How to Help a Child Grieve the Death of a Grandparent

Children grieve in waves — sobbing one minute, back on the floor with Lego ten minutes later. That is normal. What helps is plain words instead of euphemisms, honest answers to every question, and something of their own where Grandma still turns up. A journal they can draw in as well as write in is a good start.

Children grieve in waves, not in one long stretch

Adults often grieve for days at a time. Children jump. They cry hard, then they want toast, then at bedtime they ask whether Grandma is cold now. From the outside it can look cool, almost careless. It isn't. Children can only hold grief in short bursts, and they take breaks in between because otherwise they would not get through the day.

So it is not a bad sign if your child is laughing again two hours after the news. And it is not a bad sign if nothing seems to come for three weeks and then all of it arrives at once in the middle of the supermarket.

Expect the same question ten times over. Your child isn't testing you, they're testing the answer. When it comes back the same every time, the world becomes something they can lean on again.

Say "died", not "went to sleep"

"Grandma passed away." "We lost Grandma." "Grandma has gone to sleep." These are kind sentences, and small children take them literally. Some become frightened of going to sleep afterwards. Some stand at the window waiting for someone who was only lost to come back.

Clearer, and in the end kinder: "Grandma died. Her body stopped working. She can't breathe or eat, and she doesn't feel anything any more. And she isn't coming back." It reads harshly on the page. For a child it is the opposite — it is something solid to stand on.

When they ask why, you are allowed to say, "I don't know." Children cope far better with honest not-knowing than with an explanation that falls apart the next time they ask.

What children take in at different ages

The ranges below are rough. Every child is different, and brothers and sisters in the same house often react in completely different ways.

The pattern behind them is well documented, though. Reviewing the research in Child Development (1984, 55(5), 1671–1686), Mark Speece and Sandor Brent found that children come to understand three separate things about death — that it cannot be undone, that a dead body no longer works, and that it happens to everyone — and that these usually fall into place between the ages of about five and seven, arriving separately rather than all at once. That is why a four-year-old can ask when Grandma is coming back and mean the question completely sincerely.

Up to about three

Death isn't a concept yet. But the absence is felt, and the mood in the house is felt. What holds a child this age is sameness: the same bedtime, the same song, the same hands.

Three to six

At this age many children believe death can be undone — Grandma is gone and might be back on Thursday. Some also think it was their fault, because they were cross with her once, or because they didn't feel like visiting the last time. Say something about that before you're asked. One sentence to your child is enough: "This has nothing to do with you. No thought of yours made this happen."

Six to ten

Now it lands that death is final and that it happens to everyone, including you. Hence the very matter-of-fact questions: What happens inside the coffin? Does being cremated hurt? How fast does a body rot? Answer calmly and concretely. These questions are not coldness. They are a child trying to get their arms around something enormous.

Ten and up

Older children understand all of it, and they withdraw more often. Many would rather grieve alone — in their room, in a group chat, with headphones on. Some go quiet to spare you. Stay nearby without pushing: side by side in the car, at the sink after dinner, five minutes on the edge of the bed.

A memory journal for children: what belongs in it

A book of their own gives a child something that belongs only to them at a time when every decision is being made by adults. Some families call it a memory book, some call it a grief journal. The word doesn't matter, as long as one thing is clear: it belongs to the child. If you want a fuller picture of how one comes together, we've written about how to make a memory book for someone you lost.

A few things that tend to work:

• Nobody reads it unless your child shows them. Say it once, clearly, and then hold to it, even when you're curious.
• Drawing counts as much as writing. A picture of Grandma's kitchen is a complete entry.
• Anything can be stuck in — a photo, a bus ticket from the last visit, a scrap of fabric from her apron, the label off her hand cream.
• No rules, no full pages. One word on a page is allowed. Crossing out is allowed. Months of nothing is allowed too.
• It isn't only about the dying. The everyday things are what otherwise go first: how she swore at the television, how she shuffled cards, how she always talked too loudly on the phone.

If it wasn't Grandma who died but a parent, the same holds — only then the ordinary day is empty in far more places, and the book usually starts to matter sooner.

Questions that get a child writing

"Why don't you write something about Grandma" mostly produces a blank page. Small, concrete questions work better. The ones below are addressed to your child, not to you — read one aloud, then simply stay in the room. There are more of them in our list of questions to remember someone by.

• What did Grandma's house smell like?
• What did she say that nobody else says?
• What did you two eat when it was just the two of you?
• Which song makes you think of her?
• What was she proud of you for?
• What's the funniest thing she ever did?
• What would you tell her if she could ring tonight?
• What do you never want to forget?

If your child doesn't want to write

Plenty of children don't want to write, and some can't yet. The book still works:

1. Your child talks, you write it down. Word for word, mistakes and all, without tidying it up. Years later those are the most precious sentences in there.
2. A voice note on your phone, which the two of you turn into a few lines whenever your child feels like it.
3. Photos stuck in and labelled — one word is enough.
4. Collect it together. You write your memory on the left-hand page, your child draws on the right.

And if the book goes untouched for weeks: leave it there. Nothing is running away. Books like this often get opened for the first time months later, sometimes years.

You're grieving too

If it was your mother who died, you have lost your mother while walking beside a child who has lost their grandmother. That is two griefs under one roof, and yours usually gets put last in the queue.

You are allowed to cry in front of your child. Children learn from you that sadness is permitted. All that helps is a short sentence to go with it: "I'm crying because I miss my mum. It isn't anything to do with you, and you don't have to comfort me." Then your child knows where the tears come from — and that they aren't responsible for them.

What belongs to you doesn't have to go in your child's book. Some parents keep something separate for that: a grief journal for adults with eighty gentle prompts that nobody else opens. Somewhere to keep the sentences your child never has to read.

If you'd like support from outside

You don't have to carry this on your own, and you don't have to wait until things are "bad enough".

• Nursery, school, after-school club: a short note is enough. Someone who knows reads a quiet child, or a temper in the playground, differently.
• Local hospices and bereavement charities run grief groups for children and teenagers in many areas, often at no cost. A phone call to ask doesn't commit you to anything.
• Free written guidance is available too. The Dougy Center, which has run peer support groups for grieving children in Portland, Oregon since 1982 and whose model has been copied by children's bereavement services in many countries, publishes free guides for families at dougy.org.
• Your child's doctor is an unfussy first place to ask if you're unsure — with sleep that stays broken, stomach aches with nothing behind them, or a child who stops playing for a long stretch.

Grief isn't an illness, and it isn't a task that gets finished. It is love for someone who isn't here any more — your child's love as much as yours. A book doesn't make it smaller. It only means that Grandma doesn't just live inside somebody's head.

Common questions

Should my child come to the funeral?

Ask your child, and tell them beforehand exactly what will happen: who will be there, what the coffin looks like, that grown-ups will cry, roughly how long it lasts. Then let them decide, including deciding not to. Arrange for one familiar person who can step outside with them at any moment.

My child just carries on playing — is that normal?

Yes. For children, playing isn't avoidance; it is how they come up for air in between. Often the grief shows up inside the play itself, when a doll is suddenly being buried in the garden. Stay nearby and let it happen without commenting on it.

At what age does a child understand that death is permanent?

Research reviewed by Speece and Brent in Child Development (1984) found that most children grasp the three parts of the idea — that death cannot be undone, that the body no longer works, and that it happens to everyone — somewhere between the ages of five and seven. Before that, a child asking when Grandma is coming back is asking sincerely, not refusing to accept it.

How long does a child grieve a grandparent?

There's no deadline for it. Children come back to it again at every age — starting school, the first Christmas without her, and then suddenly again at fourteen. That isn't a step backwards. That is a child growing alongside the loss.

What age is a grief journal right for?

As soon as a child can draw, something can go in. With younger children you'll usually be the one writing; from around eight the book often becomes private. The only thing that matters is that nobody reads along unless your child shows them.