Supporting children when someone’s died

Children can be left out of conversations when someone dies, with the best intentions of protecting them or sparing them pain.

But it’s important that they get the support, information, and answers to help them understand what’s happened, and that they can grieve for the person who’s no longer around.

Children experience similar feelings to adults following the death of a person in their lives. They’ll often express them differently to adults, and their grief can come out in seemingly unrelated ways. Younger children will often go through regressions and can appear more baby-like in their behaviour, or their grief can seem like it ‘stops and starts’. They might appear unbothered, but that doesn’t mean they’re fine. Be led by them and talk to them whenever they are ready.

We all have our own way of dealing with someone’s death but being able to talk to a child in a simple and honest way, with words that won’t confuse them, will help them understand and support their ability to grieve.

Whilst understanding of death and grief will change as children grow, there are some ways that we can help all children with the words we use:

• Children (especially younger children) will often take things literally, so it’s really important to use factual language. Using ‘dead’ and ‘died’ will help them have a name for what happened.
• Using terms like ‘passing away’ ‘we’ve lost them’ or ‘gone to a better place’ can be confusing and can cause anxiety that others around them will disappear too, or make them think that the person might come back again.
• Try to explain what happened to the person in an age-appropriate way. i.e. ‘their heart stopped working’ or ‘they were very old, and their body wasn’t working anymore.’ To calm worries about the person, you can explain that when someone dies, they don’t feel any pain anymore, they don’t get tired, or hungry, or cold.

Books can be a great way of talking to children about death and grief, here are some we recommend:

For children under 10:

Badger’s Parting Gift by Susan Varley

When Someone Very Special Dies: Children can learn to cope with grief by Marge Heegaard (Activity book)

Granpa by John Burningham

The Invisible String by Patrice Karst

For children over 10:

You Will Be Okay by Julie Strokes

Michael Rosen’s Sad Book by Michael Rosen

Grief Journal for Kids: Guided Prompts for Processing Grief & Finding Emotional Healing by Hope Lovgren

For help and support on helping children through grief, you can contact:

www.winstonswish.org

Child Bereavement UK

Support for children and young people | Sue Ryder