Understanding Grief in Children
There is no normal when it come to grief, especially grief in a child, but there are developmental factors that affect how a child processes grief and loss very differently than an adult. Here are resources for understanding more about your child’s experience of losing a sibling and what they are capable of understanding at different ages and stages.
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Developmental Stages of Understanding Death in Children
Click below to download the free Red Bird Ministries’ guide on understanding how children process death at different ages and stages.
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Helping Children Cope Cope with Grief: A Guide for Caregivers
Click below to download this free resource guide from a certified child life specialist, Shani Thornton.
The 4 Concepts of Death
There are four concepts a child needs to understand about death in order to accept it. Developmental level and age play an important role in how and when a child will truly grasp death. Not all children will understand death in the same way. A younger child might grasp that all things die (universality) but they might think that a person can come back to life (irreversibility). As children develop and mature cognitively, they are more able to process all the concepts of understanding death. In fact, children grieve developmentally and will continue to process and grieve the loss of a sibling until they are fully mature and able to integrate the death with an adult brain. (source: Gillette Children’s Hospital)
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The understanding that death is permanent. Can a person come back to life after death? This an idea for a child trying to understand death. Until the child recognizes that once dead, a living thing cannot live again, they have not truly grasped the concept of irreversibility. Some younger children might think that the person is sleeping and will wake up.
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This concept deals with understanding that everything eventually dies. For a person to fully understand death, they must recognize that all living things die no matter what steps they take in life.
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This concept deals with the bodily and mental functions of a person stopping or slowing after death. It deals with not only outside functions like breathing, but inside functions like thinking as well. A child must realize that when someone dies the body stops working and can no longer do the things it used to.
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What caused the person to die? Children learn to understand how and what events lead the person to die. Younger children, around 3 – 5 years old, might think they caused the death because of their own mean thoughts or actions – magical thinking.
Finally, Every Child is Different.
There can be a marked difference in how multiple children in a family experience grief. The intensity of grief, the need to actively express it, and the duration of time over which a child outwardly grieves is very individual. Each child’s needs will be unique and perhaps also very different from yours as the parent.
We must resist drawing conclusions about a child’s grief or their love for their deceased sibling based on their external expressions. A child’s grief may go “underground” for many years as their mind and spirit develop and are able to handle the enormity of the loss.
