The death of a family member can alter a child’s life forever. The key is to give children the proper guidance; they need their parents, teachers, and significant others in their lives to help them learn grief in positive ways.

For the child to cope with the death of their loved one, and learn to grieve and express their emotions, they need to understand the causes of death, through their family communication structure.

A children’s age makes a difference, and also the state of their behavioral and emotional changes. Children need to be helped when they are ready to talk about their bad experiences.

According to Ms. Mc Cue (as quoted in Chira, Susan) “a child’s age makes a difference in the way a child responds to the grieving process and understands death; a 3– year old may not talk too much about his or her feelings”.

However,children will talk about their loss to people that they trust. At this age the child may ask “When is mommy coming home?” despite having their mother's or father's death explained several times. Ms. Mc Cue affirms that a 4- year old child may have little appreciation and understanding of the finality of death.

In other article by Perry, Bruce D. “Helping Kids face up to Loss.” insists that children of different ages have different ways of adapting the abstract concept of death. However, Brodkin's article “My Grandpa Died” concludes that a 4 – year old does understand the meaning of death, but it is difficult for any child to tolerant sadness for a long time, so their grief is intermittent. Equally important, by age five or six these children, according to Brodkin, realize that everyone dies eventually, and by the time they are eight or nine a child knows that they too, will die. In Earl Grollman's book “Talking about Death” (p.35) he asserts that children of the same age differ widely in their behavior and development; some are mature and stable even when tragedy strikes, others are seemingly immature. Children should not be fit into a fixed age category regarding death and dying
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According to both Grollman and Brodkin five year olds are able to understand the meaning of physical death.They understand that Death is final and all living things must die. But they may not think of it happening to them. At this age, they may neither deny death nor accept it inevitability. This is why a child’s age makes a significant difference in the way they may respond to the grieving process and understand death; the best way to respond to a child is in simple, age-appropriate answers.

A child’s state of behavior and emotional state will change. According to Brodkin changes in behavior should be expected. Children can be sad for a few days esperience some joy and laughter, and then revert to the sad mood again. Children’s moods become unpredictable, a child may tell someone that their grandfather has died in a sad manner and later skip off to play and behave as if nothing has happened
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A child’s emotional stage may be very changable, according to Perry, the primary emotion during this time is fear. Over a period of time, the child’s thoughts will be dominated by the loss with the primary emotion being sadness. Also sleeping, eating patterns, and interest in school diminishes. Furthermore, the child’s sadness moods may float in and out of sadness and this is may be enough to convince people that children do not understand the permanence of death.

Next, children need to be helped when they are ready to talk about their experiences. When children ask for explanations about their loss according to Perry, the child is ready to talk to an adult and it will help to listen and give feedback. They also seek for guidance and comfort from adults. Children ask questions and express indirectly what they feel through play.

Karen DeBord and Nick Amann claim in their journal “Benefits of Play in Children” that a child can express their emotions through various types of play activities such as art, or stories, far earlier than they can express them in words. Likewise, for older children, play may be the means through which they can express emotions that they are either unwilling to share verbally or do not have the sufficient vocabulary to express. Through play children can be anyone, at anyplace, at anytime and easily express what they feel.

Finally, Perry claims that consoling a child who lost a beloved family member is a great challenge, because they may become sad or aggressive or withdraw from play. On the other hand, Brodkin asserts that at school children share their thoughts at their own pace and through play. Perry agrees with Brodkin on this also but has some concerns. Brodkin suggests not avoiding the topic when the child brings it up. "Be available when the child wants to talk, but avoid probing. Be prepared to discuss the same details again and again. Expect the child not to hear things that first time. Patiently, repeat facts for her or him, and always try to bring positive memories, images, and recollections in the conversation."

Grollman on page 41 encourages an explanation about trees and leaves and how long they last. Step by step give examples within the child’s ability to understand.
Therefore, when consoling a grieving child, we can do our best by following their lead when they express the need to talk, and let the child know that we understand them if they want to play, and be oblivious to the loss, we should allow them the return to normal life.

In conclusion, a children’s age affects their grieving process when dealing with death. Their behavior and emotional state changes and they need to find support when they are ready to talk about death. The best way to help a child go through grieving is by listening, being honest, talking, about the person who died, and creating an environment that is safe for grieving. Further study of this issue is important so that we can help children cope with loss.

{side notes: put the whole paper into Microsoft Word and in tools select options and under the tab for spelling and grammar turn on Grammar and style under the "writing style" pull down tab. Then when you run spell check it will make lots of helpful suggestions. I usually ignore 50% of the "passive voice" suggestions but most of the others are very helpful. It also can detect when you chose the wrong spelling of a word for the context. Good luck-Oh and the title is just a suggestion, name it whatever you want.}

'Appamadena sampadetha vaya dhamma sankhara'

'Work diligently.All component things are impermanent.'