Reflecting on Writing a Blog

As I think about writing a blog on raising grieving children I realize that sometimes I think there is nothing new to say. But then I realize how important it is to revisit issues already discussed. This is true because unfortunately there are always new families joining this population. There is often a time when death, out of turn in the life cycle, occurs. In addition it is not as if the only time there is a need for information is shortly after the death. The death of a parent affects children all of their lives as they grow and mature.

As children grow , their needs change. The way they see death evolves and changes. Their needs are different as well. It is not as if you can recover, as if you and your children can return to life as it was before. Your lives will never be the same. Being a single parent , after the death of a spouse requires that you organize and reorganize the way your changed family now lives together. You and your children at each stage in their childhood become aware in different ways of what you have lost with this death, and their understanding of what the loss has meant in their lives changes as well.
One issue in understanding your children's reaction involves understanding your children's changing view of what it means to die. If they are young when their parent dies they do not understand the finality of death. As they get older they understand that death is final and that we all die. However, there is another aspect to their understanding of what death means in their lives that we don't always look at.

Children relate to their parents differently at different ages. They understand the relationship and the qualities in that relationship very differently and as a result they have different needs that they hope will be met by their parents. They can also contribute very differently to that relationship with their growing years. How children react then to a death not only relates to their understanding of what death means but to what they experience as lost with this death.

When they are young they see parents as taking care of them, of protecting them. A young child loses the security and sense of safety they felt when their parent was alive. The surviving parent of a young child needs to be aware of this need as they try to be helpful to their child. Children need to be held and protected and to be sure that they are taken care of. Sometimes I hear people worrying about spoiling a child in this situation. Helping a child feel safe is not spoiling them; it is making them feel safe in a world from which a key person in their lives has disappeared.

Looking at school age children we see a different set of needs and behaviors. Children are in school, have a growing vocabulary, while they do understand the finality of death they are unclear about what it means. They have lost someone who acts in the service of their needs. Who will help me with my homework? Who will play ball with me? Who will get me to school in the morning? At this age they are not quite sure about the fact that the world will continue given their parent's death and all the changes that have occurred in their lives as a result. This may be a difficult age for parents to know how to respond. Children need a good deal of reassurance that life does go on, that there will be a routine in their lives that they can count on, and that their surviving parent will do his or her best to respond to their questions and their needs. Children at this age also need to know that to the extent it is possible they will be consulted and involved in family planning.

I have spent a good deal of time trying to understand the many aspects of a child's life that are affected by the death of parent. In a book I did some time ago called Never Too Young to Know I began to spell it out. As I read the newspapers this week I see another important source of information about how children react. Children are writing about their reactions to their parent's death on Sept 11, 2001 and what it has meant to them. We need to read and learn how children grow and change; and what parents need to know to help them over the years as they all change.