ABSTRACT
When a child’s parent dies the grief of the remaining parent is often so overwhelming that this parent is unable to recognize or cope with the grief of the child. It may be thought that children do not really understand about death and that it would cause unnecessary pain to involve them in the parent’s grieving, whether through going to the funeral or seeing the parent cry. Because a child is not showing overt grief it may be assumed that the child gets over it quickly. In fact the evidence abounds that children have the same reactions to loss as adults (Bowlby 1980). These are initial shock and alarm, followed by numbness, denial and disbelief. Then follows a time of yearning and pining, and searching for the lost person, feelings of intense anger or guilt, mental disorganization and despair. If all goes well some kind of reorganization and reintegration is reached (Kubler-Ross 1970). The tasks of grieving are to accept the reality of the loss, to experience the pain of grief, to adjust to an environment in which the dead person is missing and, finally, to withdraw emotional energy and invest it in a new relationship (Worden 1983). The period of intense grief may be shorter for children than for adults, but the whole grieving process may take many years and is renewed at the milestones in life, such as changing school, birthdays or having their own baby, when the parent is again deeply missed (Hemmings 1990).
