Supporting families with a loss

Action Plan 2

Supporting Young Children through a Family Loss

The second action plan for early childhood educators is to know how to support children, infant through school age, with a loss of a family member. Many of us have lost a close family member in our adult life, and it affects us just as it does for children. We all think that children are resilient and can bounce back from losing someone close to them, well they can, but during their grieving period we have to be emotional and physical supportive for them. Death and the grieving process can affect our body, mind, emotions, and spirit, through loss of appetite or sleep, happy and sad memories, worrying and regret, an emotional roller coaster, and question our faith, or renew our faith. If we think it is hard for us to cope with the death of a loved one, it must be worse for a child who may not understand what is happening around them. For this action plan I am going to explain what an educator should know about how children cope with losing a family member, what the experts tell us about how to support a grieving child, and what we can do as educator to support a grieving child.

Scenario:

You are working in an early childhood setting that cares for and teaches children ages 0–5. Two families in your program share a grandmother who has been an active and loving caregiver for their children—an infant, a toddler, and a preschooler. The grandmother has recently passed away and you want to support these families by helping them understand how infants, toddlers, and preschoolers grieve in order to help the children with this loss.

We all respond and grieve differently to the loss of a family member; some celebrate the life that was lived, others go into a depression, some verbalize their feeling, others write or draw about their feelings. Children are not exempt from the grieving process and depending on their age and development they may grieve differently then you and I. Educators should know how children at different developmental levels, and how each culture grieves with a loss. The experts in childhood development field, tell us that children from birth to school age grieve differently, listed below are some of the ways that children may understand and grieve with a loss.

Infants

Infants do know that some type of change is happening in their life, they may not know the details, but they sense the change. They can sense change in the caregiver’s emotions, which may affect how they grieve. With the inability to communicate verbally, Infant communicate to adults that they may be grieving the loss of someone by…

• Regressing or stop developing those fine and gross motor skills
• Loss of appetite, or choose a comfort food
• Change in personality or becoming more irritable
• Disruption in sleep pattern

As infant caregivers of who may have lost someone close to them is to keep their life as normal as possible. We need to keep our feelings about the loss to ourselves, and be as normal as possible around the child. They feed off our emotions, and react to them.

Toddlers

Similar to infants, toddlers grieve for the loss of someone close to them differently than we do, due to their lack of language, and communication skills. Toddlers are developmentally growing and learning to navigate the environment around them, let allow learning how to understand loss of something. Toddlers are beginning to use their verbal skills to communicate to the people around them but they may not have the vocabulary to tell us how they are feeling. Below are a few signs to look for in a grieving Toddler.

• Change in emotions
• Change in eating and sleeping habits
• Regression
• Attachment to a security blanket, binky, or stuffed toy

As an educator of toddlers who maybe grieving over a loss of someone close to them, we need to be there for them emotionally and physically. We need to work hard on keeping their daily schedule as normal as possible. We also need to keep our emotions about the loss to ourselves, just like infants, toddler’s sense change in us and react emotionally.

Preschool

As for preschoolers and older children, they grieve similarly to us. They have the understanding of loss and communication skill to verbalize their feelings. Like adults children do grieve in different ways. The experts say we should look for the following signs in grieving preschoolers.

• Regression
• Emotional roller coasters
• Tantrums and other unusual behaviors
• Separation anxiety
• Clinging to a security blanket or item
• Imaginary friend or family member who recently past.

As a caregiver of a preschooler who may have lost someone close to them, all we can do is the same thing we have done for the infant, toddler and anyone else who may have lost someone, be there for them. Be a friend and listen to them and be emotionally and physically supportive. Keep their schedule as normal as possible.

As for the children in the scenario, who had recently lost their grandmother, as their caregiver I would try to keep their day as normal as possible, and be there for them. I would be there for them emotionally and physically, it is a tough thing to go through at any age. For the Preschooler I would let him talk about what he is feeling and reassure him that everything will be OK. It would defiantly depend on the child on how I would handle this situation but with the knowledge of the grieving process and the signs to look for I will know what to do in the case of a child grieving over the loss of someone close to them.

References

TLC,(2008) The National Institute for Trauma and Loss in Children, Infant and Toddler Grief, retrieved on January 18, 2014 from www.tlcinst.org/toddlergreif

AACAP, (2013) Child and Greif, retrieved on January 18, 2014 from www.aacap.org/aacp/families_and_youth