Children Need To Grieve Too

Experiencing a loss of someone you love is difficult for an adult to work through. The loss of someone loved is equally difficult for a child to understand and process all of the feelings they experience when death hits home.

A child will experience the same gamut of feelings regarding the grieving process that an adult encounters including being depressed, lonely, saddened, anger, loss of appetite or an exaggerated need to eat, feeling a lack of direction or focus when completing tasks, or losing motivation to perform an activity and also they can become forgetful.

Adults can assist a child to work through the process of grief at times of loss by allowing them and actually giving them permission to express how they feel and to tell them that it is OK to feel that way. Sometimes the best way to help a child to deal with grief is to allow them to see an adult deal with it in a safe manner.

A child needs to be able to follow the normal routine as much as possible including mealtimes, bedtimes, getting exercise and having the opportunity to play and go to school (if school aged).

The world does not stop while we are grieving and a child should not be asked to stop the activities that they normally do when a family is in mourning.

Depending on the age of the child, he/she will express the feelings in many ways some of which may be uncontrollable crying, temper tantrums or public displays of anger/aggression. Although it is important to handle these situations with firmness and with safety in mind you will also need to remember that the child is in pain and needs you to show compassion and understanding too. The child may not make the connection between the recent loss and the feelings that he/she is having. As important as understanding why the behavior is happening it is equally important to not allow the child to make a habit of using his pain as an excuse to misbehave.

A child may experience regression as a result of the death and grieving process. Regression behavior may include thumb sucking, wetting the bed, returning to baby talk, or in cases of severe regression; not talking at all. Regression behavior is usually only temporary and the skills and maturity level will again be at a normal functioning level as the grief process continues and as the child learns to go through the grief process in more positive ways. There are ways to foster this positive grieving process such as using inanimate objects like puppets or action figures and dolls to encourage kids to act out how they are feeling so they can be more in control of doing so and without feeling like others are watching them. Another way to help your child to focus on getting their feelings out is to make a scrap memory book of the person who has died. Making and then browsing through a memory scrapbook will give the child plenty of opportunity to tell stories about what is happening in the pictures or drawings that will allow him/her to freely express thoughts and feelings. Having the child tell stories about the person and then writing them down and reading them back to the child and then giving him/her a chance to change or add to it is an excellent outlet for the child. A similar idea is to create a family video of members talking about the person and recalling pleasant memories.

Recommended Reading

1. Children Do Grieve And Feel Loss - Grieving the loss of a loved one is natural. Adults may put their feelings on auto-pilot until they deal with...
2. Children With Anger Management Issues - It has been said that children acting out may have anger management issues and, contrary to popular belief, it may...
3. Understanding The Differences Between Grief And Mourning - Losing a family member or a friend due to an accidental death or even a long illness can be painful....
4. Emotional Responses You Can Expect From A Grieving Child - Children and adults grieve in different ways. Most adults are adept at getting a handle on the process but children...
5. Helping To Manage Your Child's Anger - While anger is an important topic that many adults work on in order to keep themselves feeling sane and allowing...