MHM Magazine

reactions, however when these emotions do not dissipate after two years or is extreme in their intensity it can be helpful to consult a professional. HOW YOU AND YOUR ADULT PATIENTS CAN HELP CHILDREN COPE WITH DEATH AND GRIEF: • Adults can seek additional support and education to understand their own grief process. An adult can model a healthy reaction to loss by expressing their feelings and receiving support or help. • Children may feel afraid or unsure, because they sense the other people’s emotions and feel they’re powerless to help them. Additional love, structure, routine, and support can be helpful for them. • Children need adequate explanations of the cause of death, using correct terms like die and dead. Vague terms and trying to shield them from the truth merely adds confusion. Avoiding terms that associate going away, sleep, or sickness with death. • Don’t exclude children when family or friends come to comfort grieving adults. Exclusion from these experiences or avoidance of the topic of death teaches children that death is an unthinkable subject. Children need to learn how to deal with loss, not be protected from grief. • When someone dies, children often worry about themselves and others dying. They need to know who would take care of them in the unlikely death of both parents. • Help children learn to recognise, name, accept and express feelings to avoid developing unhealthy defences to cope with difficult emotions. Physical activities that release energy can be a helpful energy outlet. • A child may try to protect adults and try to assume the caretaker role, but children need to grow up normally without being burdened with adults’ responsibilities. WHEN REACHING ACCEPTANCE: With bereavement, children reconstruct their view of the world of one without this person in it. A compassionate and accessible representation of the deceased is constructed which is congruent with the family’s belief system. Most children preserve a relationship with the person who has died using rituals and symbols. Belongings, photographs, and places that hold precious memories of the deceased take on new significance for the child. New routines are developed as part of coming to terms with the loss. The child’s support systems are restructured to account for the absence of the deceased. If children experience support during the early phases of grief, they can show increased maturity, post-traumatic growth, and psychological strength once they take steps towards acceptance. Children who lose someone may become more compassionate and understanding. Intervention with children and adolescents who have experienced loss aims to help the child and family acknowledge the loss, incorporate it into their worldview and reorganise their lives to take account of the loss. Effectiveness of family, individual and group-based therapy with bereaved children has shown to be effective. All of these can be incorporated as part of a child’s treatment process, dependant on each child’s unique needs and the stage of grief work the child is at. In the early stages of grief work, family-based work is the most appropriate since it allows family members to develop a shared acknowledgement of the loss. Later, individual or group work may be incorporated with family session. References available upon request A compassionate and accessible representation of the deceased is constructed which is congruent with the family’s belief system. Issue 4 | 2021 | MENTALHEALTHMATTERS | 39 MHM