How to Help Children Come to Terms with Loss

By Jane Schneider

No matter how tranquil a life we try to create for our children, they're likely to experience a range of losses, from moving or divorce to the death of a favorite pet or grandparent. As parents, it's our role to help them navigate the turbulent sea of emotions that accompanies grief. Here's how …

Julia Wilcox Rathkey's suburban life was abruptly shattered six years ago when she lost her husband, David, in the 9/11 terrorist attacks. In addition to her own feelings of overwhelming loss, Rathkey found herself with three children experiencing grief in wildly differing ways. Her then 12-year-old daughter, Emma, became uncommunicative, one of her 10-year-old twins, Ian, wore his emotions on his sleeve, and the other, Matthew, withdrew.

"The only thing I felt I could do was to be there - giving love, routine, honesty and a sense of stability and control," Rathkey says. Her journey gave rise to her book What Children Need When They Grieve.

As the emotional guide for her family, Rathkey learned to strike a balance between sharing her own feelings while tuning in to the needs of her children. For example, when it came to her kids' return to school 11 days after the attack, she realized what they craved most was a safe haven.

"They told me they didn't want to be treated differently," she recalls. "They didn't want kids whispering or staring at them."

So Rathkey spoke with school counselors and teachers to make sure the learning environment would be a nurturing one.

"Grief doesn't have a timetable," she notes. "Our society wants everybody to be happy - especially children - but they need to be sad to get through the grieving process."

Expressing Grief

While children can experience many forms of loss, such as the divorce of parents or the departure of a friend, the permanence of death sets it apart. Death can also raise many questions in a child's mind, questions a parent might not be ready to address. But experts say children cope better when they know the adults around them are willing to answer questions honestly and are sincerely interested in their concerns.

For many, however, death is a difficult topic to discuss. Adults often struggle to express their feelings of sadness, anger or guilt, instead putting up a brave front for their children, notes Russell Friedman, co-author of How Children Grieve and executive director of the Grief Recovery Institute in Los Angeles, which trains professionals to help people cope with loss.