognize that death is the end of physical life, as we know it. They begin to accept it as irreversible and as a part of life that everyone will experience.

The stages of grief that children experience are much the same as adults, but are less clearly defined and blurred. Often children mourn in “fits and spurts.” In other words, they may be very sad one minute and playing loudly the next. The onset of mourning may be delayed because their first concern is likely their safety or where they will live after the loss. Eventually, they will pass through the stages of shock and denial, anger, bargaining, depression (which appears as pining, yearning, despair, emptiness) and finally acceptance (detaching and moving on with life). Usually, children do not experience intense grief until 6-12 weeks following the death. Despair often lasts between 10 days and three weeks and this is the most difficult stage. At this point, most children feel very helpless and dependent. It takes about two years for children who are grieving normally to complete the mourning process.

As noted before, children grieve in “fits and spurts,” which are periods of intense sadness interspersed with normal light-hearted play. When children are hindered from reacting to a loss, grief can come out at other times such as crying over the loss of a game or from a minor scrape. Often adults do not know how to handle their own grief, so they shut children out to spare them the pain. This is a great disservice. Children need role models to understand grief and denying them this leads them to repress their feelings or to consider them shameful or weak.

Every child will grieve. Even infants and toddlers will grieve---if they have loved, they will mourn. Common reactions to grief include withdrawal, apathy, aggression, temper tantrums, forgetfulness, hyperactivity, appetite changes, depression, regression to a younger age level and self-blame. Children can withdraw, detach, or depersonalize life because the grief is so painful that this is the only way they feel that they can survive. Many children assume they were responsible for loss (“I was bad.”) Death can be very hard on a child’s self-esteem. It is noteworthy that grieving can cause learning problems. Younger children (less than 3 or 4) will have had less experience with life’s dependability and will be more likely to have difficulties following the loss of a parent. Also, it is likely that children who have lost a parent will have unstable substitute care. This makes their loss even greater because their stability continues to be challenged. The path to healing is blocked if adults try to ignore or cover over the pain of a child. It is critical for children to be told the simple truth, be encouraged to cry until there are no more tears and express resentment and guilt if it is there. If children are comforted in whatever they are feeling and their feelings are accepted no matter what they are, their loss will be great but their ability to overcome loss and go on will be enhanced. As adults, we need to help them make sense out of what has happened and try to interpret it through a Biblical worldview. Clearly, grief work is unique to every child. Adults can best help children through death if they follow the lead of the child and walk with them down their path of sorrow.

There are several tasks involved in grief-work. These involve:

1. Understanding the truth at the child’s specific developmental level.

2. Working through the grieving process (anger, shock, disbelief, despair, rebuilding) over time.

3. Commemorating the deceased both formally and informally (memorial funds, trees planted, memory books made, balloons released, flowers planted, etc). This puts feet to the work of grief.

4. Planning how to go on in spite of the loss.

5. Understanding the comfort of God, the One always with us.

Children work out feelings best through play. Creative ways that an adult can get children to process their experiences of loss and trauma in a supportive context can be very helpful. Helping them to identify what their feelings are validates the feelings for the child (i.e. fear, anger, panic, guilt, sadness). Adults can then help children vent these feelings in appropriate ways such as writing letters to the loved one (that express what they wished they could have said), drawing, building a project, punching a pillow, doing some physical activity, drama, puppets, art, music, journaling, role-playing, coming up with questions for the dead parent or God, making memory boxes, etc.

As adults, we can best help children by trying to reach the parts of themselves that they find the most frightening, validating those and supporting them through their worst feelings. Studies indicated that up to two years following the death of a parent, 59% of children were still concerned about the safety of the remaining parent. Sudden death experiences, the younger age of children and lack of support systems are higher risk factors in resolving grief. Other research indicates that the best resolution of grief occurs in families who actively rather than passively cope with death. The most helpful approach by adults is the attempt to find something positive in this most difficult situation while still validating the child’s feelings. Effective adults are those who are willing to face grief themselves and not run from pain. The adjustment of the surviving parent is the most important influence on a child’s adjustment through the grieving process.

Parents often do not understand that unresolved grief has a huge impact upon children. The following are signs that professional assistance might be helpful for the child:

1. Refusal to share thought or feelings about the death

2. Cruelty to animals or other children

3. Self-harm

4. Excessive clinginess

5. Involvement in drugs or alcohol

6. If the child has been lied to about the death or has had a difficult relationship with the deceased

7. School problems

8. Eating or sleeping difficulties that are prolonged

9. Unexpected changes in behavior

Much of this article came from the book Life & Loss: A Guide to Help Grieving Children by Linda Goldman.