Dealing with Death Children and Teens Grieve Differently As a
parent, your natural instinct is to protect your child from
painful experiences. But when someone close dies, shielding your
child from the difficult emotions that accompany grief is not
what’s best for them. The most loving thing we can do for a
child who is grieving is be a guide and teach our children about
the realities of death. It’s important to provide age-
appropriate support and guidance to maneuver through the rough
course of grieving an important loss. Children and teens respond
to death differently than adults. Unfortunately these
differences can lead to the mistaken belief that a child is not
grieving the loss and that he or she does not need help with
understanding and mourning. Children and teens grieve and
process their emotions sporadically, needing to take breaks from
unfamiliar intense emotions, which explains why a child may not
appear to be deeply affected by the death. They simply do not
have enough life experience with underst