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Living with loss

Children and grief

Children grieve in short bursts and then go back to playing, which adults routinely misread as not caring. It is not. It is how a child’s system handles something too big to hold continuously.

Published 5 min read

Telling a child

Do it soon, somewhere familiar, from somebody they trust — and preferably before they overhear it from somebody else, which is how a great many children find out.

Use the word “died”. Not lost, passed away, gone to sleep, gone away, taken. Young children are literal and euphemism produces predictable, avoidable fear: a child told grandma “went to sleep” may refuse to go to bed for months; a child told she was “lost” may believe somebody should be out looking.

A workable script:

“Something very sad has happened. Grandma died this morning. That means her body stopped working and the doctors couldn’t fix it. When someone dies they don’t come back. It isn’t because of anything anybody did, and it doesn’t mean it’s going to happen to me or to you.”

Then stop. Let them ask. Answer only what is asked, honestly, and say “I don’t know” when you do not.

Expect it to be asked again. Over days and weeks a young child will ask repeatedly whether grandma is still dead, whether she is coming to Christmas, whether she is cold. They are not failing to understand — they are testing whether the answer stays the same. It should.

Say it was not their fault. Children reliably construct causal theories involving themselves — a wish, an argument, a bad thought. Say out loud, unprompted, that nothing they did or thought caused this.

How grief looks at different ages

Under 3. No concept of permanence, but acute sensitivity to disruption and to the distress of adults. Expect clinginess, sleep disturbance and regression. Routine is the main medicine.

3 to 6. Death is understood as reversible and temporary. Magical thinking is at its peak, so guilt is common. This is the age at which euphemism causes the most harm. Expect the same questions on a loop, and expect play to become the medium — funerals for toys, and dying and coming back to life, which is normal processing and not something to stop.

6 to 10. Understanding that death is final and universal arrives, and with it fear — about their own death and about the surviving parent’s. Expect physical complaints, worry about who will look after them, and a great deal of practical curiosity about what happens to a body. Answer the practical questions plainly; they are how a child of this age manages fear.

10 to 13. Adult comprehension, child resources. Very concerned with being different from friends, so they often hide grief entirely at school and let it out at home, or vice versa.

Teenagers. Often the hardest hit and the least visible. Withdrawal, anger, risk-taking, an intense need to appear normal, and sometimes a sudden assumption of adult responsibility that nobody asked them to take on and nobody should let them keep.

The funeral

The default should be let them come if they want to, with proper preparation and a real choice.

Preparation means describing it concretely in advance: the room, the coffin and what is in it, that people will cry, including grown-ups, how long it will take, what happens at the moment of the committal, what the curtains do. Nothing frightens a child like a room in which everything is unexplained and every adult is upset.

Assign one adult whose only job is that child. Not a parent — a parent will be needed elsewhere and cannot be interrupted. An aunt, a godparent, a family friend, who can take them out of the room at thirty seconds’ notice without it being a scene.

Give them a role if they want one: a drawing to put in the coffin, a flower to carry, a poem, choosing a song, handing out orders of service. Children frequently want to do something and are rarely offered anything.

And if they do not want to come, that is fine too — but the choice should be theirs, made with real information, not made for them.

Practical things that help

  • Tell the school on day one, even if the child seems fine. Ask them to warn you about Mother’s Day, Father’s Day and family-tree topics.
  • Keep routines. Bedtime, school, meals, the football on Saturday. Predictability does more for a grieving child than almost anything else.
  • Let them keep something of the person’s. A jumper, a watch, a book, something that smells right.
  • Make a memory box, together, over time. Photographs, tickets, a note in the person’s handwriting. It gives a child something to do with the feeling.
  • Answer the same question again. As many times as it is asked.
  • Look after yourself out loud. Children copy adults for permission. A parent who says “I feel sad about grandad today, I might have a cry” teaches a child that this is survivable and allowed. A parent who grieves entirely in secret teaches them to do the same.

Specialist help

Free, UK-wide, and you can self-refer — no GP letter and no threshold:

  • Winston’s Wish — 08088 020 021 — bereaved children, young people and their families.
  • Child Bereavement UK — 0800 02 888 40 — for families when a child dies, and for children who are grieving.
  • Cruse Bereavement Support — 0808 808 1677 — including a young people’s service.
  • Your local hospice. Many run children’s bereavement groups open to the whole community, not only to families they have cared for. It is worth ringing and asking.

The full list is on where to get help .

  • Use the words 'dead' and 'died'

    Not 'lost', 'passed away', 'gone to sleep' or 'gone away'. Young children are literal, and euphemism produces genuine fear — of sleep, of people going out, of being lost.

  • Grief comes in puddles, not waves

    A child may sob for four minutes, then ask what's for tea and go outside. That is normal, healthy and not a sign that they have not understood.

  • Let them come to the funeral

    If they want to, and somebody prepares them and has no other job that day. Children kept away frequently resent it years later; children who attend generally cope better than adults expect.

Questions people ask us most

How do I tell a child that someone has died?
Somewhere familiar, from somebody they trust, as soon as reasonably possible, in short plain sentences. Say the person has died, say what that means — their body stopped working and it cannot be fixed, they will not come back — and say it will not happen to you or to them just because it has happened once. Then stop, and answer whatever they ask. Expect the question to be repeated over days and weeks; each repetition is them checking it is still true, not evidence they were not listening.
Why does my child not seem upset?
Because children grieve in short bursts — sometimes called puddle-jumping — and cannot sustain distress the way adults do. They will cry hard, then go and play, and adults read the playing as indifference. It is not. Grief in children also emerges sideways: in behaviour, in sleep, in school, in tummy aches, in regression to younger habits, in sudden anger. Watch for those rather than for tears.
Should children go to the funeral?
Usually yes, if they want to. Give them a real choice with real information — what the room looks like, what a coffin is, that people will cry, how long it lasts, that they can leave at any moment. Then have one adult whose only job that day is that child, so they can leave the moment it is needed without disrupting anybody. Children excluded ‘for their own good’ very often resent it as adults; children who attend usually manage far better than the grown-ups expect.
What do I say about where the person is now?
Whatever your family actually believes, said plainly, and it is fine to say that people believe different things and that you do not know. What matters most is not contradicting yourself later. Avoid mixed messages — ‘grandad is in heaven’ alongside ‘grandad is in the cemetery’ — without explaining how both can be true, because a five-year-old will take both literally and try to reconcile them.
What about teenagers?
Teenagers often grieve hardest and show it least, because the developmental job of adolescence is separating from the family at exactly the moment the family has been broken. Expect withdrawal, anger, risk-taking, and an intense need for things to look normal to their friends. Keep offering without demanding, do not make them the substitute adult of the household, and tell the school. Peer support groups often reach teenagers far better than family conversations do.
Should I tell the school?
Yes, immediately, even if the child seems fine. Schools have bereavement policies, and a teacher who knows can head off a great deal — the Mother’s Day card assignment, the family tree project, the ’tell us about your weekend’ that lands badly. Ask them to tell you what they notice, since children frequently hold everything together at home and fall apart at school, or the reverse.
Where can we get specialist help for a grieving child?
Winston’s Wish and Child Bereavement UK both support bereaved children and their families across the UK, free, with helplines you can ring yourself without any referral. Cruse has a young people’s service. Many hospices run children’s bereavement groups open to the whole community, not only to families they cared for — worth asking your local one directly.

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