Encouraging Your Child to Grieve

1. Specifically give your child permission to mourn.
2. Be there personally for the child. Provide affections and security, and also show support, concern, and acceptance by appropriately physically touching the child.
3. Look for ways to help your child express his/her feelings both verbally and non-verbally.
4. Observe for your child's causal connection if personal wishes or actions to the death of his/her parent. Discouraging "magical thinking" that they had any significant cause or responsibility for the death.
5. Keep in perspective the developmental capacities of the child and age related concerns at the time of death.
6. Depending on the age, your child's ability to remember a parent who is physically gone may be limited.
7. Be aware that your child will often need continual explanation of and communication about the death over an extended time.
8. Recognize that your child is expressing feelings not only about the actual death itself, but also about the changes in the parent and the family following the death.
9. Do not compare your child's grief fully in comparison with yours as a parent or adult.
10. Observe your child's behavior for indications of how he/she is coping.
11. Educate your child that loss and death is likely to bring about intense feelings that are important to deal with and that you'll be there to help him/her through this.
12. Any changes in family responsibilities need to be appropriate for your child to handle.
13. Encourage your child to have patience with himself/herself and others.
14. Encourage your child to talk with his/her friends.
15. Recognize that your child will also likely need some time alone for healing.
16. Structure your child's grief into steps and periods so the child is less likely to become overwhelmed by grief.
17. Notice if your child is using avoidance or defenses too long related to the loss.
18. With sudden death, it is important to provide a place for your child to say good-bye in order to complete "unfinished business" with the loved one to decrease the likelihood of unresolved grief.

Ways Parents Interfere With a Child's Grief

1. The parents' own inability to grieve.
2. The parents' inability to tolerate the pain of the child and to allow him to mourn (such as denying the child's feelings and expression).
3. The child's fear about the parents' vulnerability and his desire to protect the parent.
4. The child's concern for his own security, which can take away time and energy to do his own grieving.
5. The lack of security of a stable caring environment.
6. The lack of a caring and emotionally stable adult who can encourage and support the grief.
7. The child's confusion about the death and any part the child believes they are involved with.
8. Ambivalence or mixed feelings toward the victim.
9. Unchallenged "magical" thinking.
10. Lack of opportunities for the child to share his longings, feelings, and memories.
11. Instability of family life after the loss.
12. Any other significant losses occurring simultaneously with this loss of a family member.