He tried a few ways, but she wasn’t understanding. Finally, thinking of the words and concepts his daughter did know, he tried something else. “All gone?” he said. His daughter repeated it: “All gone?” She walked over to one of her baby books, and opened to a picture of a child turning a cereal bowl upside down. “All gone,” she repeated. And with that, Schonfeld says, she seemed to understand. She never asked to see her grandmother again. Dr. Schonfeld is an academic researcher and pediatrician, as well as the director of the National Center for School Crisis and Bereavement at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles. He’s been working in the field of children and grief for decades. And that’s why he knew he had to convey this loss to his daughter. When it comes to death, he says, “I think we underestimate what children comprehend because we don’t talk to them about it.”
How and Why Does Grief Affect Kids Differently Than It Affects Adults?
Grief can happen around things like divorce, incarceration, and the pandemic (when there’s no death or singularly documented loss to point to as the key cause, this type of grief is known as ambiguous loss in psychology). And, of course, it can happen when someone dies. When it comes to grief in younger children in response to a death, Linda Goldman, a licensed clinical professional counselor with a private grief therapy practice who teaches at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore and has written many books about grief in children, explains: “It’s marked by causality, reversibility, and egocentricity.” Until about age 7, it is not uncommon for kids to think a death is their fault — and, that the person or pet might come back, she says. Schonfeld, on the other hand, says with proper explanation, even young children can understand that death is permanent. He points out that the idea he used to convey it to his daughter, “all gone,” is one kids often learn by age 2. A study he coauthored early in his career gave kids between 4 and 8 years old presentations about death to help them understand it better. The study found that kids who had the presentations gained a more advanced understanding of death in two months than what can take children an entire year to develop in the absence of this education. Schonfeld and his colleagues concluded from the work that when adults help familiarize kids with the concepts surrounding death, kids may be better equipped to grieve and cope with loss. Children can also pick up that adults are uncomfortable, which can affect how they appear to be grieving, he says. If a young child is dying of cancer, they may have a precocious understanding that their own life will end soon — but might pretend not to understand to make the adults feel better. One major way children experience grief differently than adults, Schonfeld says, is that kids grieve the immediate loss, but not all the secondary losses that will follow from it in the future. His toddler, for instance, understood that her grandma was gone. But unlike her father, she likely wasn’t worrying about the loss of her grandma’s presence at her graduation 16 years later.
What Grief Can Look Like in Kids: Signs and Symptoms
Goldman says common symptoms of grief in children include:
InsomniaBedwettingLoss of appetiteStomachache (they may see the school nurse more than usual to report stomach pain or feeling heavy)HyperactivityAggressivenessAngerLower grades or performance at schoolSocial withdrawal (they may reject old friends who they think can’t understand the grief)They may touch or hug others more than usual
They might suddenly beat up on themselves, too, saying things like “I’m so stupid” or “I hate myself.” And Goldman and Shonfeld both point out that adults tend to mistake a child who’s playing as one who isn’t grieving. Instead, the child may be upset, but has switched to playtime for a moment. Little kids, Schonfeld says, “don’t do anything for very long periods of time.” So if you see a child who’s upset about a death, but five minutes later you see them running around with blocks, he says, don’t assume that they’ve stopped feeling the grief. They may very well still be processing it internally — it’s that they simply don’t sustain activities for the same length of time adults often do. “And,” Goldman says, “what may appear to be a frivolous play activity may actually be a really important one” — one that’s helping them work through grief. She gives the example of children in her clinical practice using a toy phone to “talk” with their loved one who’s died.
How Can You Help Kids Who Are Grieving?
Parents, caregivers, and concerned family and friends can do a lot to support and be there for kids who are grieving. Some things you can do are: Be straightforward and honest. If you use the word “death,” say, “death is when the body stops working,” Goldman says. And don’t use euphemisms like “Grandpa is sleeping,” or you may create a new fear of going to bed, according to a paper Schonfeld published in 2019. Don’t try to cheer them up. Just as adults need to feel seen and not judged for how they’re feeling after a loss, Goldman says, the same goes for children. A big part of that is letting them feel or act how they naturally feel in the moment, rather than trying to get them to plaster on a smile. “And I can’t stress it enough,” Goldman says, “because the burden of having to be a certain way for someone else while you’re grieving is very difficult.” Help young kids build understanding of death. As Schonfeld outlined in a paper published in 2019 in the peer-reviewed journal Young Children, helping younger kids learn four main concepts lets them grieve a death. These are: Answer hard questions, or help with research. Starting around age 8, Goldman says, kids tend to have concrete questions about circumstances surrounding a death. It’s important to answer them. She’s even helped young people contact the department of transportation to find out whether a loved one died on impact in a car crash and didn’t feel much pain. If they are grieving something other than a death, answer their questions, too, even if it feels uncomfortable. Let peers help. Kids who lose a parent or loved one while that person was incarcerated or at war, or who died by suicide may fare better connecting with other kids in similar situations, Goldman says. More generally, older kids often benefit from support from friends. Make sure a caring adult is present. That said, if you’re grieving too and can’t fully be there, that creates a secondary loss for the child, who now doesn’t have their parent fully present, Goldman says. So it’s important to enlist support from another adult, too. Include children in memorializing. Goldman recounts a memorial service she helped with at a school where a student had died. The adults told the children ahead of time what types of activities would be available at the service, and gave them options for grieving, including singing the person’s favorite song, and blowing bubbles. Suggest a project. For grief due to a death as well as grief due to a world event like the climate crisis, kids can benefit from a related project. Goldman says she’s seen young clients turn a dog’s bed into a keepsake pillow, or get involved with a grassroots organization. Accommodate kids’ learning needs. Both Goldman and Schonfeld stress the need to adapt schoolwork around someone’s grieving. If you teach, try different things to see what helps your student, whether it’s turning a paper into a video, or pairing them with a peer. If you’re a parent, you can ask your child’s teacher to help in this way.
When to Seek Professional Support to Help Kids Cope With Grief
“It’s the intensity and the duration and the frequency of what’s common that creates a red flag,” Goldman says about when it might be time to seek help for a child to cope with their grief. Here’s what to look for:
If the child leaves their friendships for more than a brief period of timeIf their grades dropIf bedwetting or nightmares continue or increase in intensity or frequencyIf they engage in substance use as a coping mechanismIf they begin to hurt themselves, another person, or a petIf they say they don’t want to live (ask them if they mean it, Goldman says, and take them seriously)
If you or someone you know is feeling hopeless or suicidal, you can call 988 to reach the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, or text “HOME” to the Crisis Text Line at 741741.
