Grief as children grow and develop

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As parents and caregivers, our children are often our priority. Whether it’s their physical or emotional well-being, we want to make sure that they are healthy and cared for.

When it comes to grief and loss, parents and caregivers have the same protective instincts but may feel unprepared for how to best support their children. The death of a significant person, like a parent, sibling, or grandparent, is a far more common experience in childhood than we realize. And following that loss, families often find themselves in need of additional support.

Children grieve as deeply as adults do, but their grief often looks quite different from the experience of the adults around them. We know from supporting children and families at the Highmark Caring Place for more than 25 years that grief is a lifelong journey. Both children and adults will experience their grief in different ways throughout the course of their life.

We all have times where our grief returns with intensity. Whether it’s the birthday of our loved one, a special holiday or anniversary that we have strong memories tied to, or even a particular smell or meaningful song, we may feel our grief in a much bigger way in these moments. This is true for children as well, but parents and caregivers are often surprised to learn that children grieve differently as they grow and develop.

Children understand death based on their age or development. Very young children understand death differently from elementary-aged children and different still from adolescents. Yet, no matter their age children can and do experience grief.

Infants and very young children do not fully understand the meaning of death, but they do sense the absence of a person and are very tuned into feelings of separation and loss. School-age children begin to have a greater understanding of the permanence of death along with an expanded vocabulary, and both of these changes may lead them to ask new and different questions. Both age groups tend to grieve in “bursts” where an emotional response of grief seemingly comes out of nowhere and then may subside as quickly as it began. At the end of the day, kids are kids, even when they are grieving.

Teens understand death more like adults, and with that often comes more intense emotions and grief reactions, although they are sometimes masked as apathy in this age group. Teens are also navigating major developmental tasks like identity and independence, and grief can create additional challenges at this stage of life.

Sometimes we hear concerns at the Caring Place like “why are my kids still grieving after all this time?” It’s important to remember that as children grow and develop, they will understand death in different ways and need to make sense of their loss at each new stage.

As children reach new developmental milestones and experience new life events, they may feel the absence of their loved one in new ways and grieve the loss again from a fresh perspective.

As parents and caregivers, you too will experience grief throughout your life. There is no timeline for grief, so give yourself and the children in your life permission to feel how you feel, even if it’s different from one another.

Alexa Livelsberger, LCSW is Outreach and Education Coordinator of Senior Grief and Clinical Services Specialist at The Highmark Caring Place. The Highmark Caring Place is a no-cost, non-insurance-based community resource for families who have experienced a death. Their program connects children and teens of similar ages and caregivers with similar losses through peer support groups so that each member of the family can feel less alone in their grief.