Explaining bereavement aids a child’s emotional development

Jan 20, 2010

When a parent, sibling, or someone important in a child’s life dies, it is difficult for the adults caring for that child to meet his or her needs when they, too, are grieving.

When a parent, sibling, or someone important in a child’s life dies, it is difficult for the adults caring for that child to meet his or her needs when they, too, are grieving. Parenting in bereavement can be, challenging. Bereavement is a deep sense of loss or grief which is often dealt with among adults and not so common among children.

Children grieve too — they need information and honesty to help them in their grief and they need to be able to trust the adults around them. We need to speak to them in a language that is appropriate to their age and level of understanding. Children also need to be given the opportunity to ask questions and to have those questions answered as honestly as possible, and yet they should not get over-burdened with too much information.

Often times the kind of questions children ask reveal their understanding of death, their response to the loss and confusion as a result of the differing responses of the adults around them.

Children, especially younger ones, often ask the same questions over and over again.

While this can be draining for the adults around them, it is often the child’s way of checking out the reality and trying to make sense of what has happened. It is our responsibility as adults to ensure children have understood the information we give them.

Rather than exclude and disregard them as usually is the case in the African culture, the child should be engaged during such critical times. Observing children’s actions will often disclose a great deal about their emotions. Some children may become destructive, others may become withdrawn.

Changes in sleep patterns, eating habits or concentration or work habits can also be signs of grief. Grieving children may also be more emotional than usual, less emotional than usual, want to talk about the deceased, some do not want to talk about the deceased or go on as if nothing has happened.

Children learn how to grieve by watching the adults around them and like adults, need to find appropriate ways to express their feelings about the death and life without that special person. Adults need not fear to show children how you feel — this helps them know it is okay to feel the way they do.

Children tend not to stay sad for long, though, and will dip in and out of their grief. Though they may not show it in the same way, children may grieve just as intensely as adults when they suffer a loss. Keeping memories alive by remembering and talking about the person who has died also helps children in their grief.

Encouraging children to draw, paint, write stories or talk about their feelings are ways in which adults can help children open up. Adults can also discuss certain memories or tell children that they are having similar emotions to help them discuss their own thoughts and feelings.

At the same time, helping children stick to a fairly familiar routine is also important so that they do not feel that much has changed or that their lives are out of control. Explain to children the reality and permanency of death; refrain from lying to them or hiding the reality. After all, sooner or later they will get the whole truth. If children are not helped to appropriately deal with grief, they will be left with deep or even more devastating emotional issues to handle later in life.



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