Helping Children Cope with Grief

Supporting your Child with Loss & Bereavement

There are many ways to lose a loved one and many ways to grieve.  One commonality is that grieving is composed of two different processes, the need to deal with the loss and the need to restore ourselves. These experiences can look quite different and goes some way to explain the sense of feeling energised one minute and very low the next.  It’s natural and healthy for children to oscillate quite instinctively and often surprisingly quickly between the two.  

Five Suggestions to Help a Child Come to Terms with the Loss of a Loved One 

• When you tell your child about the death, avoid euphemisms such as ‘passed away’.  It’s important to be clear they are not coming back but that you will all hold them in your heart and mind forever.
• Start a memory box for that person. It can be beautiful and include soothing sensory objects with nice smells and fabrics as well as small objects that remind them of their loved one or happy times they spent together. Let them choose when to look in the box and when to put it away. It can give them a sense of control over the process.
• If they are able to, the child’s loved one could prepare a special box of cards, writing down things they wish they could say to them over the years, which the child will keep forever and can return to at different stages.   
• Complex grief – unexpected sudden deaths, suicide, homicide or substance use can lead to longer and more complex greiving.  We recommend seeking professionals to support you and your child as you try to make sense of sudden deaths of loved ones. Please see our recommended organisations for further information about bereavement organisations.
• If your child has lost a loved one, remember that you are the best ‘strategy’ when it comes to supporting them. Make a daily quiet time when you play a game or watch a programme together. You don’t always have to talk but at least if they need to, the space has been made for them.
  

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