Helping your children deal with loss

Parents often need assistance in helping their children deal with loss.

• The death of a friend, family member or pet.
• Moving to a new neighborhood with the consequent need to separate from current friendships and establish new ones.
• Separation or divorce of parents.
• Loss of physical capabilities due to illness or accident.

Helping the child deal with these and other losses can be a real challenge for parents. The following suggestions may be helpful:

• Resist the urge to protect the child from any and all losses by over protecting, over controlling or denying the realities of life. Being deceptive and trying to shield the child from unhappiness may seem less painful in the short haul but usually has negative consequences over time.

• Don’t deny your child the benefit of seeing parental grief, mourning and feelings of loss. Parental modeling of healthy grief responses should be encouraged.

• Express empathetic feelings to your child in response to his or her feelings of loss. Validate your child’s feelings in their response to the loss that they have experienced. “I know that you really miss and love your dog a lot, he was a wonderful companion to you”.

• Don’t force your child to talk about his or her feelings as each individual processes his or her feelings of grief and loss in different ways. The length of time it takes to move through grief and loss experiences varies from individual to individual and situation to situation. Beware of any tendency toward impatience that you, his or her parent, may have.

• Do beware of significant and prolonged periods of change in your child’s habits of eating, sleeping, temperament and interests. A friendly outgoing child who becomes sullen, withdrawn and pulls away from friends and family maybe experiencing depression. A quiet and easy going child who begins to exhibit “hyperactive”, defiant behavior and frequent moodiness may also be indicative of psychological distress in response to loss which may require professional attention. Also, a sudden lowering of grades in school, and a general lack of enjoyment of life persisting over time may necessitate professional evaluation.

• When explaining death to a child, keep the explanation simple, straightforward and within the child’s level of understanding. Talking about aging and severe illness when appropriate may be useful, especially with younger children.

I will return to this important topic in future columns.

Harold H. LeCrone, Jr., Ph.D. Copyright 2000