Parents can help children cope positively with the grieving process. When someone dies it is a distressing event to which people react differently.
Some may be shocked, some seem numb, whilst others get very upset and tearful. Coping with personal feelings can be especially difficult if children need to be supported too. It may be difficult for a parent to do the ‘normal’ things and keep to the same routines as their whole perspective changes as they are in shock.
“How you handle death and grief is a blueprint for how your children handle death and grief in their emotional lives,” advises parent coach and author, Sue Atkins. “As a parent you are a real-life role model for your children.”
Parents often try to protect their children by not talking about illness or death. This is, of course, understandable as not everyone is comfortable talking about their emotions or knows what to say. However, Sue Atkins believes that: “children are sensitive, intelligent people who need to be listened to and asked how they feel. They have their own personal unique relationship with the person who dies and need to be allowed to express their grief.”
Children handle death and loss in a number of different ways, as do adults, and it is important to understand that children of differing ages react in different ways, and not always as an adult may react or behave.
Children’s understanding of death comes gradually:
Under five years.... children of this age have little abstract sense of time or distance, so final and forever means very little to them
dead means less alive
death is a sleep or a journey
death and life are interchangeable
From five to eight years: death is a frightening person
death is final
death is often seen as the end result of violence and aggression
and often there's an intense interest in the rituals surrounding death
From around nine years onwards.... children understand that death is the end of bodily life
death is inevitable, final and happens to everyone eventually
From around nine years of age most children will have an adult view of death although this will depend on their development, maturity and past experiences of death. “The best way of understanding what children think and feel about death is to listen carefully, talk gently with them, and be guided by them.”
Many parents feel that childhood is a time free from difficulties and challenging events but in reality this just isn’t the case. It is how the parent handles the challenges that makes their children grow up well balanced, resilient and strong, able to handle the blows life deals them.
“Don’t be afraid to be completely natural in your own grief - don’t hide it away from your children. Grief is a natural emotion. Sadness is part of life and by talking it through together your child can experience the healing process first hand,” advises Sue Atkins.
April 2009
Sue Atkins is a parent coach and her company is Positive Parents Confident Kids. She is a former Deputy Head with 22 years teaching experience and is an NLP Master Practitioner and Trainer. As well as being a parent coach, Sue is a parent of two teenagers and the author of numerous books, her latest being “Raising Happy Children for Dummies" one in the famous black and yellow series. Chapter 13 covers helping your child cope with bigger issues, such as death and dying.
Child Bereavement Charity
0845 357 1000 - information and support line
www.childbereavement.org.uk | 
Second Child Treated Differently To First Child
