ABSTRACT
The child’s past mental health and developmental level, both cognitive and emotional, their overall ability level and their temperament may affect the way in which they respond to bereavement and to life-threatening illness. Between the ages of two and sixteen years, children are particularly vulnerable to major loss experiences. They are past the age where lack of comprehension protects them from an awareness of the implications of major losses and have not yet developed adult coping strategies and defences. Children with lower ability levels who have temperaments associated with slow adjustment to new situations are more likely to become fixed in the denial process and find the bereavement or illness experience confusing and difficult to cope with. Children with an external locus of control and low selfesteem may find bereavement and life-threatening illness more difficult to cope with, probably because they view themselves as ill equipped to cope with the overwhelming nature of these experiences. Where children have had a stressful previous experience of a life-threatening illness or know that they have a vulnerability to serious illness, they may find that these background stresses compromise their capacity to cope with a current episode of life-threatening illness.
