Supporting Children through Bereavement

Loss is complicated and broad and incredibly sensitive. It takes many different forms and everyone deals with it differently. So, yes, broaching it is hard. Even more so with children who may not have the language to express themselves articulately, because recognising and naming big, frightening feelings requires a level of maturity and sophistication. All the more reason, one could argue, to address it at school – in a safe, supportive, secure space.

Loss is perhaps more accurately defined as change, of absence of the familiar. So that could look like the breakdown of a family unit, moving country or city, or a school move. It could be the change in a parent or carer’s physical or mental capacity…Whatever form loss takes, the impact is likely to be disruptive, anxiety-inducing, lonely and isolating – frightening, overwhelming emotions. Of course loss is sometimes a death, of someone close or of someone on the periphery, and it’s easy to make judgements on how the proximity of the loss should make one feel – a close family member = very sad for a longer period of time, a distant relative or family friend = less sad, quickly recovered from. But that simplifies and minimises the feelings around bereavement and loss, and also prevents developing real understanding of an individual’s response to death. More useful and productive, perhaps, is to engage with what that bereavement means to those effected, how it’s making them feel and what can be done to provide support.

Frequent opportunities to talk about loss is a good way to keep the dialogue open, to enable comprehensive understanding of the language around the concepts. These conversations don’t have to be enormous or expansive , in fact it can be helpful if they’re the opposite of that. Regular, non-obtrusive references to grief or loss can be a good way to familiarise children with the topic and ideas within it without forcing engagement or participation – as long as there is space around the references, should the opportunity be seized and a conversation gather momentum. That won’t happen if the door is closed, so keep it open, remind children it’s open using different means such as talking about events in the news, reading relevant, meaningful books, and using the language that children will need in order to be able to explain and understand their own and each other’s feelings.

Whether they tie those narratives to their own experience or not, and whether they then articulate and share those experiences is up to them. There’s no pressure, just an opportunity to find connection, similarity and recognition. Sometimes that in itself can make the loss feel less alienating and disorientating – perhaps even a little less scary. Good books are also brilliant forms of expression, they put words and names to things that we may not have known existed, and so expand our worlds, give language and meaning to abstract concepts and make things feel more accessible, more tangible. Useful when you’re dealing with ideas as abstract as death.

Lots of the high-quality material available is also very unobtrusive, there’s a theme around loss, but it’s not always explicit, which gives readers a choice as to whether they fully explore those nuances, or whether they stay surface-level and explore a different aspect. It can make discussions around the book more subtle, delicate and interpretative, which for some may be all it takes to open up. Take a book like Grandad’s Island by Benji Davies, one child may “read” the story of Grandad’s death, another that he’s gone away for a long time to somewhere idyllic and beautiful. Indeed, both those interpretations are accurate – perhaps they’re one and the same? Either way the discussion opportunities are endless, and if the story strikes a chord with one child, and that child learns some new strategies with which to think about death, or feels a little less out on their own with their emotional baggage, then it’s win-win.