Family Support and a Child’s Adjustment to Death

The purpose of this paper is to analyze family focused therapy models within the context of grief and bereavement. Of note, bereavement and grief often accompany a wide variety of losses however, this paper will specifically focus on the physical loss or death of an immediate family member. First, this paper will provide a brief background of bereavement, illustrating the stages of grief and potential consequences. Additionally, it will examine the role of family in relation to the experience of bereavement. Next, this paper will explore attachment theory and systems theory and how they can be utilized to understand and evaluate bereavement within a familial context. This will lead to a comparison of two theories often used when disserting

The loss of an adult child is devastating, just as is the death of a younger child. However, there are differences as to how both the parents react to such losses. In this case the paper focuses on the loss of an adult child and how the parent copes with the situation. The paper will give insight into the situation that precedes the demise of the child such as the trajectory of illnesses. A review on how the parents deal with the loss after it occurs will be discussed as well as the various issues the parent faces. The impact on the parent after the child’s loss will also feature. There will be a summary of the findings, then a section that will give the implications of the research and its importance to the field of psychology, and finally an as well as focusing on the bigger picture of loss with older parents who have lost their children.

The child who died is considered a gift to the parents and family, and they are forced to give up that gift. Yet, as parents, they also strive to let their child's life, no matter how short, be seen as a gift to others. These parents seek to find ways to continue to love, honor, and value the lives of their children and continue to make the child's presence known and felt in the lives of family and friends. Bereaved parents often try to live their lives more fully and generously because of this painful experience.

“What has changed is our way of coping and dealing with death and dying and our dying patients.”(Kubler-Ross 109) In “On the Fear of Death” by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, she discusses the changes that have happened over the past few decades. The author believes that these changes are responsible for the increased fear of death, the rising number of emotional problems, and the greater need for understanding of and coping with the problems of death and dying. The author says, “The fact that the children are allowed to stay at home where a fatality has stricken and are in included in the talk, discussion, and fears give them the feeling that hey are not alone in the grief and give them the comfort of shared responsibility and shared mourning.” (Kubler-Ross 110) She believes that allowing the children to stay and be involved in the grieving stage prepares them gradually and

After interviewing the social workers Hope and Hodge (2006) found that they had observed similar patterns regarding the factors that affect the adjustment of children who lost a parent to death. Boys tend to show externalizing behaviors whereas girls tend to show internalizing behaviors due to the lost of a parent. They found that the cognitive level rather than the age of the child affects their adjustment more. Therefore younger children and preadolescents seem to have more difficulty adjusting to the death of a parent than adolescents. The results did not support earlier findings that sudden death present more difficulty adjusting than expected death. Most of the participants reported that sudden and expected death is equally traumatic to children. The participants also said that the adjustment of the caretaker is important for a positive adjustment for the children. The caretaker must be able to grieve while supporting the child’s need to grieve. This study shows that children of different ages and genders react different to the death of a parent.

Most parent’s greatest fear is the death of a child. The experience each parent or caregiver will be based on the meanings they create through their interactions within their individual experience. Whether it is a something expected or unexpected, each parent or caregiver be offered services through the health care settings or social environments/resources in the community and whether or not these interactions or services meet their needs could affect the bereavement process for the parents or caregivers.

It is believed that children do not experience grief until one has been through adolescents and can distinguish thoughts and feeling from emotions. According to Glass (1991), a child can grasp the notion of death during early childhood; and can begin to grief as early as six months (Willis, 2002). Willis (2002) believes from a moderate perspective that children begin to understand death and grieve approximately at three to four years old. Many times, small children are affected by loss and their grief is often underestimated. Children between the ages of three to five years old fall into stage one. During stage one; children view death as a going away from one place to another. It is believed that the deceased person has just relocated and is living in a new location. Stage two consists of children between the ages of five to nine years of old. In this phase, death can be fixed. It is thought that if one

When a child loses a parent their world is turned upside down. Childhood grief is such a painful experience, yet it often goes underestimated because as children grow most physicians, educators or clergy are unable to recognize the signs of depression, loneliness or isolation in grieving children. Statistics show that one in nine Americans lose a parent before the age of 20 (Zaslow, 2012). Death of either parent is devastating, but the death of a father leaves children wondering who will take care of them. Fathers are seen as the protectors in our society, they are the ones who provide the money and stability for a family. Not only that, but fathers are the spiritual head of the family and when that disappears the dynamics change.

“Ordinary people” everywhere are faced day after day with the ever so common tragedy of losing a loved one. As we all know death is inevitable. We live with this harsh reality in the back of our mind’s eye. Only when we are shoved in the depths of despair can we truly understand the multitude of emotions brought forth. Although people may try to be empathetic, no one can truly grasp the rawness felt inside of a shattered heart until death has knocked at their door. We live in an environment where death is invisible and denied, yet we have become desensitized to it. These inconsistencies appear in the extent to which families are personally affected by death—whether they

This journal submission is a reflection on the July 14th (PTSD), 21st (Children & Grief), and 28th (Children & Grief cont.) class lectures and the videos, Alive Day, HBO (2006), Helping Children Grieve, Ford and D’Arcy, and will be the last in this series.

Nader and Salloum (2011) made clear that, at different ages, children differ in their understanding of the universality, inevitability, unpredictability, irreversibility, and causality of death. They believed, despite the increasing understanding with age of the physical aspects of death, a child may simultaneously hold more than one idea about the characteristics of death. However, factors that complete the determining nature of childhood grieving across different age groups may be a difficult task for a number of reasons including their environment in means of the support they have available, the child’s nature in terms of their personality, genetics, and gender, coping skills and previous experiences, the developmental age, grieving style, whether or not therapy was received, and the relationship to the deceased (Nader & Salloum, 2011). Crenshaw (2005) found that according to our current understanding of childhood traumatic grief and normal grief, thoughts and images of a traumatic nature are so terrifying, horrific, and anxiety provoking that they cause the child to avoid and shut out these thoughts and images that would be comforting reminders of the person who died. The distressing and intrusive images, reminders, and thoughts of the traumatic circumstances of the death, along with the physiological hyper-arousal associated with such re-experiencing, prevent the child from proceeding in a healthy way with the grieving process (Crenshaw, 2005). McClatchy, Vonk, and

Incorporating grief support within schools, religious settings and homes differ from the available resources because it is more holistic. The available resources such as: The National Alliance for Grieving children, The Dougy Center and The Healing Center only provide grief support within specific centers. If a child only receives grief support within a center they may begin believing that the center is the only appropriate place to grieve, when in actuality it’s appropriate for them to grieve anywhere. A holistic approach – such as the one being proposed – allows children to grieve and receive grief support in multiple places. If a child is constantly receiving support in a grief center from only one person, they may view that person as their

I enjoy reading your post. Having an open communication can help kids cope with bereavement. It’s important for parents to talk to their children about death, this may help them to discover what they know and do not know. Or if they have fears, or worries. The death of someone close is extremely painful and therefore parents or guardians need find ways to protect the child. I agree with you, is helpful is provide convincing assurance that there will always be somebody to love and look after the child; this will bring support to the child, and will help them not feel hopeless or alone is this world. Also, parents and guardians need to be emotional, mental and physical prepared in order to support their bereaved child.

Death and dying is marked as an unavoidable event that occurs in everyone’s life. Death does not discriminate between ages; however, the amount of understanding is limited in the beginning of life. I decided to conduct research concerning the age of acceptance and recognition of mortality after speaking to my children. Each response I received showed that their thoughts were at appropriate levels of psychological advancement. However, it still did not answer some of the questions that I have regarding attitudes and the understanding of death among all ages. I wanted to know if thoughts about death are driven by age, if it is socially developed, or influenced by experience. The purpose of this research paper is also to explore how the perspective of death and dying changes as we age, how society influences our attitudes towards death, how experiences shape our attitude towards death, and how the western world celebrates death in comparison to other cultures.

There are challenges within the medical field regarding childhood death as well. These challenges include the difficulties of translating the situation to parents in denial, how much of an active role the child should be taking, the role of the parents in the decision making, and the challenges in maintaining the child’s physical and psychological development (Meager & Balk,