Parental Grief Support

Learn how to understand your child’s grief experience and provide exactly what your child needs.

What is parental grief support?

When a partner or spouse dies there is an unfillable hole in your heart. People may bring food or encouraging words hoping to lift you from the grief. After the weeks or months of acknowledging the grief with you they may expect you to move on with your life. A life that has come to an abrupt stop. Your grief alone may feel overwhelming and then you begin to carry your child’s grief. You grieve for their lost time with their parent, for the milestones that will come and go without the parent’s physical presence, you grieve for the unfairness. As a parent you want to do all you can to protect your child from pain, when a parent dies you feel helpless. Parental grief support allows a safe space to process your grief and learn how to meet both your child’s developmental and grieving needs.

How Do Children Grieve?

  • Grief Puddles

    Children grieve in short sporadic bursts that may last a few seconds or minutes. A child “jumps” into a grief puddle, deeply feels the grief and then may instantly return to daily activities. This is developmentally appropriate in order to protect the child from the intensity of the grief. While a “grief puddle” may be brief the depth is comparable to an adult’s constant flowing “river of grief.”

  • Developmental Stages

    Children may experience grief at each developmental stage as their cognitive abilities develop. As children develop they let go of magical thinking and their capacity for abstract concepts such as finality or causality expand. Their understanding of death changes as they perceive the world differently and their grief may be impacted.

  • Milestones

    It’s important to note that milestones may become bittersweet as a child grows—for both you and the child. The family may feel joy while celebrating achievements, graduations, jobs, weddings, or new babies; and the family may feel grief and sadness for the absence of the loved one.

  • The Parentified Child

    When children see a parent or caregiver grieving they may not express their sadness for fear of upsetting or exacerbating the parent’s grief. It’s important for parents to seek support for themselves and learn how to support their grieving child.

What does parental grief support include?

Grief counseling: Your grief is real and valid, it deserves to be acknowledged and honored. Counseling provides the space to allow you to grieve with no timeline, together we will explore what you need and I will walk alongside you every step of the way.

Grief education: Our brains and bodies change following the death of a loved one. I will share all the research and knowledge I have learned about grief and together we will tailor that information to your grief experience.

Child-Parent Relationship Training: CPRT is a program focused on teaching parents play therapy skills (reflecting feelings, limit setting, encouraging the effort, etc.) to better understand your child’s experience and strengthen the parent-child relationship. We will acknowledge your child’s grief and strengthen your connection while grieving.

Memorabilia support: Together we will find ways to honor your loved one and ensure that they are honored today and every day moving forward. This will help ensure your child has a healthy grief experience and a lifelong connection to their loved one.

“This child needs the love and attention of caring adults if she is to heal and grow. It is the bereavement caregiver's role to create conditions that allow for such healing and growth”

— Alan Wolfelt