Dealing with Grief

Understanding loss can be hard for children to grasp and each age reacts to death in different ways. Unlike adults who withdraw when grieving, most children often talk to the people around them (even strangers) to see the reactions of others and to get clues from their responses. Children learn how to deal with grief from those around them, as they do other behaviors. In general different age groups of children react differently to death.

Infants do not recognize death. However, feelings of loss and separation are part of developing an awareness of death. An infant will be fussier and will cry more than normal, and may be sluggish and unresponsive.

Children age six and under will ask for details over and over, and may alternate between crying and going out to play as if nothing had happened. They often confuse death with sleep. Young children know that death occurs physically, but think that it is temporary and not final. Those older than three may see death as a kind of sleep and that the person is still alive, but in a limited way. They cannot fully separate death from life and think that the person is still living even though he or she might have been buried. Children at this age may ask questions about the deceased, such as "How does he eat or breathe?"

Children that are age 6 to 9 are commonly very curious about death. They may ask questions about what happens to one's body after it dies. Death may be seen as final and frightening, but only for old people and not to themselves. Children in mourning can become afraid of school, have learning problems, develop aggressive or antisocial behavior, become overly concerned about their own health (and may develop "symptoms" of an imaginary illness), or withdraw in general. Although children this age react more maturely than those younger than them, they may regress. Some children can become too attached or clinging. Boys usually become more aggressive and destructive instead of openly showing their sadness. Children may feel neglected and abandoned by both their deceased and surviving parent because the surviving parent is grieving and is unable to emotionally support the child.

By the time the child is 9, death is known as inevitable and is not seen as a punishment. When the child reaches 12, death is seen as final and something that happens to everyone. Teenagers have an adult understanding of death but fewer coping abilities. The teenagers' responses are superimposed onto the emotional roller coaster of adolescence.

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