When we reach out to bereaved parents, we must not neglect their children. Bereaved children also mourn and they need our attention to help them work through their grief.
Infants of less than two years can sense a loss or pick up the grief of the parent. Children aged two to six years may think that death is reversible. Those from six to nine years old often fear death as contagious and they want to know its causes are. Up to 12 years of age, they may see death as punishment for bad behaviour and they worry about who will continue to provide and care for them. Teenagers will question the meaning of life when a death occurs and they are uncertain how to handle their mixed emotions.
Inadequate mourning by bereaved children can cause depression and inability to form close relationships in adult life.
Norman Wright (2006) states that, “When a child does not grieve over a loss, a similar loss in adult life can reactivate the feelings associated with the childhood experience. Thus a childhood loss can predispose us to over-sensitivity and then depression.”
Adjusting to new roles in the family can also lead to bickering. We need to help them resolve these issues.
Studies show that bereaved children can cope better when talking about the dead parent is easy and fewer daily changes are taking place (Worden, 2003). However, it is also true that most adults are unable to help their children grieve because they have never learned to properly grieve themselves.
Here are some tips for helping bereaved children grieve:
- Talk freely with the children about the death individually and as a family.
- Give consistent answers to their questions about the death, even when they are asked repeatedly.
- Cry together with the children. They need to know that you understand the depth of their pain.
- If there are negative behaviour changes because they cannot express their feelings, talk to them about the changes but do not harshly discipline them or allow their bad behaviour to become a habit.
- Allow the children to play even as the bereaved adults mourn as they cope better through play activity.
- Allow the children to cling to you more often than usual as physical affection is comforting to them.
- Be watchful if a child is harboring any blame, guilt or bitterness about the loss and deal with it immediately, even if you are in the midst of your own sorrow.
- Don’t change pre-loss daily routines of the children unless absolutely necessary.
- Unless your children have been sleeping with you, don’t get them to sleep with you just to avoid facing your grief alone or keep them up late for your companionship.
- If the children have difficulty concentrating on their studies, don’t over-emphasize education at the expense of their emotional and spiritual healing.
- Don’t create pressure on the eldest son to be “the man of the house” if his father has just passed on.
Lastly, always remember that we need to communicate with bereaved children at their level of understanding. For young children, drawing or art activities is one good way of enabling a child to express his or her feelings of sorrow and loss.
Text edited from GGP Outreach, which seeks to provide a supportive role in journeying alongside grieving persons, and at the same time, facilitate involvement and care for grieving persons by others.
