I know it’s impossible to avoid having to experience just how kids deal with grief but I still can’t help but wish they didn’t have to, or that no one has to. But they are going to be exposed to death at some point and in some way, directly or indirectly. Even if everyone in your family lives long, healthy lives, there are still the pets you may have or someone at school or a friend of the family who is experiencing a loss.
A memory that will forever be burned into my brain, as well as my heart, was the day I had to come home from the hospital and sit down with all four of my children (then aged 6-9) and tell them that their father was not going to survive the cancer and that he was going to die.
My kids were already familiar with death at such a young age because my mother, their grandmother, had died three years before that. My two youngest don’t remember it quite as well as the older ones but that event eventually caused all of them to realize that death was something final. To them, it was at first confusing then very unsettling because it felt like my mother had just vanished into thin air. But then, at least I had had my husband, Charlie, there to help me explain it to them. When he died, I had to tell them on my own. And that was a heartbreaking thing to have to do.
I remember at the time, the hospice place that Charlie was at, gave me a children’s book to try to read with them. It was called When Dinosaurs Die: A Guide to Understanding Death (Dino Tales: Life Guides for Families) by Laurie Krasny Brown and Marc Brown. They sat quietly and listened to the story.
Like Adults, Each Child Grieves Differently
One thing I noticed when I observed the way my kids handled the death of their father was that it changed from minute to minute. Meaning, one minute, they might be fine, then the next minute they were crying that they wanted their father, then the minute after that they were demanding to go outside and play or ride bikes.
I learned through grief support groups as well as the hospice counselors that this was completely normal for kids. The swift mood changes like that didn’t mean that they weren’t grieving or were crazy. Needing to suddenly play even if they were in tears a few minutes prior was a way of dealing with grief. Or appearing to be fine most of the time also didn’t mean they weren’t sad. It’s just that kids process heavy things like this in their own way, one that can be very different from adults.
My kids all burst into tears immediately after I had to tell them that their father would not be coming home. Then they were full of questions, ones that prompted me to try reading the book, When Dinosaurs Die, that the hospice people had given me. Other questions that they had were ones that no book could answer, only me. After that, they retreated into toys and television. I was fortunate enough to have friends through a church community that would come by with food or to take them out occasionally. They often ate and played and talked as if nothing was wrong at all.
How Kids May Behave or React
Depending on the age of the child, the reaction to loss will most likely be very different. Babies or children under two years old will have very limited memory or understanding of anything happening. They may be aware of a separation and react to this with consistent crying. But the concept of death will usually be beyond understanding at this age.
When children get to be a little older, around 3-6, they are much more aware of the absence. For example, this was about the age that my children were when my mother died. It was their first real experience with someone we loved dying. I am not sure that my youngest, who was three, really remembers any of it. My next, who was four seemed confused but again I am not sure how much of it he remembers either. My older two, who were five and six, remember her very well and missed her. But they also didn’t have a full understanding of the finality of death and seemed to think that she’d come back. It took awhile, I’m not sure how long, maybe at least a year, before they realized that she wasn’t. Again, I learned later that this is normal for this age. They either are limited in the understanding or believe that death is something reversible not final.
When my husband, Charlie, died, my children not only had this previous death experience, but they were old enough to fall into the next age group where they understood exactly what death meant. And this time, it was happening to an even more significant presence in their life, someone who they loved so much that they saw every day and now they weren’t going to anymore. Ever. Now, they worried about what life was going to be like for us. They worried that something would happen to me, too. They became afraid of losing everything and everyone.
Now, my children are in their teen years. As of this writing, they are aged 13-17. It has been in this age group that they’ve experienced the death of my grandmother, their great grandmother. They all knew her very well and remembered her very well. And they loved her just as much as I did. Their reactions over this loss were a numb acceptance, like a resignation, and one even asked the question: Why does everyone in our family die? If they hadn’t already been through two other big losses, there may have been a different reaction. But here, they had an emotion of not being surprised because at this point, almost everyone they had loved had been taken from them already, so of course my grandmother had to go, too.
To this day, if I go out and am gone too long, one of my kids texts me and asks me if I am still alive.
How to Help Kids Deal With Death
The first thing I would recommend to help kids with grief is support groups that are specifically for kids. My kids did this when I was attending support groups for spousal loss. Also, some initial individual counseling after loss is a good idea. Actually, these are the things that they highly recommended when my husband was in hospice and they had the psychologists and therapists there come speak with me almost every day when I came in to stay with him.
With support groups, kids can be around other kids that are also dealing with death, and that can be helpful because they may be able to talk with someone their own age who understands. When kids go to school, they may not have that, so a group can be a good support system. With individual therapy, they can express emotions and feelings that they may not be willing to share just yet in a group setting.
Another thing that I was always advised to do was to be honest and direct with kids when discussing death. Using metaphors or talking about how they went to a better place or are just sleeping was not a good way of establishing a sense of comfort for children. Answering their questions with as much honesty as possible was the best way to help them feel some level of security.
Which brings me to another piece of advice I was given. I was told, if possible, to try to stick to routines as much as I could and not upheave every single thing in their lives all at once. Obviously, some things couldn’t be helped like the fact that we had to move because we could no longer afford our apartment, and then there was the planning of the funeral/memorial services. But things like meals and play times could be continued without too much change.
Did You Ever Notice How Much Death is in Children’s Films?
I have become extremely aware after all of the loss in our family, especially with younger children, that there is a lot of death in children’s films. I never thought of it all that much before because we don’t think about these things until grief visits us and shows us what it really feels like. But as my kids were young, they watched a lot of movies and I began to be aware of an ongoing death theme:
- Coco
- The Lion King
- Frozen 2
- Bambi
- Finding Nemo
- The Land Before Time
- Harry Potter
Obviously, there are ton more but I’m not going to list them all here. I’m sure you have some in mind already. In fact, almost every Disney movie seems to have a missing parent. I think I really started becoming aware of it when my kids watched The Lion King for the first time sometime later after their father died. My older son became very disturbed over Scar killing Mufasa and began to cry. I remember him saying, “He killed Simba’s dad.” He didn’t want to watch it anymore after that.
Next, when Coco came out for instant streaming, my kids watched that one over and over. I think they got some comfort out of it because it showed a different way of handling death through The Day of the Dead. However, they were still quite upset when they learned what had really happened to the character, Hector, in the movie. So was I. Probably everyone was.
One more memory I have is a couple of years ago when Sing 2 came to the theaters. As part of the plot, there is a character called Clay Calloway, who is a rock star lion but disappeared after the death of his wife. He became a recluse, a hermit in his grief because he finds it too painful to peform without her. As an adult who had lost a spouse, I found myself immediately understanding the pain that he must be going through, even though it had been 15 years since her passing. I do remember feeling a tad resentful that someone had to swoop in and “rescue” him from his grief and get him to perform again. I guess because I felt like it was sending the message that grief was something that you need to be rescued from because grief = bad, and getting over it = good.
Do you have any thoughts about the way grief is handled in movies made for children? Or does a particular film just come to mind that you want to talk about? You can mention it below in the comment box.
My Son Doesn’t Smile Anymore
As always, I like to provide personal examples for any visitors to possibly relate to. For this topic, which is how kids deal with grief, I have already talked about many ways in which children can respond, including my own. But I want to take a moment to especially talk about my older son, Bradley.
Bradley used to be a completely different boy. He’s always been kind of sensitive and introverted (takes after me). Even as a baby, he would cry if strangers even looked at him and he would hide behind me whenever we went to the playground. But at home, he would laugh and smile. A lot. That’s what I remember most, he had a wonderful smile. I can go back and look at the pictures from before his father died to see it.
But, if you look at the pictures of Bradley after his father died, his face has changed. It’s not just him getting older or anything. He does not really smile anymore. And when he does, it is much smaller, like a hint, like a ghost of a smile. Almost like the Mona Lisa smile but add some sadness behind the eyes. And if you ask him to smile bigger, like for a picture or something, he smiles in a huge, painted on manner, as if he’s a doll on display.
One way I can get some sincere responses out of him is through art therapy. We have often done many activities through art where I have found out exactly how he really feels about some things and I can tell he really enjoys it. So do I. He will ask before anyone else if we can do art therapy together. Otherwise, he’s become kind of deadpan in general. When you talk to him or ask him questions, he appears quite void of emotions. But despite that, out of all of my kids, I noticed that he’s the first one to text me if I’m gone too long to make sure I’m still alive.
Do you have any kids dealing with grief? Or have some suggestions for visitors to the site? Let us know in the comments below so we can all support each other in this new normal.
Take care of you and your family,
Nikki