The following information could help if your child has lost or is about to lose someone, such as a family member or friend.
Every experience of living with grief is unique, children and young people learn to cope with learning about illness or the death of someone important in their own way.
It may be helpful to consider the following when supporting the child you care for.
- To share clear, honest and age-appropriate information
- Reassurance that they are not to blame and that different feelings are OK
- Try to keep normal routines and reassure by demonstrating that important adults are there for them.
- Taking time to talk about what has happened, ask questions and create memories.
- Being listened to and given time to share their emotions and grieve in their own way (Child Bereavement UK)
Don't forget to look after yourself
It’s important to make sure you’re also getting the support you need after a loss. This can also help you to better support your child.
Read more on NHS.uk about getting help with grief after bereavement or loss.
If a child has a loved one, such as a friend or family member who's going to die, they can benefit from special support. A child's stress level is often at its highest before bereavement because of fear and the unknown.
Confronting the nature of terminal illness with children can be very difficult, but in doing so it can prepare children for the death of a loved one so that it is not experienced as a sudden shock or they feel they are to blame.
For more information on how to talk to your child about a terminal illness please follow this link: Child Bereavement UK
Pre-bereavement counselling gives a child a chance to think and talk about their feelings and share their worries.
The YoungMinds website has more information on counselling services for children and young people.
Talk about the person who has died
During bereavement, it can help a child to talk about the person who's died, whether it was a grandparent, parent, brother, sister or friend.
Direct, honest and open communication is more helpful than trying to protect your child by hiding the truth. If you exclude them from family ceremonies and services after someone has died it could make them feel excluded.
This can also help your child be open about their own feelings and avoid confusion about what has happened. It may be helpful to talk as a family, perhaps with your child, about how to include them in any events that celebrate or say goodbye to the person who has died.
It's important for them to have someone with whom they can talk about that person and share their emotions. This could be through photos, games, memory boxes or stories.
Over time, children may start to talk more about their loss at different times and in different ways. Young children may start talking about death or including it in their play, but this is normal and is a way for them to make sense of what has happened.
If you're a parent and you know you're going to die, you could make a memory box to give to your child or make one together.
A memory box contains things that remind you both of your time together. It can provide an important link between you and your child once you've gone.
Macmillan Cancer Support has information about making a memory box.
If the person who's died did not leave a memory box, you could make one with your child.
It can include:
- gifts
- shells collected on the beach
- memories written on a card
- anything that makes the child feel connected to that person
Bereavement Care (adult & children)
Email: admin@bereavementcareandsupport.co.uk
Tel: 020 8427 5720
Trained volunteers to support adults and children in the London Boroughs of Harrow and Hillingdon.
Harlington Hospice Bereavement Service (adult)
Email: H4allcounselling
Tel: 0300 3653300
Counselling available to any adults who have experienced a bereavement.
Harlington Hospice child and adolescent bereavement service
Tel: 0208 759 0453
Counselling available to bereaved children age 4-17 years.
Halo Children’s Foundation
Email: info
Tel: 07903 709622
CNWL Talking Therapies Service Hillingdon (adult)
Tel: 01895 206800
Psychological therapies. Self-referral accepted via the website for adults who are registered with a Hillingdon GP. Includes bereavement counselling and specialist therapies for women and men who have lost a baby in the perinatal period.
- Child Bereavement UK – call 0800 028 8840 or email support
@childbereavement.org - Cruse Bereavement Care – call 0808 808 1677 email info
@cruse.org.uk - Grief Encounter – call 0808 802 0111 or email contact
@griefencounter.org.uk - Hope Again – call 0808 808 1677 or email hopeagain
@cruse.org.uk - Winston's Wish – call 0808 802 0021 or email info
@winstonswish.org - Bereavement Advice – www.
bereavementadvice.org Tel: 0800 6349494 - Child Death Helpline -Call 0800 282986
- Stillbirth and neonatal death - Call 0808 1643332
- The compassionate friends – Call 0345 1232304
- Lullaby trust – call 0808 8026868
- Widowed and young
- Survivors of Bereavement by Suicide – Call 03001115065
You can also find out more about children and bereavement from the Childhood Bereavement Network