Children's Grief

Question: My daughter is 4 yrs old and last night we went to a candle light vigil for all the babies that left us to soon. My daughter held a candle for her brother that I know she misses. I do sometimes wonder if she wants to say stuff that she doesn’t say to us about her little brother. At the vigil she started crying and her daddy just wrapped his arms around her and let her cry. After she didn’t want to hold the candle anymore and she went back to the car where my mom was with my son. We asked our daughter why she cried and she said because of the song. I don’t want my kids especially my daughter to hide the way she feels or not talk to us about things that are bothering her but I just don’t know how to approach it. Everyone tells me she’s ok because she is sleeping, she doesn’t seem different, she’s not withdrawn, but after seeing her cry last night I just feel like maybe she is grieving and we don’t know it.

How do I know what to do with my kids? How do I know if they understand or if they want to talk?

Response: Thank you for your question. Yes your daughter is grieving, but it is a sensed grief and not an intellectualized or personalized grief. Children do not begin to personalize or intellectualize grief until about age seven according to the Gesell Institute for human development. For this reason, it is important for parents to model healthy grief in front of their children because the child will copy what they see. When grief and sadness comes to an adult they should not isolate themselves from their children---rather include them in the grief.

You can do meaningful exercises to encourage conversation about grief or how they feel after the loss, such as:
• drawing pictures about the person who died
• drawing pictures about how they (surviving child) feel on any given day
• letting them hold some item (toy) of the sibling that died and talk about it
• lighting a candle for the child that died
• going to the cemetery or holding an urn
• saying a prayer for the child that died
• anything that let's their grief "flow out".

There is a wonderful book by Claudia Jewett, Harvard Common Press, HELPING CHILDREN COPE WITH SEPARATION AN LOSS, I believe you can purchase it in paperback...Dr. Canine