Children and Grief:
Developmental Needs and Expectations
Infancy Infants have no understanding of death, yet are directly affected by separation from their nurturer or their caregiver’s emotions, especially anxiety. Distress is visible when an infant is suffering a loss, although infants can usually be soothed. Symptoms include: crankiness, crying, and clinging.
2-5 years Death is seen as temporary. It can also been interpreted as a punishment, violent, and sudden. Young children have magical thinking powers and fantasize about the return or healing of the person who has died (sleeping beauty). Children may think that they can catch the same illness and die. They may also need to talk often about the illness or death in an effort to understand the words and concepts. Symptoms may include: regression, separation, anxiety, bed wetting, bad dreams, baby talk, clinging, and temper tantrums.
5-9 years Children in this age group may hide their feelings to avoid appearing babyish, to protect others from feeling sad, or if they are unable to tolerate the pain of grief. Death is seen as possible, but the child continues to see themselves as invincible. These children often seek out very concrete information about the death, although they also have a strong fantasy life that they use to make everything as it was before the death. Symptoms may include: regression, crying, anxiety, headaches, stomachaches, denial of death, and hostility toward the deceased, school problems, inability to concentrate, and bad dreams.
9-12 years Children in this age group begin to truly understand the irreversibility of death. Children may seek information about the details of the illness or death and need explicit explanations. The child’s independence is fragile and when threatened, the child may respond with anger towards the deceased, themselves, or other survivors. New fears and phobias are common. Symptoms include: anxiety, physical pain, hostility towards others, guilty feelings, lack of attention, day dreaming, school problems, fear of additional loss, and fear of dying.
12-18 years Many adolescents would like to retreat to the safety of childhood, yet society does not permit it. They are compelled to act like adults, where their coping mechanisms and ability to understand death may be more similar to a child’s. Often they assume different roles to maintain balance within the family. They are overly concerned with acceptance by others and often suppress their own needs in order to fit in. The main goal of this age group is to feel normal. Adolescents are often more susceptible to unresolved grief. They use denial as a means to avoid losing control. Symptoms include: withdrawal, acting out, assumption of adult roles, regression, preoccupation with death or the details of the death, anger, and difficulty maintaining relationships with family.
Resource provided by Heartlight, Ann & Robert H Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago
225 East Chicago Ave., Box 274, Chicago, IL. 60611-2605
heeartlight@luriechildrens.org 312-227-3930
