What You Should Know if You're Supporting a Child Navigating Grief

Most parents struggle to know how best to support a grieving child. So if this is you, know that you’re not alone. None of us are taught this stuff at school or when we become parents. Yet suddenly you find yourself desperately wanting to support your child, while potentially unsure how to do so.

I’m also mindful that if you are supporting a grieving child, you may well be grieving yourself, which can make things even harder. Grief is tough enough to navigate, yet you may be doing that while also trying to be emotionally available to others in your care.

There’s plenty of information online about how to support grieving children. I’m not going to cover the basics you can easily find through a Google search. Instead, I want to focus here on practical ways you can support your child, based on my research with grieving children aged 6 to 13 years, and what they told me they experience as most helpful.

While my research focussed the care and support experiences of children affected by suicide loss, I consistently hear from those supporting children bereaved through other forms of loss that these findings are relevant regardless of cause of death. My hope is that these insights help take some of the guesswork out of supporting your child in their grief.

What grieving children want you to understand

No two children grieve the same way

There’s a common saying that “grief is like a fingerprint”, in that we all grieve differently and what we experience as helpful and unhelpful is unique to us, too. This applies to your child as much as it does to you.

My research also showed that what children find helpful fluctuates. What your child finds supportive one day may feel unhelpful the next. This can understandably be confusing as a parent. Yet it gives us a compelling reason to recognise that your child is the expert in their grief and to take your lead from them where possible.

Your child is the expert in their grief and support needs

Given your child’s grief needs are unique and constantly changing, they are the expert in their grief and support needs. Not you as a parent, not me as someone who works with grieving children, them. Remembering this can be a game-changer when it comes to supporting your child.

In order to know what your child needs, you need to ask them

This sounds obvious, yet my research found this is rarely the approach adults take. Instead, children often experience adults assuming they know what the child needs most, rather than asking them directly. As a result, there can be a mismatch between the support offered and what the child actually needs at that moment.

If you want to know what your child needs, you need to ask them. It’s the only way to know. If your child is too young, or simply doesn’t know what they need, offering options they can choose from can work well.

When you support your child based on their actual needs, this reinforces to your child that they matter, and that what is important to them is important to those caring for them too. I call this “mattering-reinforcing care”.

When we assume to know what a child needs, care can be experienced as something done to the child, rather than with them. Yet when you recognise your child as the expert in their grief and allow support to be guided by their needs and choices, it takes much of the guesswork out of supporting them. Importantly, it also increases the likelihood your child will actually feel supported.

Practical examples of what grieving children find helpful

Now that we understand the uniqueness of children’s grief support needs, this image presents examples of the many different things children told me they found helpful.

As you can see, sometimes children found it helpful when the adults caring for them did certain things, such as talking about the person who died or checking in with them. At other times, those same children found it helpful when adults didn’t do those things.

Given the uniqueness and changing nature of your child’s needs, there is no “one size fits all” approach to supporting them. There is no universal checklist.

Rather, your child is the expert in their grief, and your role is to support them their way.

Here are some practical examples of what this can look like in everyday life:

• Ask your child what would support them, rather than assume:

  “What would help you right now?”

• If your child doesn’t know, offer options:

  “Would you like a hug? Do you want to talk? Or would it help to go outside and shoot some hoops together?”

  Try to keep options to three or four so they don’t become overwhelming.
  
  
• Check in with your child before talking about the person who has died. Don’t assume they want to talk about the person, what happened, or how they are feeling, in that moment.
  
• Explicitly ask your child how often they would like you to check in with them, and what approach works best for them.
  
• When your child talks about the person who died or about their grief, stop what you are doing and give them your full attention.
  
• Choose your timing. You might notice your child grieves in “bursts”. They may be deeply sad one moment and wanting to play the next. Where possible, avoid interrupting moments of fun to check in about grief unless needed.
  
• Reassure your child it is still okay to have fun and do “normal” things. Children can sometimes feel confused or guilty for still wanting to play and enjoy themselves.
  
• Be aware that your grief needs may differ from your child’s. This can be difficult in the moment. For example, spending time together may comfort you, while your child may need time alone. Children can be very aware when adults prioritise their own grief needs over theirs.
  

One child I spoke with shared that since her brother died, her mother insisted on stopping at the cemetery after school, despite the child expressing she didn’t want to go. The child explained that seeing her mum upset at the cemetery was distressing for her. 

Another child shared with me how upset she felt seeing the two large poster frames in the lounge, full of collage photos of her sister who had died. She knew these were helpful to her Mum, and so hadn’t said anything to her Mum, yet this 10 year old now struggled to be in the lounge with her whānau. 

I share these examples, not to make the parents wrong, but to highlight the tension that can exist between competing grief needs within whānau, and the importance of considering whether different needs can be met in different ways.

This isn’t an exhaustive list, but hopefully it gives you a sense of what support can look like when you take your lead from your child and look to support them, their way.

Your child is grieving, yet they are not their grief

Another message came through loudly in both my research and my work with grieving children: children want their grief acknowledged, while also wanting to be seen as more than their grief.

I recall one child, aged 10, explaining that since her brother died, her parents now assumed every emotion she experienced was related to her brother. As she told me, “I still get sad about other things. Not everything is about him. I’m still me.”

As a parent, your concern for your child can understandably make you hypervigilant to their emotions and reactions. That’s natural. Yet it’s important to remember that your child still experiences the feelings they always have. They still have friendships, frustrations, joys, worries, interests and everyday experiences separate from grief.

Supporting your grieving child is a team effort

While much of this article has focussed on supporting your child, please hear that caring for yourself matters too.

Supporting your grieving child can be incredibly difficult, particularly if you are grieving yourself. It is a big ask to expect yourself to always be emotionally available and able to carry the full weight of support for your child while navigating your own loss.

Given this, I always encourage parents and whānau to build a wider community of support around their child. Of course you may be a central support person for them, yet who else can support them too? Friends and whānau, teachers, coaches, trusted adults, community supports and services can all play an important role.

Why not sit down with your child and identify who is in their “support crew” or “support waka”? Who are the people they feel safe with, trust, and know they can turn to when they need support, or simply someone to be with? It can be empowering for your child to understand they have a team of people around them who care for them.

The same applies for you. Who is in your support crew?

Ensuring you are supported matters for both you and your child.