Experts - children and grief

Oftentimes what we find is that parents tend to assume that their child is grieving in the exact same way that they are, but from the work that we've done, we know that that's actually not true. Oftentimes, children are grieving in a very different way, and it's very hard for parents to get inside the head of their child and really understand what is it they're thinking.

Younger children tend to have higher levels of separation distress, so, yearning and longing for the person who died, and really missing them, and as you can imagine, young children feel that even more powerfully, because they were often dependent on the person who died.

Adolescents tend to have higher levels of identity distress or existential distress where they may feel like, why did this happen to me? What is my future going to look like now that the person isn't there? So, they tend to be more future-oriented than younger children and more concerned about, what is my future going to look like now that I don't have this person in my life?

When children have questions about the circumstances of the death, often what we recommend is that we really let the child guide those questions. So, for example, a child may have questions about exactly how the person died. So, often, we want to recommend to parents that they are factual, that they keep things as simple and straightforward as possible, not adding too much detail unless the child asked for it. And, we know that usually that is what the children need is really to be able to have those facts, but not have information overload where it's too much to comprehend at once.

So, oftentimes, parents err on the side of being too cautious and too careful about not wanting to even raise the issue of the person who died. And, we know that it actually helps kids to be able to have their parents talk openly about the death. So, one thing we say is that it's important to be able to talk and communicate openly about the death itself and the person who died.

We also know that sometimes, parents can provide too much information, and so, it's really a matter of striking that happy medium of really meeting the child where the child is at. So, for example, oftentimes a parent might say to a child, "I know that it's really hard. We all miss Daddy very much. I'm here for you whenever you need me or whenever you want to talk about it," and that really opens the doorway to communication. It doesn't put pressure on the child to talk about it, but it helps them to know that the parent is there and ready whenever they're ready to talk about it.

One of the hardest things that grieving parents have to do is assist their child through their grief process while also taking care of themselves. So, one of the things that we often recommend to parents is really paying close attention to their own self-care, their own, their own s- the support that they need in order to get through that process.

It's almost like when you're on an airplane, and they tell you to put your own oxygen mask on first. That's really what parents need to do, because we know that the more support that parents have, and the better they feel, and the more they're able to cope with the loss, the better their child will do, over time.