IMPACT OF PARENT’S DEATH ON THE CHILD 2
Introduction
In a lifetime, most people will likely experience the death of a parent, but usually during
the middle of their lives and not while they are young. However, one in twelve children will lose
a parent before 18. That is 8% or 6 million children in the United States alone. The topic of
parental loss is essential to human development because early parental loss impacts a child’s
development and core competencies, and the effects continue throughout their life (Biank &
Werner-Lin, 2011). It is important to understand that a child's relationship with the parent who
has died will change as the child grows up and matures. It is also essential to understand that the
age of the child when the parent dies will bring different grief responses.
Developmental Impact
Age of Impact
In a volume of systematic research called Healing Children’s Grief: Surviving a Parent’s
Death from Cancer, which was completed by Grace Christ, we see how the death of a parent
impacts children differently depending on the age at which it occurred.
Children ages three to five expressed grief only after they realized and accepted that the
parent would never return (Christ, 2000). The parent's death did not seem real to them, and they
denied that it had happened. This process sometimes took months. The morning process for these
children looked like consistently wanting to sleep with the surviving parent, clinging behavior,
bed wetting, and physical symptoms like stomachaches. Most children demanded that the
surviving parent find a replacement for the lost parent as soon as possible (Christ, 2000)
Children in the six-to-eight-year-old age group knew as soon as they were told about their
parent's death that they would not see them again, and they were gone forever. This differed
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drastically from the realization of their younger peers, who took months to understand. This age
group mostly showed their mourning by talking about and sharing stories or photographs of what
they and the parent had done together. These children needed empathy and support for their
inevitable disappointments and sadness but also support for their joyful remembrance of the
parent they had lost, which was a unique way of grieving for children of this age (Christ, 2000)
When children between the ages of nine and eleven experienced the loss of a parent, they
had more of a capacity for logical thinking. They tended to try to carry the weight of caring for
their ill parent. Usually, this was done to demonstrate their love for and desire to protect their
parent and their need to be helpful (Christ, 2000). Children in this age category may express grief
and anger through conflict with siblings and peers, messiness, forgetfulness, and problems
concentrating in school. Most children avoid showing sadness, apprehension, and fear (Biank &
Werner-Lin, 2011). These effects tend to remain in the year following the death of a parent, but
by the end of the first year, most children regained their previous level of function and focus on
school and at home. This age group seemed so overwhelmed by their grief that they could not
tolerate their feelings. (Christ, 2000).
Children (adolescents) between the ages of twelve and seventeen have a greater
understanding of what death means when their parent dies. Following the parent's death, they
tend to experience more prolonged and persistent periods of morning. This grief and mourning
process looked more like the mourning process that adults experience, with long periods
affecting their concentration and functioning (Christ, 2000). They could rationalize their thoughts
and feelings and talk about sadness and fear of vulnerability more freely. Adolescents may have
misconceptions about how their parent's death will affect their plans and opportunities. (Christ,
2000).
IMPACT OF PARENT’S DEATH ON THE CHILD 4
Impact on Developmental Process
Cognitive Impact
Children cannot complete the mourning process because they do not have the cognitive
capacity to fully comprehend and understand the separation that occurs with the loss of a parent
and the process of death and its irreversibility (Biank & Werner-Lin, 2011). Although children
grieve differently than adults, they still go through the grief process. Younger children must be
taught how to grieve (Christ, 2000). It is essential to understand that a child’s relationship with
the parent who has died will change as the child grows up and matures and as they enter into a
new season of their lives and are faced with the hard realization that their parent will never get to
see them in that part of their life. They must grieve the life they lost when their parent died
(Biank & Werner-Lin, 2011).
Emotional Impact
A child's mourning process has a different pace. It can involve intense emotions that come and
go for years and last into adulthood, which differs from an adult's mourning process of
overwhelming sadness and loss, which gradually diminish over time (MacPherson & Emeleus,
2007). For emotional integrity in the wake of a parent's death, it is crucial to enable the child to
construct a coherent narrative they can tell throughout their lives. This story will change and
develop along with the child, but this permits children to maintain and continue normal
emotional developmental processes (Stokes, 2009)
Relational Impact
Research on child bereavement shows that early parental loss significantly impacts
relational development. This is because early attachment models are integrated into expectations
IMPACT OF PARENT’S DEATH ON THE CHILD 5
for painful separation and abandonment (Biank & Werner-Lin, 2011). The experience of losing
one parent can weave itself into fear of losing the other surviving parent. There is the impact of a
child’s relationship with a parent who is no longer present for day-to-day interactions but who
nonetheless remains a constant reality and an important part of their lives (Christ, 2000).
Professional Perspective
The most important consideration for human services providers to know as they work
with individuals and families experiencing the loss of a parent is that there are several tasks that
a mourning child must face as they work through the grief process. First, they must accept the
loss's reality and the enduring separation from the parent (Biank, & Werner-Lin, 2011). Second,
in the morning process, the child must fully understand and experience the pain of loss. Next,
they must learn to live their life without the parent they lost. This involves realistically adjusting
to the environment around them, which is fulfilled by filling the emotional and relational gaps
left behind after their parent’s death (Biank, & Werner-Lin, 2011). During this stage, the child
grows closer and develops a deeper relationship with the surviving parent. Lastly, the child must
understand that their life is ongoing and learn to memorialize their deceased parent in a way that
coincides with and supports their ongoing growth (Biank, & Werner-Lin, 2011).
Resources
Readings
Healing children’s grief: Surviving a parent’s death from cancer. http://stop-
abuse.ru/wpcontent/uploads/2016/06/Grace_Hyslop_Christ_Healing_Childrens_Grief_SuBookZ
Z.org_.pdf
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This book presents 88 families and their 157 children who navigated terminal illness and,
ultimately, the death of a parent to cancer. From the study done by Grace Christ, we see five
separate age groups of children are studied, and it is shown that the children’s development
shapes their response depending on their age. In order to heal children's grief due to the loss of a
parent, it is important to help them adapt and integrate their new reality (Christ, 2000)
Resilience and bereaved children: Helping a child to develop a resilient mindset.
following the death of a parent. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21928600/
This journal article talks about the emotional experience of grief and how children must balance
the task of mourning and the normative life changes. The author, Julie Stokes (2009), argues that
their continual cognitive and emotional development allows them to question and begin to
understand their parent’s life and death in new ways. The loss of a parent is unchanging and
permanent, but the grief process is not and is an ongoing part of the child's life experience
(Stokes, 2009).
Referrals
https://www.ourhouse-grief.org/children-and-teens/
OUR House provides grief support for children between the ages of 4.5 and 15 who have
experienced the loss of someone close to them. This organization uses play therapy writing
exercises and has highly trained group leaders to support children navigating the grieving
process. It gives the child the space to grieve in a safe and nurturing environment with others
who have experienced similar situations.
https://cbc-rgv.org/our-services
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Children's Bereavement Center offers support groups to connect children and teens with
others who have also experienced loss. This allows children to share, connect, and express their
grief safely. They also provide personalized individual and family counseling to help the child
healthily navigate the grief of losing a parent.
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References
Biank, & Werner-Lin, A. (2011). Growing up with Grief: Revisiting the Death of a Parent over
the Life Course. Omega (Amityville, N.Y. Online), 63(3), 271–290.
https://doi.org/10.2190/OM.63.3.e
Broderick, P. C., & Blewitt, P. (2020). The life span: Human development for helping
professionals (5th ed.). Pearson.
Christ, G. H. (2000). Healing children’s grief: Surviving a parent’s death from cancer. Oxford
University Press.
MacPherson, & Emeleus, M. (2007). Children’s needs when facing the death of a parent from
cancer: part two. International Journal of Palliative Nursing., 13(12), 590–597.
https://doi.org/10.12968/ijpn.2007.13.12.27887
Stokes. (2009). Resilience and bereaved children. Bereavement Care: for All Those Who Help
the Bereaved., 28(1), 9–17. https://doi.org/10.1080/02682620902746078
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