April 2006:  Helping Children Deal with Death and Dying

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• How Can You Help?

• Resources

• Getting Help

 How Can You Help?

1. Understand Children who are Grieving

“It is very important to remember that children do grieve, often very deeply, regardless of their ability or inability to express the emotions they are feeling.” says the National SIDS Resource Center info sheet.  In addition, they add, “When the normal grief process is denied, the children often feel more anxious, bewildered, or alone.  When they are left without answers to their questions, their fears and fantasies may become more upsetting than the truth.” 

How a child perceives death depends on his developmental stages.

From infancy to 2 years old children tend to absorb the emotions around them like a sponge and model their responses after their caregivers.

From 2 to 7 years old kids are in a stage where they have concrete thinking that makes it hard to understand the permanency of death.  To these kids:

• Death is not predictable or inevitable.

• They will never die – it only happens to others.

• Adjustments to a death are often more important to them then the death itself.

• Death is a punishment for bad behavior.

• There is less fear of death than adults experience.

• Movement equals life.

• Death is reversible – it is not permanent.

Another very powerful part of children’s grief at the 2 to 7 year old stage is magical thinking and the power it has in their minds.  Magical thinking is an attempt by a child to draw conclusions about his world and make some sense of the death.  Examples of magical thinking in young childhood include:  “Step on a crack, break your mother’s back” and “Santa is watching if you are good or not.”  Blame is a big part of magical thinking – the child is looking for a cause and effect that makes sense to him.  Obviously, this magical thinking affects emotions. 

Often, if an adult can tune in to and uncover the child’s magical thinking about the death, the adult can see where the child is most struggling in their grief. The underlying struggle in magical thinking is the child’s desire to change the situation versus coping with the reality of the loss. 

From 8 to 12 years old the child transitions into abstract thinking and gets a more realistic grasp of the permanency of death and its ramifications.  They start to believe that death will happen to all and are struggling to accept their own mortality.  Magical thinking is still available to them, but they tend to differentiate life from non-life and experience the permanence of death.  At this age death thoughts and feelings tend to become too personal to discuss, more like a typical adult.

2. Help Children Deal With Their Loss

• Take the word “death” off the taboo list.  Explain the death.  Use terms like “die” or “dead.”  Using vague terms only confuses children.  Especially during the Easter season, talking about what death is and is not to those who know Christ can bring a lot of hope to a grieving child.

• Do not try to take away a child’s pain.  The pain is natural and needed.  Understand that mourning and sadness are appropriate for people of all ages.  Allow children to release their emotions and do not be afraid to express your own emotions of grief.

• Help them process their feelings.  Children will act out feelings more than they will talk about them.  Encourage them through telling memories of the loved one, visiting the cemetery, acknowledging the dead person on holidays and special occasions, making a memory book, or through play and drawings.

• Seek help if you feel unable to deal with your child’s grief during this difficult time.  It is not at all unusual for the parent or caregiver to be so overwhelmed with his or her own grief, that they do not have a lot of energy left to help the child.  There is no shame in this. Find additional help to see you through this difficult time.

Resource

Brooke’s Place – Children’s grief groups provide excellent support are available in Indianapolis through Brooke’s Place (although there is a waiting list).  Contact them at 317-255-2442.

Bereavement Magazine – This resource consistently offers excellent resources regarding children and grief.

Books

Earl Grollman and Alan Wolfelt are recognized as the premier sources for children and grief.  We’re happy to recommend these excellent books:

Talking About Death: A dialogue between parent and child – by Earl Grollman

Explaining Death to Children – by Earl Grollman

Healing a Child’s Grieving Heart: 100 practical ideas for families, friends, and caregivers – by Alan Wolfelt

Love Letters: Responding to children in pain – Doris Sanford – This is a sweet book of children’s writings on a variety of subjects.  The section on grief would be an excellent resource to read with your child and talk about their response to the writings.

What Happens When We Die – Carolyn Nystrom – Excellent Bible basics about death and what happens from a Biblical standpoint when we die.  Written for children in a wonderfully concise and relevant way.

The Grieving Child – Helen Fitzgerald – Written from someone with clinical and personal experience with helping grieving children.

The Spiritual Growth of Children – Focus on the Family – Excellent resources within this book for working through grief from a Christian parents’ perspective.

Getting Help…

We pray that if you are ministering to a grieving child, you find this month’s information timely and helpful.  It is very common for a family who has experiences loss to need safe places to process the intense and difficult emotions of grief.  Should you find yourself in that position or know someone in need of support, please don’t hesitate to call us at 317-575-6500 to find a counselor most suited to your needs.

©2005 Counseling Center at the Crossing    317-575-6500

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