Help a Child Cope with Loss or Death

Helping Children Deal with Life's Losses and Tragedies

© Kirsti A. Dyer

Jan 15, 2009

Parents, grandparents and teachers would love to shelter children from loss, disappointment, death and the resulting feelings of grief that go along with experiencing life's tragedies, but children do not live in a world that is free of loss, death or tragic events.

Instead parents, grandparents and teachers can teach their child or children about death, help their child learn how to understand loss and then how to cope with the feelings of grief .

Types of Losses for a Child

For many children, the first loss they may experience is the death of a grandparent or a pet. Both of these losses may be painful for the child, particularly a child who has lost a treasured pet.

The most common types of loss that children experience are moving, separation and divorce. Many children must learn how to cope with parents who have been deployed in the armed services or who are away from the family at work during the week or for extended periods of time.

Children can also experience different loss, the same way as an adult. A child can experience a loss of status or role with the birth of a sibling, or when a parent remarries and the child gets new siblings as part of a blended family. Children can also experience the sudden losses from accidents or the aftermath of natural disasters such as an earthquake, hurricane or fire.

Ways to Help a Child Cope with a Loss

Children are affected by loss and death differently than adults. They may express their grief in a variety of ways and deal with death in many different ways. The following list includes helpful suggestions for helping a child cope with death.

1. When talking to a child about a loss, find out first what the child knows and what he or she thinks has happened. Children may be aware of more than you think.
2. Answer any question simply and honestly, but only offer the details that they can absorb. Do not give the child more information than is requested.
3. Let the child have time to grieve, be upset and talk about her fears.
4. Give him a chance to talk. Listen, validate feelings and then provide reassurance.
5. Encourage the child to draw, read, write letters or poetry, sing, tell stories, play with clay, build and other creative means of expression are all helpful ways for a child to express grief.
6. Let the child go outside to play and be active; these can be good ways to run off anxiety.
7. Try and keep regular routines. Children can even grieve a change in behavior and mourn the environment and the predictability of a schedule that existed before the loss or death.
8. Be patient and flexible. Children grieve intermittently. The child can cry one moment and then play normally the next.

Remember that it may take the child a long time to recover from the loss or the death depending on the child, the type of loss and the relationship with the lost person, pet, object etc.

Ways to Help Children Cope with Death

Many children struggled to understand death when the beloved Crocodile Hunter, Steve Irwin died suddenly or when some of the more popular Harry Potter characters were unexpectedly killed.

Child and adolescent psychiatrist Dr. David Fassler offers the following advice for parents and teachers on how to help children cope when a death occurred in his 2006 article on "Talking to Children About the Death of a Public Figure" published on the American Academy of Child Adolescent Psychiatry's website following the death of Steve Irwin. Here are some the abbreviated highlights of what he had to say:

• Know what is going on with the death.
• Answer his or her questions about death in simple terms.
• Listen to the child.
• Do not minimize the loss.
• Be supportive if the child is emotional. (A normal response.)
• Be supportive if the child is not emotional. (Also a normal response.)
• Be available when the child is ready to talk.
• Give the child different ways to express the loss – verbal, written, creative, musical and physical.
• Let the child have time to grieve, be upset and talk about what he or she is experiencing.

Teaching children about death, about grief and how to cope with life's losses are some of the most important lessons a parent can teach her child. It is helpful for parents to create a caring environment where the child feels safe to express his or her feelings about the loss or the death.

Sources:

Dyer KA. 2009. Teaching Children about Death and Grief. Suite 101.

Fassler D. 2006. Talking to Children About the Death of a Public Figure. American Academy of Child Adolescent Psychiatry

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