Supporting children through grief

Accept your child’s feelings without trying to fix them.
Explain death with clear, real words and answer questions simply.
Let your child see your grief and name your emotions in age-appropriate ways.
Reassure them they’re safe and use steady routines to anchor their days.

When a child experiences the death of someone close to them, their grief often shows up differently than it does for adults. While kids experience many of the same feelings as we do—sadness, disappointment, anger, and more—their nervous systems are still learning to regulate those big emotions.

Children’s lack of emotional regulation means expressions of grief can often feel unpredictable or surprising. They might cry one moment, and laugh the next. They might regress in unexpected ways—having accidents, struggling to sleep alone, or throwing tantrums. Any difficult behavior after loss isn’t a sign of a “bad” kid—it’s a sign of a good kid having a hard time processing an enormous change.

As a parent or caring adult in a child’s life, you play an important role in helping them build the coping skills they need to process death—both now and in the future.

Support, don’t solve

Kids’ feelings need support, not solutions. When a child is sad, hurt, or angry while grieving, it’s natural to want to “fix” the situation. You might find yourself saying, “You won’t feel this way forever” or “There’s nothing you could have done.” While these words are well-intentioned, they often end up making a child feel confused, ashamed, or alone in their feelings.

Picture your child sitting on a bench called the “feelings bench.” Offering solutions is like yanking them off the bench. In comparison, listening and validating is like sitting down on the bench with them. That’s what eventually gives kids the confidence to get off the bench on their own.

This shift matters because when we resist the urge to fix and focus on connection, we teach kids: Yes, this feels hard and you can cope with hard things.

Common signs of grief by age

Every child’s grief will look different depending on the circumstances of death, their relationship to the person, the time since loss, cultural upbringing, and more. However, there are some common themes that may show up depending on their developmental stage.

Toddlers: Young children may not understand that death is permanent, asking questions like “Where’s Grandma?” or waiting for someone by the door. Grief often manifests in mood changes and physical behaviors, like irritability, clinginess, tantrums, and sleep changes.
Early childhood: Kids begin to grasp that death is final. They may express missing someone through play (like calling their loved one on their toy phone) or imaginative stories (“I saw them at school today”), or express fears about routine (“Who will pick me up from school on Tuesdays?”).
Adolescence: As kids get older, the death of a loved one can lead to identity or existential distress. They might express refusal to accept the loss, increased self-consciousness (“I’m different from other kids”), or the sense that life is meaningless. Alternatively, adolescents might adapt their identity to honor the person’s legacy—such as pursuing a particular educational path or joining relevant causes.

4 key principles for supporting a child’s grief

Here are practical, actionable strategies for helping a child process someone’s death.

1. Use real words

Explain what happened using real, medically accurate words. When you share the news of a death and answer questions honestly, you teach kids that your relationship can handle even the hardest truths. This not only infuses a painful moment with love and connection—it also builds a solid foundation for talking about tricky things throughout their life.

If a child asks, “What does dead mean?”, you can say, “Death means their body stopped working." You might get pointed and painful questions like, "Does that mean I won't see them again?" and you can answer honestly and simply: "Yes sweetie. That's what it means."

2. Don’t hide your grief

Witnessing adults’ big emotions isn’t scary to kids—what’s scary is witnessing those emotions without any explanation. You do not need to “hold it together” or “be strong” for your child. In fact, witnessing and talking about your emotions is part of what teaches them that big feelings can be named, experienced, and regulated. If your child asks, “Why are you crying?”, you can say, “I’m crying because I miss my sister. I’m sad, and even when I’m sad, I’m still your strong mom who can make you dinner.”

3. Establish safety

After someone dies, kids often worry: What else could change? Who else could go away? While adults know that death isn't contagious, this isn't as obvious to younger kids. Even for older kids who have a better understanding of death, loss can trigger fears of abandonment or difficulty imagining the future. Kids might struggle with separation—leading to bedtime protests or tantrums at drop-off—or they might withdraw from others out of fear of losing them. Establish a sense of safety by directly explaining you aren’t going anywhere, spending quality one-on-one time with a child, and sticking to consistent routines as much as possible.

For example, you can tell your child, “Grandma died. I’m not dying, you’re not dying. We’re here, and you are safe.”

4. Validate feelings

Grief isn’t one feeling. It’s a mix of many feelings: sadness, disappointment, confusion, anger, guilt, gratitude, relief. A child can miss someone and still laugh at a movie. They can cry and smile remembering someone. When your child sees that joy and grief can live side-by-side, they learn something powerful: Feeling better doesn’t mean forgetting someone.

You can tell your child, “You might feel multiple things at once, or different feelings on different days. One part of your body might feel sad and miss them, and one part of your body might feel excited about the field trip. Both things can be true.”

How to remember loved ones

Rituals and activities that bring someone’s memory into everyday life can help integrate grief, rather than dividing time into “before” and “after” someone’s death. In addition to initiating conversations about the person who died to show that it’s okay to talk about them, there are many tangible ways to help children feel connected to them:

Create new traditions (“Your friend loved making pancakes. Should we make Sunday mornings pancake day?”)
Draw pictures or write letters to the person
Display photos or create a memory box
Plant a tree, plant, or flower in their honor
Light a candle on their birthday or holidays
Visit a meaningful place

Your family may have other religious, cultural, or spiritual traditions that can also play a role in how you remember your loved one together.

When to seek outside support

First things first: You know your family best. You know your kid. You see what is happening day-to-day in your home. If you want another person on your team to navigate a challenging time, then that’s the only sign you need.

If you’re feeling unsure, here are some signs to consult a grief specialist, therapist, your child’s pediatrician, or other professional:

Consistent difficulty with daily functioning, such as taking care of personal hygiene or attending school
Health risks due to difficulty eating, sleeping, or meeting other basic needs.
Larger mental health struggles, including anxiety, depression, or suicidality

Seeking support is not a sign that something is “wrong” with your child or that you have “failed” as a parent. Seeking support is a healthy way of modeling to your child that there are times in life when we need to reach out to others—and this is an important, empowering lesson for your child to learn.