{"id":3804,"date":"2022-09-12T17:54:56","date_gmt":"2022-09-12T17:54:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thefamilygrapevine.co.uk\/croydon-sutton\/?p=3804"},"modified":"2025-12-15T06:18:46","modified_gmt":"2025-12-15T06:18:46","slug":"talking-to-children-about-grief","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thefamilygrapevine.co.uk\/croydon-sutton\/2022\/09\/12\/talking-to-children-about-grief\/","title":{"rendered":"Talking to Children about grief"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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The death of Her Majesty the Queen has meant many more children are talking about and asking questions about death. Many people worry about saying the wrong thing or saying too much and it can feel like you don\u2019t know what is the right way to handle these conversations.<\/p>

The first thing to remember is that children will always be affected by grief if it\u2019s happening around them, whether that’s grief for The Queen or because of other illness or bereavement in the family. Their understanding will change depending on age, but the following advice may help if you need to talk to a child about someone dying, whether or not it’s someone they knew.<\/p>

Tell them what has happened <\/strong><\/p>

It\u2019s important to start by telling them what has happened as clearly as possible. Let them talk and ask questions. Ask what they know \u2013 they may be getting information which is incorrect or distorted from friends or social media. With a younger child you may need to give information in small chunks. It\u2019s really important to remember that talking about the situation and about the possibility of death and dying is an ongoing conversation.<\/p>

When telling a young child that a close relative has died it\u2019s important to avoid using metaphors like, \u2018They\u2019ve gone to sleep\u2019 or, \u2018Gone to live with Grandpa\u2019, while many adults do say these things they can be very confusing for a young child to understand.<\/p>

If you are very distressed yourself and aren\u2019t ready to answer all their questions, it might help to find a friend or family member to who can spend some time with them and talk them through it.<\/p>

Reassure them<\/strong><\/p>

When a child starts to understand death naturally they may start to worry about others around them dying. Don’t give false promises, but let them know they are loved and supported and that whatever happens someone will be there to look after them.<\/p>

It\u2019s also important not to expect too much of them. Older children are sometimes expected to \u2018step up\u2019 and be a support to a parent or to younger siblings. Sometimes well-meaning friends and relatives say things like \u2018you\u2019re the man of the house now\u2019 even to quite young children. You may need to all pull together as a family, but remember their age and abilities. They are still children.<\/p>

It\u2019s OK to let them see that you\u2019re sad too<\/strong><\/p>

Children will pick up on your feelings so it’s better to be honest about how you are feeling where it’s appropriate. If you try to hide how you feel, a child might also feel like they aren\u2019t able to talk and might suppress their feelings, which isn\u2019t healthy.<\/p>

Give them space<\/strong><\/p>

After telling a child about a bereavement, such as the Queen\u2019s, it\u2019s important to give them time to talk about it, but they will also need time to play and take part in normal activities. Children can\u2019t sustain emotional pain in the way that adults can and tend to move in and out of grief quite quickly. Don\u2019t worry or be shocked if your child doesn\u2019t look like they\u2019ve been affected by the death of a close relative. Its part of a child\u2019s grieving process.<\/p>

Older children and teenagers might need time with their own friends. Again carrying on with normal activities doesn\u2019t mean they don\u2019t care, it will take time for them to process their grief in their own way.<\/p>

Let them join in with funerals and memorials<\/strong><\/p>

Whether it’s watching the Queen’s funeral, or going to the funeral of their own relative, our advice is to be led by the child or young person. Funerals and memorials can be a way for children to help process their feelings and understand the finality of what’s happened. They can also be a time for sharing memories and children can be part of that, if they want to.<\/p>

Children often find creative ways of expressing grief helpful. You could encourage them to write their feelings down in a poem, diary or in a letter to the relative who\u2019s died. Or some might prefer to paint, draw or build a model to express their feelings and show how much the person who\u2019s died meant to them.<\/p>

Creating a memory box can also be a lovely way to remember all the happy times they spent with the person who\u2019s died. You can put in it anything that reminds you of the person, as well as pictures, letters and stories. This also works when it is someone they have never met, like the Queen.<\/p>

Grief is unique to everyone especially children. You can find out more about what children and young people understand at different ages, and how to help them on our website cruse.org.uk\/children<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The death of Her Majesty the Queen has meant many more children are talking about and asking questions about death. Many people worry about saying the wrong thing or saying too much and it can feel like you don\u2019t know what is the right way to handle these conversations. The first thing to remember is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":4617,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[432],"tags":[],"directory-category":[],"event_categories":[],"class_list":["post-3804","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-23 23:14:28","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thefamilygrapevine.co.uk\/croydon-sutton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3804","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thefamilygrapevine.co.uk\/croydon-sutton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thefamilygrapevine.co.uk\/croydon-sutton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thefamilygrapevine.co.uk\/croydon-sutton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thefamilygrapevine.co.uk\/croydon-sutton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3804"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/thefamilygrapevine.co.uk\/croydon-sutton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3804\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5410,"href":"https:\/\/thefamilygrapevine.co.uk\/croydon-sutton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3804\/revisions\/5410"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thefamilygrapevine.co.uk\/croydon-sutton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4617"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thefamilygrapevine.co.uk\/croydon-sutton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3804"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thefamilygrapevine.co.uk\/croydon-sutton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3804"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thefamilygrapevine.co.uk\/croydon-sutton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3804"},{"taxonomy":"directory-category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thefamilygrapevine.co.uk\/croydon-sutton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/directory-category?post=3804"},{"taxonomy":"event_categories","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thefamilygrapevine.co.uk\/croydon-sutton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/event_categories?post=3804"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}