How Can Parents Help Their Children Understand and Cope with the Death of Their Grandparents?

How do we help a child cope with the death of his grandparents? The death of one of the grandparents is often the child's first confrontation with the immediate reality of the death of someone he knows and loves.

Parents may prefer to protect a child from the harsh reality of death by telling him that his grandfather or grandmother has gone away or that he is in heaven and avoiding giving him details and showing them their pain. Is this the best way to act on the death of a grandfather?

Not really: because you can't protect him forever from the truth, the reality that every being dies, and the reality that his grandfather or grandmother died. The death of a loved one is a very painful experience, but the child must be helped to understand and accept it, not left to hope that the loved one will return one day…

The child learns about early death - without his parents helping him to understand what is happening, he forms distorted images of this reality.

No matter how much you want, you can't protect him: trying to talk to him and encouraging him to express his feelings does him much more good than hiding the truth from him. And a child must mourn the disappearance of loved ones…

How to help a child overcome the death of his grandparents:

Explain as simply and concretely as possible what it means when a person dies. It means that the body has stopped functioning due to a serious illness or old age.

The child takes what you tell him as such, so try not to use metaphors that, you think, would soothe him (he went to heaven, sleeps in peace, rests, is still with us). By the age of 7–8, the child has difficulty understanding that death is inevitable and irreversible, that the deceased cannot return.

If your grandparent is seriously ill, try to prepare him or her, explaining that sometimes, when a person is elderly and has a serious illness, he or she dies and dies. You can explain to him what death means by examples (animals, people on TV) or by stories.

Talking to him about death and preparing him somehow protects the child from too much shock when it happens. Instead, lying to him and protecting him: "Grandpa will be fine" leaves him completely confused and disarmed when it happens…

No matter how much it hurts, answer his questions when you have an answer. How we help the child get over the death of a grandfather - talking to him and not leaving him out! The child may have many questions and naturally believe that his parents know all the answers.

Painful questions and questions that may block you: "Where is Grandpa now, on earth or somewhere else?", "Can he see me from there?", "Can I still talk to him/her?" But now?" and others… Try to answer them if you have an answer - if not, be honest and tell them no one knows exactly.

If you are a believer, you can give him religious answers, if not, tell him how you feel and believe. But as simple and concrete as possible, helping him to understand the reality of death, the reality that the loved one will no longer be among you.

Help him get over his fear of death. The death of a grandfather can arouse different emotions in the child when he begins to understand what it is about. The fear of the death of other loved ones and his death will be among the first and most intense feelings of the child.

If your grandfather or grandmother died of illness and old age, then everyone who gets sick or is older can die, right? It is very important to explain to him that only a serious illness and only an advanced age can lead to death and that his loved ones are not sick and so old.

Assure him that he will not waste anyone else's time; if he asks you how you know, tell him to trust you. The fear that all loved ones will leave him is natural - even as adults facing the death of a loved one we feel it; so you should try as much as you can to reassure him that he will not be left for long by anyone else.

Explain to him that death is something that happens, that it is not anyone's fault. A child under the age of 10 may come to believe that the death of a grandfather is the fault of someone: his parents, his grandfather (he did something wrong, that's why he died), or even his fault.

Children see death as a punishment for something - try to explain to them that this is the way things are in the world. Also, don't be upset if the little one seems only interested in how the death of a grandfather affects himself (children are self-centered and put themselves at the center of events).

This does not mean that the little one did not love his grandfather or grandmother, but that in this way he can see the situation, through the prism of direct effects, of how his own life will be affected.

A child's reaction cannot be predicted. It depends on his degree of understanding this reality, on the way you explain it to him and you behave, on his personality.

Some children remain silent, withdraw and refuse to talk about how they feel; others become nervous and even aggressive, behaving excessively; others release their sadness by crying; others remain strangely unaffected: this is because they do not yet fully understand the reality of what happened. It happens that a child manifests emotionally only after a good period since the death of his or her grandfather or grandmother.

Your reaction as a parent is important. You can choose to pretend, not to witness your pain - even if you think you are protecting it, you also make it clear that it is forbidden and inappropriate to express yourself and talk about what happened.

And the child may have a great need to speak and express himself. Of course, if the pain makes you go from crying to tantrums, it is preferable to protect your child from such intense emotional discharges. But show her that it is a sad thing and that it is okay to cry and talk about how you feel.

Whether or not to attend the funeral is a personal decision made by the family: just keep in mind that seeing the body of a loved one can be a big shock, as can burying the coffin.

When the child is small, under 10, it may be preferable not to attend the funeral. To help him say goodbye and convey his thoughts and emotions to the missing person, you can tell him to write or draw to his grandfather or grandmother.

The child may feel the need to talk about the deceased loved one. To feel close to her, she may ask to see photos or may be attached to an object. No matter how painful these things are for you, let him talk and remember his grandfather or grandmother.