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WAYS PARENTS CAN HELP A CHILD
- Recognize your own feelings. Think about
your own experiences with loss, separation and death. They may
well have an impact on your comfort in helping children and
adolescents with their grief.
- Share the fact of the death. Provide age-appropriate information about what happened and what rituals will occur. Be aware of the four psychological tasks youngsters must accomplish if their grief is to be good grief.
- Be aware of issues that make a specific child vulnerable. These include things such as many recent losses, knowing someone with the same illness, being the best friend or worst enemy of the person who died or having had some actual responsibility for the death. Consider a prompt referral to a mental health center or professional for preventative services.
- Address the children's fears and fantasies.
Be particularly aware of those that grow out of magical thinking
and reflect an inappropriate sense of responsibility for the
death.
- Discuss issues specific to the situation.
Every death is unique and raises specific issues. Children may
want to talk about an illness, violence or suicide, alcohol
and drug use or troubled adults who hurt children. They may
want to know about wakes and funerals, cremation and burial
or ethnic and cultural diversity in death rituals.
- Support children and adolescents as they
grieve. Provide an environment where grieving is accepted. Talk
specifically about the appropriateness of sadness and anger.
Share your own grief with your children, being sure they know
they have not caused tears or anger.
- Remember the person who died and help children
and adolescents participate in that commemoration. Young people
can often make suggestions about the content of a funeral or
memorial service, flowers or what to do with particular belongings
of the person who died. Commemorative activities may go on over
a period of time.
- Use teachable moments to help children and adolescents learn about death and dying. Daily activities and dramatic life events provide many opportunities to talk about death, dying, grief and loss. For example, a dead bird on the side of the road can open discussion about what death is and feelings when something or someone dies. News programs sometimes feature tragic stories on death. Children may raise questions for which we have no answers. It is perfectly acceptable to say that their questions are good ones and we wish we knew the answer, too.
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