CHALLENGES OF GRIEVING CHILDREN

• Re –establish a sense of safety and mastery
• Understand the death
• Grieve the death
• Forge new connections with the deceased
• Re-enter the normal developmental process

OVERVIEW OF HOW CHILDREN GRIEVE

• Their grief reflects their current level of development
• Children regress after a significant death
• Children grieve in the middle of everyday life
• They grieve in intense “episodes”
• Kids express their grief in their actions
• Kids re-grieve when life changes significantly for them
• Children postpone some or all of their grief

– From Guiding Your Child Through Grief
   By Emswiler & Emswiler. Bantam, 2000