Helping your child cope with death - Gloss - latest fashion, beauty tips, health advice, celebrity gossip and more...

Popular of Late

Home

Parenting

Health

Helping your child cope with death

(2 votes)

Everyone copes with death differently and children are no different. Armed with the right tools and understanding our children can learn how to grieve in a healthy manner.
Death and loss are a part of life and unfortunately are felt by many at a very young age. Whether it is a loved one passing away or the loss of a furry friend, children need to learn to grieve and cope with the feelings and emotions that are raised when we lose someone we love. Understanding how children typically show grief can help us better understand our children and teach them ways to cope and manage with the emotions they are feeling.

In what ways do children show grief?

There are many factors to consider before generalising how a child will present their grief. Those include things like the child's age, their level of maturity and communication. Things like how well they cope with change, and even things like how the adults around them are reacting to the situation. Children feed off our emotions and behaviours so that is also a factor in how they will react.

Babies tend to seek out more comfort from those around them, change their eating or drinking habits appear to be seeking the missing person and possibly be quieter or fussier than usual.

Toddler and pre-schoolers tend to have more communicative skills so they may have more difficulties in understanding the permanency of death and that the person is never coming back. The may present their grief in more physical ways such as headaches and stomach aches. They may ask a lot of questions or appear fixated on everything dead. They may blame themselves and try to be good enough or pray hard enough for the person to return.

How can we assist our children in their feelings of grief?

Reassurance is key. Often the may be fearful that their parents will now die too. They need us for comfort and to keep as much in their world the same and predictable as possible. Keeping to regular routines helps them to move past the death.

Talk to our children about their feelings and about death itself. Often we don't speak to our children about death because we ourselves don't want to think about it. Yet discussing the worst can often help them to be better prepared when it does come. Of course, it is important that the discussions themselves are age appropriate.

Why are they not grieving like us?

Like all people children will cope with death and loss in their own ways. It is our job as parents and caregivers to ensure they are supported and given the comfort and openness that they need to properly grieve. Telling them to move on or just get over it when they are not done grieving will only make things worse. Letting them know it is okay to be upset and saddened will go a long way in helping them learn to cope with lose and death.

There are also other ways to help our children. Media like books and TV shows can also help. Movies like the Lion King where Simba loses his father can help. The tools to help our children are all around us. Though we also need to grieve we must first ensure our children are given the tools and ability to do their own grieving as well.

Article by Rachel Goodchild