Common Feelings for Grieving Children

Shock
Children experience shock when someone they love dies. The question “When is daddy coming back?” may be repeated frequently. Children can be questioning one minute than running to play a minute later. Children have their own pace as they grieve. Children may later catch up on their grief as they feel ready.

Hint: Respect the child’s need to talk or not to talk about the death.

Physical changes
Children may often feel pain in their body. Grieving children may lack energy, have difficulty falling asleep or sometimes sleep too much, and start having headaches. They may have stomach pain, lack appetite or have an excessive appetite. In most situations, adults can support and reassure the grieving child. A medical examination might help to lesson the concerns for both child and caregiver.

Hint: Attend to a child’s body pain because it is very real and they do hurt.

Regression
Children may want to return to an earlier sense of security and protection. They may desire to sleep with a parent, refuse to be independent, or become unwilling to separate from a parent. A grieving child may have more difficulty interacting with friends. Regressive behaviors in children are usually temporary and may come and go as a child is grieving.

Hint: Allow the grieving child to create this safe time.

Disorganization and Panic
Children may suddenly have thoughts and feelings that are overwhelming. They wonder “Who will take care of us?” or “Will our family survive?” or “Will I survive?” These thoughts can create a sense of panic that is frightening and confusing for a child. A child needs to be reassured and told that “You are OK!”

Explosive Emotions
Feelings like anger, hate, blame, terror, resentment, rage and jealousy can be very upsetting for the child as well as the caregiver. These emotions signal a child’s anger at the person who died. They may think that “If Daddy loved me enough, he wouldn’t have died”. Children want things the way they were before the death. They want to person who died to return. A child may direct their anger to any available person.

Hint: Encourage a child to express these explosive emotions in a safe way.

Acting-Out
Children may act out by becoming loud and noisy, have a temper tantrum, start a fight with peers, talk back or refuse to follow the rules. Generally, a child is saying “I don’t care about anything. Grieving children feel insecure after the death. Children feel a strong loss of control and power. They search for a sense of control by acting out. Or children may feel that they deserve to be punished because someone they loved died. Or maybe a child believes that if they act out the person who died will come back. A child’s acting out may be difficult to understand for a caregiver.

Hint: Set age appropriate limits for a child’s behavior.
         Set aside time each day to share and play together.

Hypermaturity
Children attempt to grow up very quickly and become the “man” or “women” of the house, often in an effort to replace a person who has died. When this happens, the child isn’t able to do their grief work but instead focus on these new roles.

Hint: Encourage age appropriate peer contact and daily routines.

Fear
Grieving children often feel afraid. They fear that someone else in their life will not be coming back. They fear that there is no one to take care of them. Children fear that if they love someone again, maybe this person will also leave.

Hint: Listen and acknowledge a child’s fears. Give lots of hugs.

Guilt
Children often blame themselves when someone they loved dies. Children have magical thinking where by thinking of something, they can make it happen. They may take responsibility for the death, yet say nothing to anyone about this feeling. A child needs help to understand that being angry or upset with a person does not cause the person to die.

Hint: Help the child to understand the circumstances of the death.

Relief
At times, a child may appropriately feel a sense of relief when someone in their life dies. Death can bring relief from suffering. Children need help from adults that it is OK to feel this relief.  When children have experienced some abuse by the person who died they may also feel relief. Children may have loved the person but they were also the consequences of their abusive behavior.

Hint: Acknowledge this sense of relief for ourselves.

Sadness
Sadness for children takes place over time. Children may wonder why they are crying months following the death. When children are sad, they lack an interest in themselves and others. They become nervous and move away from having fun. They laugh less or smile less often.

Hint: Listen, listen, and listen
         Get some sun and exercise.