In the article “West of The Most Western Point”, Dr Manfred Wolf relates the accidental drowning of a friend when we was 12 year old. He explains how much this experience affected him and how he felt during this bereavement time. Speaking to a counselor to express his feelings about this traumatic experience didn’t feel the right approach to deal with his grief because “some things are too deep for speech and too irrevocable for mediation”. Adults might naturally look to speak to their children to reassure them and embrace their suffering in order to help them coping with their emotions. But because sorrow is a normal behavior for a children when grieving, adults should leave the time to children to deal with their emotions instead of trying…
In “An Hour or Two Sacred to Sorrow” by Richard Steele, Steele tells his story, advocating the mourning of a loved one’s death, deeming it acceptable because of the positive memories, between the late and the late’s beloved, recalled; the acceptance of other’s help will aid them past the pain. Steele was five years of age when his father passed away. Oblivious to the situation, he felt sorrow from watching his mother grieve. Steele explains that infants’ individuality is replaced with influences from their surroundings, which explains the feeling of sorrow he felt at such a young age in spite of the fact that he had no grasp of the situation. Although humans know death approaches, they still lament over deaths; “thus we groan under life, and…
Don’t Wait To Break The News: Tell a child directly when someone has died. This prevents them from hearing it in an unstructured and unsupportive manner, like from the whispering of relatives. If possible, somebody close to the child should be the bearer of this bad news.…
Losing a family member or friend can affect the emotional and physical health of children and their parents. Adults losing a child or partner may find caring for any reaming children difficult.…
Children, especially, do not see death as a permanent occurrence and sometimes compare it to a simple absence of someone. Children should be more involved with the care of their dying elders to alleviate the fear and better understand the concept of death. Kubler-Ross also states the serious nature of death concerning adults. While people may sometimes wish another dead, it would be a traumatic experience if that were to actually happen. The fear of death and a feeling of guilt would be an effect for wishing someone…
Obviously children’s emotions are affected by their relationships and personal experiences, if their main relationships are unsettled then they will be wary of forming future trusting relationships with adults, e.g. if parents divorce they may believe it is their fault, and so not want to ‘cause’ another adult to leave them. They may become withdrawn, or regress (tantrums), become attention seeking or seem more immature than their friends. They could become clinging, insecure, needing affection and constant reassurance. Events such as the death of a family member or pet will also have an emotional affect; even the death of a goldfish (which may not be so important to mum or dad) can have a major affect on a child’s emotional development. My daughter once lost her favourite toy ‘puppy’ in Weston Super Mare pier. She was distraught, we searched high and low before leaving that evening without him… the next day we rang the pier and it had been found by a cleaner. They posted him back and we told her that he was home from his holiday. Although she was ecstatic, she is still very anxious of losing someone, or being lost, when we are out - 8 years later.…
James, J.W., Friedman, R. & Matthews, L.L. (2001). When children grieve: for adults to help…
Bereavement – Following a death of a parent or someone close to a child can be traumatic. If child was living with one parent this may mean a change in carer and perhaps a move into residential or foster care. Loss of parent is devastating . Keep an eye on change of behaviour . Grief goes through several…
Almost everyone has experienced bereavement of some form. Usually, this occurs after a person reaches adulthood and has emotionally matured and developed, but sometimes it unfortunately occurs to minors --those under 18 years of age. When this terrible event happens to minors, they often are grief stricken from the loss and do not have access to therapy or support sessions to help them through this difficult part of life. The traumatic experience of bereavement causes anger and sadness, which creates a situation in which there is an urgent need for support for families. Models must be created and refined to assist in dealing with childhood traumatic grief (Cohen, Goodman, Brown, & Mannarino, 2004). These minors also do not know where to start searching for the emotional support that they need so they are left to deal with the emotional burden on their own. “Children’s experience with the death of a loved one—whether a relative, friend, or a family pet—is a significant, often painful experience that requires adult support to care and guide a child’s coping and make sense of the event” (Farber & Sabatino, 2007). The long term effect of this loss on minors is very…
Palliative Care for Children: Enhancing the Quality of Life for a Child with a Life-Threatening Illness…
“Death is more universal than life; everyone dies, but not everyone lives,” quoted by Alan Sachs. Death is a part of everyone and touches everyone’s lives a little differently. It is a topic is that is usually followed by forms of sadness from the people associated with the person who passes away. What death is considered would be the end of someone’s life; they stop breathing and their body stops working. Death can come unexpectedly, it can be anticipated, but it is never easy. Due to many adults having a difficult time accepting death, they feel that the topic of death is too hard for children to understand; they believe the children should be kept uninformed. In Literature for Children A Short Introduction, Author David Russell explains…
Most children and young people go through these transitions but there are also transitions that not all children go through but some and these are as followed: illness either with themselves or with a family member, their parents going through a divorce, new siblings with can be biological or step siblings along with a new step parent and bereavement – this is a difficult one for a child or young person because bereavement doesn't have a time scale to be OK by, there will also be unexpected behaviours too, there isn't anything anyone can do to help those, it's when they feel able to adjust their lifestyles to a loss that's occurred. This could be supported through counselling sessions to learn how to deal with th grief or by going through the loss day by…
They were significantly higher with grief in the categories of atypical response, despair, anger/hostility, guilt, loss of control, rumination, somatization, loss of vigor, physical symptoms, and optimism/despair. Males and females had about the same response to grief in the categories of denial social desirability, social isolation, death anxiety and loss of appetite (Thompson, L. W., Gallagher-Thompson, D., Futterman, A., Gilewski, M. J., & Peterson, J.,…
If there is sudden death in the family and it is someone they are close to this would have an effect on their emotional development feeling sad, lonely, upset and may not know where to turn to or who to talk to as other members of their family are upset as well. With not knowing who to turn to and all the feelings running through their heads this could have an affect also on their intellectual development not being able to concentrate in class showing bad behaviour to get attention and not wanting to communicate with others to tell what they are going through lacking there social development…
Caregivers play an extremely important role in helping a child deal with the death of a loved one. An article by Hopkins (2002) explores the role of an early childhood educator in addressing the topic of death. Educators cannot protect children from learning about death, however they’re able to sculpt how developmentally appropriate their education will be. A grieving child’s perception of death relates directly to the child’s level of cognition. Perceptions of death change as children progress through developmental stages (Hopkins.,2002). A clear understanding of these perceptions is essential for educators wishing to respond appropriately and helpfully to a grieving child’s unique needs. The article goes into depth by breaking down children…