ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the disenfranchised grief of children. It presents a brief overview of the concept of disenfranchised grief. The chapter then considers the types of losses that children may experience that might be disenfranchised. It offers suggestions for helping children cope with disenfranchised grief. One of the most common, most significant, and often unrecognized losses in adolescence is the loss of a romantic relationship— breakups of boyfriends and girlfriends. Children experience many losses that are not due to death but are losses nonetheless. Parents, relatives, or friends divorce; friends move. People they care about may change, sometimes in the course of development, sometimes because of other factors such as drug or alcohol abuse or incarceration. Children and adolescents may also be placed in or removed from foster care. Foster children, foster families, and foster siblings and natural families and siblings may all be touched by loss.
