Hospice Quinte: Changing Lives Podcast

How Children Deal With Loss

January 23, 2023 Hospice Quinte Season 6 Episode 4
Hospice Quinte: Changing Lives Podcast
How Children Deal With Loss
Show Notes Transcript

Everyone who experiences loss will grieve differently, and children of course are no exception.  The primary difference in adult versus child grief is the way in which the grieving process is demonstrated, leaving adults who care for grieving children at times confused and worried that somehow their child isn’t grieving normally.  The way children respond to death is different from adults which makes sense since their experience with death is more limited, and the ability to think in the abstract isn’t quite developed.  Find out more in this week's podcast.

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About Hospice Quinte
Hospice Quinte provides individuals, their families, and caregivers with compassionate end of life care, by attending to their physical, psychosocial, and practical needs, and offering empathetic care to those who are grieving through visiting hospice services and support groups. All Hospice Quinte programs and services are provided by compassionate, well-trained volunteers and staff at no charge to the individual or their family.

Hospice Quinte serves a population of over 102,000 in Quinte West, Belleville, Deseronto, Tyendinaga Township and the Tyendinaga Mohawk Territory. To find out more visit HospiceQuinte.ca.

Everyone who experiences loss will grieve differently, and children of course are no exception.  The primary difference in adult versus child grief is the way in which the grieving process is demonstrated, leaving adults who care for grieving children at times confused and worried that somehow their child isn’t grieving normally.  The way children respond to death is different from adults which makes sense since their experience with death is more limited, and the ability to think in the abstract isn’t quite developed.  

Most children are at least aware of death, even if they don’t understand it.  Death is a common theme in children’s TV shows, their favourite movies and cartoons, and some of your child’s friends may have already lost a loved one.  For many children the death of a pet will be their first exposure to death.  But experiencing grief firsthand is a different and often confusing process for kids, and that is why play is so important in a child’s grieving process.

They may go from crying to playing, and that’s normal.  Playing is a way of coping with their feelings.  It’s also normal for children to get angry, to feel sad, get anxious and act younger than they are.  For example, very young children can regress and start wetting the bed again or slip back into baby talk.  

The late Vivian Gussin Paley, a long-time educator put it this way: “The young child wants to play.  He wants to play because intuitively he understands that through play he will understand more about who he is than in any other format”.  Psychologist Seth Aronson extends that line of thinking into play that involves the processing of fear, anxiety and loss.  One of the functions that play serves for kids is it allows them to approach something that might be frightening in a way that makes it less frightening and more understandable.  

Through play, children can control the tempo, the pace and the content of a situation and gain the ability to anticipate what happens next – all of which can take the sting out of scary situation.  Play really allows the child the time and the space to act out some of the details of a loss.  Psychologists call these processes denial and undoing, and they’re essential to maintaining a child’s sense of safety and control.  In other words, imaginative play enables children to better understand reality.  Play has the power to make something un-happen, to correct something that’s overwhelming.  

Author and faculty member at the Yale Child Study Centre Erika Christiakis says the play impulse is evolutionarily hardwired in human and can’t be short-circuited”.   She explains that adults play a key role in setting the groundwork for what psychologist’s call “productive play” which actively helps children process their experiences and acquire emotional and cognitive skills.  However, it is important to keep your eye on unproductive play which represent and amplify feelings of distress.   

The best way to encourage productive and healthy play for grieving children is to remember the PACE approach.  P.A.C.E is an acronym which stands for playfulness, acceptance, curiosity and empathy.  

Adults should provide children with “multi use toys” – generic objects like blocks and dolls without specifics identifiers like Spiderman or Barbie.  With known characters, they tend to play out those specific storylines; but when they have a faceless or generic toy, they engage with their own thoughts and emotions, what they find exciting, troubling or confusing.  The healthiest, most nurturing thing we can do for grieving children is to join them in their feelings.  It is imperative to encourage adults to communicate to grieving children that there is nothing they can say that would be too strange or too annoying.  Children need to have a certain sense of safety to go into an imaginary play zone, and adults can provide that safe space during tumultuous times.  Play is a critical way that children can communicate their thoughts and feelings, and cope with stress and sadness.

Hospice Quinte provides individuals, their families, and caregivers with compassionate end of life care, by attending to their physical, psychosocial, and practical needs, and offering empathetic care to those who are grieving through visiting hospice services and support groups.  All Hospice Quinte programs and services are provided by compassionate, well-trained volunteers and staff at no charge to the individual or their family.  We serve a population of over 102,000 in Quinte West, Belleville, Deseronto, Tyendinaga Township and the Tyendinaga Mohawk Territory.