Help your child cope with loss

Parents often assume that young children don’t really notice loss or miss a beloved Grandma or Grandpa who has died, or understand the implications of you losing a baby. However, if your child was old enough to know, love and spend time with the person you’ve lost, or was able to grasp that your tummy was growing bigger because her baby brother or sister was in there, then she’s old enough to grieve.

If you are having to work through your own grief about miscarriage, stillbirth, neonatal death or crib death, or you’ve lost one of your parents, it may be that your own strong emotions are blinding you to your child’s – and often their sense of loss might not be obvious because they aren’t yet old enough to express it in words and tend to grieve for very short periods of time and then go on as if everything was fine.

With young children, their behavior can be a giveaway sign that they’re brooding – they may become aggressive or clingy, or regress to habits they had outgrown, such as thumbsucking, carrying a favorite comfort object around everywhere they go, or bedwetting.

Although you might think that shielding a child from loss might be the best way of helping them move past it, often helping them confront it is the only way to help them understand and cope. So how do you do that?

Explaining death to your child

A young children will have a difficult time understanding something as abstract as death, and won’t be able to grasp that Grandma or Grandpa, or their new baby brother or sister has physically gone. The fact they think the absence is only temporary means you need to be careful in how you talk about it. Avoid saying that your loved one has ‘gone away’, because your child will believe that they’re going to be coming back.

It’s also crucial that you don’t tell them that Grandma or Grandpa, or your baby, “fell asleep and never woke up” – older toddlers and preschoolers take things very literally and are at an age where they’re vulnerable to nightmares. Euphemisms such as this and this will plant the fear that either they, or you, might go to sleep one night and never wake, potentially making for big problems at bedtime. As hard as it may be for you, use the words ‘dead’, ‘died’ and ‘death’ they will help your child to develop an understanding of these concepts, and avoid any confusion.

Finding the right words will be difficult but your child needs to know their loved one isn’t coming back. Use short, simple sentences, with as many ‘feeling’ words as possible, to help your child open up herself. Often it can be easier to explain by telling them in very basic biological terms – let them place a hand on your chest and feel your heart beating and then explain that Grandma or Grandpa’s heart stopped working. You can then go on to tell them, very gently, that because of this, Grandma’s arms and legs don’t work anymore and her eyes don’t see. Or you can explain that her baby brother or sister came out too soon when she was so tiny her body wasn’t able to work properly.

You will probably have to go through this with your child many, many times, because she will be at a stage where he asks lots of questions. Try to be as patient as you can, even though you are grieving yourself – your child is looking to you for reassurance that you, she and all her familiars are OK

Helping her express her loss

Young children often go through a spell of bad behavior after experiencing a loss. She may lack the vocabulary to express what she feels; or, if she has seen you upset, she may not want to make you sad by telling you that she is missing your loved one.

Helping your child find the words she needs to explain how she feels will help avoid bad behavior and acting up. Books can be a great way to do this, as you can talk to your child about what is happening to the characters and help her see how their situation is similar to hers. You can ask her how he thinks the characters in a book are feeling and this can help her project her won feelings onto them, sharing her emotions in the process.

Another lovely way of helping young children work through their feelings is to involve them in choosing a memorial for their loved one, or to help them create their own personal memorial – perhaps a special painting, or a scrapbook filled with pictures of them and their loved one; or a special tree or flower plant in the garden that she can water all by herself. Talking about their loved one can also be an ongoing memorial, so don’t be afraid to speak to your child about the wonderful things they did together with Grandma or Grandpa, and about how their baby brother or sister would have loved them.

Discipline after loss

Even if your children are grieving, you still need to stay in charge and they still need to know that certain behaviors aren’t acceptable. Discipline strategies aren’t just about enforcing good behavior – they also set vital boundaries for your child, and give her a sense of security and continuity. At a time of loss she desperately needs to know that all the other aspects of her life will stay the same.

The information in this feature is intended for educational purposes only. If you have any concerns about yuor health, the health of your child or the health of someone you know, please consult with a doctor or other healthcare professional.

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Last Modified: 04/01/2009

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