How do I help my child in a bereavement situation?

It is a banality, and yet it has to be said again and again: Dying is normal. It is as much a part of life as illness and birth, as exuberant happiness and deep despair, as light summer days and heavy November evenings. People die because they are old or ill, because they have an accident or because they no longer want to live.
When someone dies, it is sad and often very painful. But that is not the problem. The problem is rather how we deal with it: Grieving for someone who has died is no longer socially acceptable. This emotion has more negative connotations than ever before. It is not allowed, and if it is, then please only for a short time. Our meritocracy demands happy faces and people who are able to work. We wear big sunglasses on the day of the funeral and say to ourselves: pull yourself together.

Is mourning forbidden these days?

But by stigmatising one of the most important feelings we are capable of in this way, we are laying the foundations for numerous mental and physical illnesses: Sleep disorders, depression, addictive behaviour. Grief cannot be forbidden, it finds its own way. The price a society pays for this is high: «If today's adults had had more space to live out their grief as children, we would be dealing with far fewer difficult grief processes and their consequences today,» says Christine Leicht, a grief and end-of-life counsellor from Bern.

We learn how to deal with grief and death in a healthy way as children. Or rather, we learnt it. Until the age of industrialisation, people died at home. No child was sent outside to avoid seeing the dying person. The deceased was laid out for days, friends, neighbours and family came to say goodbye, they brought food and reminisced together.
«Birth, illness and death were completely natural processes in which the entire family and relatives took part,» says Christine Leicht. «It was only when the extended families disintegrated, the grandparents lived elsewhere, aunts and uncles worked far away and nobody had time anymore that all of this was outsourced.»

Through age-appropriate comprehension, a child can express his or her feelings about the experience of loss.

Nowadays, the sick are hospitalised, the elderly go to nursing homes and the dying to palliative care. Because children no longer experience death as part of life, they need all the more support in understanding it. Only through age-appropriate comprehension and understanding can a child express their feelings about this experience of loss.
Above all, says Christine Leicht, they also need permission to express these feelings. If a parent, brother or sister dies, it is difficult for the parents or the surviving parent to support their child sufficiently in their individual grieving process alongside their own grief and the maintenance of everyday life.

Teachers should also take responsibility

Godparents, grandparents and people from the social environment should be involved. «Schools, kindergartens, daycare centres and other childcare institutions must also learn to take responsibility and not simply say that this is a private matter,» says Leicht. Specialists in education and childcare should undergo appropriate further training. «Death and grief have become such a big taboo over the past 100 years that it scares many people. It's time to tackle this,» says Leicht.
Numerous recent studies show that grieving children and young people are not a marginal phenomenon. According to these, almost 80 per cent of 16-year-olds have already experienced a death in their close circle of relatives or acquaintances. A survey of teachers revealed that 69 per cent of them have at least one pupil in their class who has lost a parent, friend or sibling in the past year.

Teachers report that these children often have difficulty concentrating, often withdraw, are absent more often and their school performance also declines. «These are typical emotional reactions,» says Gunther Meinlschmidt, Professor of Clinical Psychology at the University of Basel.
These children are also suddenly much more anxious and are increasingly worried about the remaining family members. «All of this is completely normal after such an experience,» says Gunther Meinlschmidt. And it is also normal for such symptoms to persist for quite a while.
Meinlschmidt warns against pathologising grief. Grief needs time. «Most people think that grieving is a process that passes quickly. But it actually often takes longer,» says the psychologist. «Many people also underestimate that grieving really takes energy and that grief comes in very different guises.» Only when you realise that grief - in children and adults alike - can also manifest itself in anger, annoyance, frustration or boredom can you accept these phases.

It's also about dreams and plans

Grief manifests itself in all areas of life, affecting the psyche, emotions, social relationships and physical condition. «People often think: you grieve for a person,» says Meinlschmidt, «but it's so much more: I grieve for all the needs that are no longer being met, for all the dreams and plans that I had with the person and that have now fizzled out, for all my hopes that were connected with them.»
In contrast to adults, children are often not really recognised as mourners, says grief counsellor Beate Weber. «They are usually only recognised when they become conspicuous - either particularly aggressive or particularly quiet,» says Weber.

One in two young people would give up a year of their life for a single day with their deceased parent.

A study in which young adults who lost their father or mother as a child were surveyed shows just how serious the death of a parent can be for a child. 56 per cent of them say they would give up a year of their lives if they had just one more day with their deceased parent. More than two thirds say their lives would be much better if this parent were still alive, and almost 80 per cent say they still think about the deceased frequently.
The question of how long people should be allowed to grieve is hotly debated among experts. The most frequently quoted figures are between six and twelve months. Twelve months because anniversaries are accorded special significance. «It takes as long as it takes,» says Meinlschmidt. «The grief can still suddenly break out long afterwards.»

What if the grief doesn't go away?

It is important that affected parents rely on their intuition and seek support if necessary. This is not a sign of weakness, but often useful help for the whole family. This support does not necessarily have to be a psychotherapist, emphasises Meinlschmidt.
The fact that a child is actually unable to cope with the death of a loved one is particularly evident in the case of long-term changes. If, more than six months after the loss, the child's everyday life is still dominated by massive anxiety, if he or she wets the bed again, becomes a troublemaker in class or their school performance drops permanently, it may be advisable to turn to experts.
For example to a grief and bereavement counsellor such as Christine Leicht. Above all, the Bernese counsellor advises age-appropriate language and honesty: don't sugarcoat anything, don't deny anything and provide the child with all the necessary information. Christine Leicht says that children benefit in several ways from an open approach to dying and death: «On the one hand, they don't feel excluded from something that is obviously so enormous that everyone is somehow concerned about it,» she says. And: «Secondly, children's curiosity is satisfied: something is happening and I want to understand what's going on.»

Furthermore, the child is not persuaded of any perceptual disorders. This happens quickly when the crying mother claims that she is fine and that something has just hit her in the eye. "Sharing your own grief and helplessness with the child is important in order to allow the child to participate in the grieving process. It makes them feel taken seriously," says Christine Leicht.
The grief counsellor supports families in all these steps, both during the acute phase and long after. The needs vary greatly from family to family. In one family, she first visited six months after the mother's death and then came several times a week until the intervals became longer and longer.
«I dedicate about three quarters of my time to the children and a quarter to counselling the parents,» says Leicht. To help the children express their feelings, Leicht does arts and crafts, paints or makes music with them. This is because they often lack the vocabulary to express their feelings. «In this way, children can open up better and are more willing to talk,» says Leicht. «I'm a neutral person, and the child senses that.» Sometimes things are so bad that the expert also seeks dialogue and discusses them with colleagues.

Giving the deceased a new place ...

When talking to the children, Christine Leicht always tries to address what concerns them in connection with death. For example, a six-year-old girl told her that she often feels her dad next to her when she goes down the stairs in the house. «I asked her where she thought he was now and she said in heaven,» says Leicht. «Her older brother immediately intervened and said: «You're crazy, that's not possible.» And justified it physically.» She then asked the boy where he thought his dad was now. «In my heart, he replied.»
Giving the deceased a new place is one of Christine Leicht's tasks. To do this, she philosophises a lot with the children. Where could grandma, mum and dad be now? In their hearts? In heaven? On a star? «Many things are possible,» says Christine Leicht. «The only thing I don't accept is when a child says that their father is now in Morocco and will visit them in a few years' time.»

Children and adults have different images of the whereabouts of the deceased.

The image that a child forms of death and the whereabouts of the deceased is extremely important. Of course, the image that a young adult had at the age of five may no longer seem plausible at the age of 20, says Christine Leicht. «But at the age of five, this image may have saved their lives».

About the author:

Links and book tips:

• familientrauerbegleitung.ch
• promethea.ch
• kindertrauer-leicht.ch
• association-regenbogen.ch
• Petra Jenni-Furrer: I have you in my heart. Pattloch Verlag. 48 pages, 19.90 Fr.
• Elfi Nijssen/Eline van Lindenhuizen: Benjamin. Patmos Publishers.
  24 pages, 14.80 Fr.
• André Hötzer: The butterfly principle. Books on Demand.
  56 pages, 29.90 Fr.
• Theresa Maria Zeitz: Nasse Nasenspitzen-Küsse.
  German Literary Society. 39 pages, 21.90 Fr.
• Claudia Conradin: Powerlessness, confidence and love.
  Books on Demand. 216 pages, 24.90 Fr.

Read more about grief:

• Children should learn all about death - says our columnist Jesper Juul. How should we talk to our children about death? And how can we grieve together?

• Mrs Nosetti-Bürgi, how can families overcome the death of a parent?we asked the psychologist.