Memorial Day: A Hidden Audience in Grief

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On Memorial Day, we take time to honor military personnel who died in service to their country, particularly during battle or resulting from wounds sustained in battle. Memorial Day became a federal holiday in 1971, with an origin dating back to the years following the U.S. Civil War.

While many Americans consider the holiday part of a long weekend with a BBQ to kick off the summer, many use the day to mourn significant loss and tragedy. Families and communities mourn the loss of fallen soldiers. Wives reflect on their husbands who were killed. Husbands grieve the death of a wife who served.

One hidden audience is the children who have lost a parent to military death– this loss impacts children, and it’s rarely spoken about on this day.

The U.S. Department of Defense reports that:

• Forty percent of all service members have children who are minor dependents aged 20 or younger.
• Approximately 7000 service members were killed in post-9/11 operations.

While many of these parents survive after serving, these stats translate to countless losses for many children who must continue life without their mother or father.

Children who grieve

Attending to a child’s grief is a challenge. They do not express their sadness about loss the same way as adults. Their language is different, and being just kids, they often lack the vocabulary to articulate feelings. Grieving the death of a loved one is complex, personal, and intimate. You are witness to an intensely layered emotional process.

Clinical research indicates that childhood exposure to grief and trauma results in neurobiological changes in cognition, behavior, and emotions. When the trauma involves the death of a family member or loved one, the impact on the brain is even more intense. Grief is a brain changer because it is a life game-changer. Life, as the child knew it, will never be the same. The brain studies are clear about what happens to the brain when grief presents itself: New grief neural pathways develop.¹ The child’s brain, being as plastic as it is, will be affected by the loss.

Understanding death as a child

A child is more likely to demonstrate grief in non-verbal ways:

• In the games or play they engage in or choose to avoid.
• Shifting patterns of eating and sleeping habits.
• Behavioral changes including more anxiety, lethargy, and laughter.

Gauging a child’s reactions is confusing, often because some of these behaviors are signs of other issues in the developing child.

When a parent dies in combat, it can be highly disorienting, particularly for children whose parents have been deployed for extended periods before dying. Children in these families initially face a different kind of grief: A mourning associated with the parent being on leave and deployed cyclically. Their initial physical absence from the home affects the family system. Yet, the absence is placed in the brain where self-soothing occurs: "My parent will return. This is just what they do."

For these reasons, the child’s functioning may not be immediately impacted and, in the long term, can make it difficult for some children to acknowledge or integrate the permanence of the loss, which alters their ability based on the age of the child, as well, to participate in their family’s grieving.

Military children may feel confused about how to respond to death due to the political perspective of war and engaging in battle. They may also hear that their parent died “needlessly” or were part of an “unnecessary” conflict. A child hearing these interpretations may find it much harder to integrate their loss: older children and teens may have formed views about combat that further complicate it.

Depending on the developmental level, a child may not understand death. In addition, death in combat is likely graphic, and the surviving parents withhold details from children when sharing the news. It’s a tricky balance between sharing the truth and developmental protection of what the child can tolerate.

Grief Essential Reads

What We Know About After-Death Communication Experiences

Mourning a Complicated Loss

The specific cause of death differs for military families experiencing loss, and children may experience intrusive thoughts or nightmares about how their parents died in battle (e.g., explosions causing disfigurement). In addition, it’s common for children to obsess about how the parent suffered and died and imagine rescuing the parent and reversing the outcome. This secondary trauma is impactful, despite the child not witnessing the death of their mother or father.

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Secondary effects of loss

To further complicate death, military children often must endure the stress of moving from a military base or community where the military family experience is less familiar. A move like this can exacerbate anxiety and a loss of identity for the military child, in addition to losing friends and support from others with similar experiences.

Holidays, high school graduations, and weddings are just a few places where the loss of the parent is more obvious, as their peers seem to have intact families with whom they share these nodal milestones. Unlike divorce, the child yearns for what is lost and cannot be retrieved, held, or seen.

How to help a child through the loss of a military parent

1. Give the child space and permission to grieve. They may be new to the experience of loss and death and are in unknown territory. The child may grieve in a way that doesn’t fit your schema for grief. For example, some kids may withdraw into video games to cope; others may show developmental regression (e.g., bedwetting, academic changes). Permit them to do it in their way by allowing space for the child to display whatever emotions they're feeling.

2. Show curiosity and care. Show curiosity about the child’s experience. Ask questions. Consider using your own experience to discuss the loss. Share old pictures to allow more interaction without forcing a conversation. Share a piece of clothing, maybe with a scent that reminds them of the lost parent. This evokes a connection to memories with that parent.

It may be surprising, but responses to death could be delayed or immediate. For example, an aroma or other reminder of a lost loved one can spark a response in a child, and depending on their developmental level, the response may not make sense.

3. Separate your grief from theirs. While it’s tough to be present for your child while in the active state of your own grief, it’s critical to remember that a child needs you while they grieve. They need a soft landing place to grapple with their unique relationship to the surreal pain of loss. Children take cues from you: how you handle the loss. If you hide and retreat, they may do the same. Look to share memories. It’s ok to laugh as you offer refuge for their overwhelming emotions.

4. Allow time for mourning. Joining a child in grief means creating a delicate dance between them, their grief, and their relationship with you as the surviving parent. Children do not mourn as adults do: it’s important not to devalue the child's grief. Losing a parent's real and scary, particularly in a violent, war-torn death. If you see them playing, it’s ok, and please don’t stop them. They could be working out an aspect of their silent grief in their own language or comfort zone. This is not about being strong in the grief process, so messages like Be strong or Get over it, are to be avoided: mourning is not about strength or time limitations. Partner with them and be present as they continue to process.

5. Tell the truth. Tell your child the truth about their parent’s death in an age-appropriate manner. Reframing death as “sleeping” or “resting” can cause undue stress with a false belief that confuses your child. It’s essential to convey that their lost parent will not return and respond to their questions about specific causes of death as needed.

6. Find additional support. Children often cope with death when exposed to other kids who have had a similar loss. There may be a support group in your area for grieving children or one specific to losing parents in the military. Additionally, seeking a child therapist who utilizes modalities like play therapy to process grief can be helpful. Finding a safe adult who can help your child process grief is a gift, particularly while you may also be experiencing intense sorrow.

Move Forward Together

Integrate the concern of child grief as a “yes, and” model. It’s important to recognize the soldiers who gave everything. There’s a need to see and address the great sacrifice made by the children who have been left behind with a life that’s forever changed.

Helping a child navigate this permanent loss, particularly the death of a military parent is difficult. It’s tough to be present, especially if you’re enduring the loss of a family member. There’s no perfect way to join a child in a journey that is as difficult for you as the surviving parent as it is for the surviving child.

Find a way to understand your child’s language around their grief. It is a gift to share moments between you and your child. You can share deep emotions expressed with care as a mirror for your child.

This is an opportunity for a teachable moment: If you seek help and normalize speaking to a therapist, priest, rabbi, or imam, you will be leading by powerful example: Your child gets to see that they do not have to grieve or heal alone.

To find a therapist, visit the Psychology Today Therapy Directory.