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It’s not easy to deal with death situations, especially losing your loved one. Even adults cannot handle this trauma properly, expecting it from children to understand and cope with death accordingly can be a bit complicated.
Every kid is different and they have their ways of understanding and responding to a particular situation. Some may give emotional reactions while others don’t bother much or some may take it like a childhood trauma. So what should we do to help the children understand and cope with death?
Making kids understand about death can be a challenging task as their innocent minds take time to understand things like death. So, should people discuss death with their children or not? We can’t protect our children from facing loss or pain or even being in a situation of grieving. It becomes a necessity to help children understand death or a parental duty to give your kids a new perspective on death and help them understand it.
However, these necessities can be fulfilled without having gone through any situation like this. But, when the children actually suffer the loss or pain of their loved one, it becomes even more important to help them deal with it as soon as possible, so their grief won’t turn into a trauma.
You can't protect your kids from the pain of loss, but you can help build healthy coping skills
— Your Gift of Life Foundation (@YourGiftofLife1) February 11, 2024
Writer: Rachel Ehmke
Clinical Expert: Gail Saltz, MD
What You'll Learn
– What do kids understand about death?
– How can I help my child cope with a loss?https://t.co/bJmk0zYnAk pic.twitter.com/BcQYdsTk6x
Nowadays, children are fast, they take things seriously and observe their surroundings in detail, about which parents often don’t bother. But, it gives them perceptions about different things going on around them and death could be one of them.
Some things are easy to understand for them, for instance, if someone gets wounded children try to calm them down because they know that it hurts to get wounded as they have felt it. However, things like death make them more curious, and depending on their age, their understanding of death can vary a lot.
Impacts of Death on Children Based on Their Age
People must have observed that children’s minds grow faster and become sharp earlier at younger ages such as 1 – 3 years. As a matter of fact, they start to observe things and try to implement those in their life. As they grow a little, they become more aware of the things and learn more about them, hence they start questioning things they don’t understand.

Dealing with death is one of those things that children don’t know much about. However, children who have seen the death of their loved ones know that people who die don’t come back. So, if talking about age 1 – 5, it is easy to deal with death for children as they don’t have much to bother or think about things like death and people often deal with kids about death in some scenarios by distracting them. However, even during this age, children have an attachment, so it’s not very easy to make them forget about their loved one instantly but gradually they don’t go through the phases that children aged 10 or older go through.
Young people and teenagers are aware of the emotional impact, and long term implications, of losing someone close.
— Cruse Bereavement Support (@CruseSupport) May 15, 2022
To help teenagers cope with death, we must understand what they might be experiencing.
Read more 👇https://t.co/gBdhKTEBR5 pic.twitter.com/VQYzG9cp6X
In this entire scenario, teenagers are the ones who can have extremely complicated impacts on dealing with death as during their teenage, they become aware of their surroundings well and how nature works in case of birth and death. They even start to have fear about losing their loved ones, especially when someone is too attached.
Children who are mentally strong sometimes may seem like they are coping with the death of their loved one but if they start to remain silent, it can be a warning alarm as they might be hurting from inside mentally and emotionally.
Emotional and mental damage is common and can be seen in children aged 13 and older. So, a part of coping with the death of a loved one, especially children highly depends on their age or their mental state.
Children and young people may look like they are coping following the death of a loved one as they continue their lives. However, there's sometimes more happening under the surface. We help children and young people understand and cope with these feelings following a bereavement. pic.twitter.com/cr4BKHrTRk
— Sandy Bear Children's Bereavement Charity (@SandyBearWales) August 2, 2022
Children who are aged 13 and older can go through various phases while trying to deal with the death of a loved one which may include symptoms of anxiety and depression due to having too many flashbacks that can turn into bad memories if the situation gets worse. Eating disorders and lack of concentration in their surroundings including mood swings can be other symptoms that can be noticed in children who are facing difficulties in coping with a death. Also, bed wetting can sometimes be seen even if the children are aged 10 -12.
How to Help Children Cope with Death
Children trying to deal with death go through really harder phases of their life about which they don’t even tell adults and there can be many reasons for this such as depression, shame, fear, or even anger. At these times, children need physical, mental, and emotional care the most from their loved ones.
Adults don’t realize but children struggle to know how to react to the situation and the process that continuously goes in mind leads them to unfavorable circumstances.
It will be better if their loved ones can provide the emotional and mental care in the way they need, but even if they can’t, it’s a better choice to visit the death or grief counselors. Mental health counselors, especially the ones who are specialized in the kid’s section can help your children better as they can observe, analyze, and interpreter the situation better, which helps them supporting the children.
It's important for children and young people to understand that there’s no right or wrong way to respond to the death of a loved one💜🕯️
— BACP (@BACP) February 10, 2022
Willis Atherley-Bourne shares how grief counselling can help🔗 https://t.co/ZphzQjENgL#ChildrensMentalHealthWeek #MentalHealth pic.twitter.com/o1qwpyvCvu
Counselors or therapists can provide better solutions to help children cope with death and it takes a lot less time than when children try to deal with it themselves. Also, taking the help of counselors often leads to mentally and emotionally positive impacts on children regarding death.
A therapist can help children understand the concept of death, and provide age-appropriate language to explain what has happened.
— Psychotherapy Resources (@Psy_resources) June 28, 2024
Read more 👉 https://t.co/k5D1U4pwZt#GriefTherapy #PsychotherapyResources #Loss #MentalHealthMatters #MentalHealthSupport #EmotionalWellbeing pic.twitter.com/D4YYXkOgKK
Supporting Children to Learn to Deal with Death Circumstances
Taking your children to grief counselors or therapists is the only way when they have suffered the huge loss of their loved one at such a young age. However, things might be dealt with better if children already know about the concept of death and bereavement.
Even though it won’t help them in the pain they will suffer after a bereavement, it can definitely support them in coping with the death of a loved one.
Grief in Children
by intherapists
Our Patron @Jason__Watkins and @NAFDPresident, our Funeral Industry Advisor, discuss how making the topic of death and dying part of the school curriculum can help children cope with their own bereavements and better understand how to support others. #NationalConversationWeek pic.twitter.com/4gLBEHgE3T
— Child Bereavement UK (@cbukhelp) May 4, 2023
Last Updated on by Narayani Bhardwaj