Parents With Bereavement

Bereavement and loss - The loss of a loved one such as a parent, sibling, grandparent or friend can turn a child’s world upside down. Grief can bring all sorts of emotions, upset, sadness, hurt and anger because they are gone and, fear because the child may be afraid of other loved ones dying too. A child can be affected by grief for a long period of time, and this may impact on their emotional and physical

Research indicates that there is a correlation between childhood parental figure loss and adult depression. Studies show the strongest causal relationship occurring when the child experiences the parental loss between five and eight years of age. The elevated risk factor of parental loss that was experienced by Gilbert as well as the previously described symptoms of depression that Gilbert exhibits are strong indicators of Gilbert suffering from prolonged depression (Coffino, 2009).

Unplanned transition is the hardest for the children to cope with. As discussed by Stokes et al. (1999), a sensitive, responsive support needed more than ever when it was recognized that children and young people had experienced an unplanned transition such as bereavement. Whenever a child or adult is faced with traumatic life events, particularly the loss of a loved one, the ability to survive the emotional and physical pain associated with the event will be influenced by the individual’s level of personal resilience. Focusing entirely on their needs enables children to express their feelings, acknowledge their loss and develop skills to cope with their changed lives.

This paper examines the implications of grief, bereavement and disenfranchised grief. Grief in response to a loss is a unique experience and is expressed distinctively by every individual. It is helpful to have models that outline the stages of grief that need to be experienced in order to achieve acceptance. However, their utility is limited by the reality that grief is immeasurably complex and individualized. Veterans and children are two groups at risk of developing disenfranchised grief. Therefore, it will be important for nurses to be able to identify those suffering with disenfranchised grief or other forms of maladaptive grief so appropriate intervention may be employed.

The child who died is considered a gift to the parents and family, and they are forced to give up that gift. Yet, as parents, they also strive to let their child's life, no matter how short, be seen as a gift to others. These parents seek to find ways to continue to love, honor, and value the lives of their children and continue to make the child's presence known and felt in the lives of family and friends. Bereaved parents often try to live their lives more fully and generously because of this painful experience.

“What has changed is our way of coping and dealing with death and dying and our dying patients.”(Kubler-Ross 109) In “On the Fear of Death” by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, she discusses the changes that have happened over the past few decades. The author believes that these changes are responsible for the increased fear of death, the rising number of emotional problems, and the greater need for understanding of and coping with the problems of death and dying. The author says, “The fact that the children are allowed to stay at home where a fatality has stricken and are in included in the talk, discussion, and fears give them the feeling that hey are not alone in the grief and give them the comfort of shared responsibility and shared mourning.” (Kubler-Ross 110) She believes that allowing the children to stay and be involved in the grieving stage prepares them gradually and

Children who are grieving often struggle with life because they have lost a loved one. The loss may have been expected or unexpected, but the pain is still great. However, the way the person was lost and other factors surrounding the death, as well as the age of the child, can all affect how a counselor handles the child and his or her grief. Children can also grieve something other than a death, so there are many situations in which a child might need to see a grief counselor. Additionally, children who have been part of traumatic events where someone else has died may need more than just grief counseling because they will have survivor guilt and others issues which they will also have to face and work through. Empirical studies show that there are many different ways to provide a child with grief counseling, and that children can react very differently based on many characteristics. Counseling that is tailored to the child is the most significant way to help that child - and that is still not enough to convince every scholar that grief counseling actually has any benefit at all.

With a different perspective, analyzing the author’s grief will be easier. There are five stages of grief, according to Kubler-Ross’s model (Kübler-Ross, 1972). It begins with stage of denial. This can be seen in the author’s writing, that the author cannot accept the fact that his healthy, young child has died (Kübler-Ross, 1972). The next stage to follow is Anger which is seen in the fact that the author believes no parent should bury their child. The third stage is bargaining (Kübler-Ross, 1972). The author tries to reason through his thoughts with God in the hopes of having his son back even though there is no possible way that can happen. The fourth is depression which is seen in the darkness

Someone who is grieving will experience “major psychological, spiritual, social and physiological” changes throughout the grieving process (Hooyman & Kramer, 2006, p37). There are many theories and models that support these words. This essay will discuss Freud’s theory of grief work (Davies, 2004), Bowlby’s attachment theory (Walsh, 2012), and Worden’s tasks of grief (Worden & Winokuer, 2011). The major tasks of grief throughout the four different stages of life will be looked at, as well as common grief reactions, and ways to support people through these. In addition how children, adolescents, adults and the elderly understand and respond to grief will be examined. Finally how people at the various stages of life confront their own death will be looked at, including some personal examples.

After interviewing the social workers Hope and Hodge (2006) found that they had observed similar patterns regarding the factors that affect the adjustment of children who lost a parent to death. Boys tend to show externalizing behaviors whereas girls tend to show internalizing behaviors due to the lost of a parent. They found that the cognitive level rather than the age of the child affects their adjustment more. Therefore younger children and preadolescents seem to have more difficulty adjusting to the death of a parent than adolescents. The results did not support earlier findings that sudden death present more difficulty adjusting than expected death. Most of the participants reported that sudden and expected death is equally traumatic to children. The participants also said that the adjustment of the caretaker is important for a positive adjustment for the children. The caretaker must be able to grieve while supporting the child’s need to grieve. This study shows that children of different ages and genders react different to the death of a parent.

It is believed that children do not experience grief until one has been through adolescents and can distinguish thoughts and feeling from emotions. According to Glass (1991), a child can grasp the notion of death during early childhood; and can begin to grief as early as six months (Willis, 2002). Willis (2002) believes from a moderate perspective that children begin to understand death and grieve approximately at three to four years old. Many times, small children are affected by loss and their grief is often underestimated. Children between the ages of three to five years old fall into stage one. During stage one; children view death as a going away from one place to another. It is believed that the deceased person has just relocated and is living in a new location. Stage two consists of children between the ages of five to nine years of old. In this phase, death can be fixed. It is thought that if one

Nader and Salloum (2011) made clear that, at different ages, children differ in their understanding of the universality, inevitability, unpredictability, irreversibility, and causality of death. They believed, despite the increasing understanding with age of the physical aspects of death, a child may simultaneously hold more than one idea about the characteristics of death. However, factors that complete the determining nature of childhood grieving across different age groups may be a difficult task for a number of reasons including their environment in means of the support they have available, the child’s nature in terms of their personality, genetics, and gender, coping skills and previous experiences, the developmental age, grieving style, whether or not therapy was received, and the relationship to the deceased (Nader & Salloum, 2011). Crenshaw (2005) found that according to our current understanding of childhood traumatic grief and normal grief, thoughts and images of a traumatic nature are so terrifying, horrific, and anxiety provoking that they cause the child to avoid and shut out these thoughts and images that would be comforting reminders of the person who died. The distressing and intrusive images, reminders, and thoughts of the traumatic circumstances of the death, along with the physiological hyper-arousal associated with such re-experiencing, prevent the child from proceeding in a healthy way with the grieving process (Crenshaw, 2005). McClatchy, Vonk, and

The loss of an adult child is devastating just as is the death of a younger child. However, there are differences as to how both the parents react to such losses. In this case the paper focuses on loss of an adult child and how the parent copes with the situation. The paper will give insight on the situation that precedes the demise of the child such as trajectory of illnesses which is more recent. A review on how the parents deal with the loss after it occurs will be discussed as well as the various issues the parent faces. The impact on the parent after the child’s loss is also featured. There will be a summary of the findings then finally a section that will give the implications of the research and its importance to the field of psychology and an improvement in human beings

An “off-time” family life cycle transition is a non-normative event that happens outside the expected life cycle and may cause trauma or a conflict to the family of the child with the disability. These events that happen are known as unexpected transitions which are experienced at an unanticipated or unusual time during the life cycle transition of a family who have a child with disabilities (Turnbull, Turnbull, Erwin, Soodak, & Shogren, 2011). For example the demise of an older person may be considered a natural part of the life cycle because as one grows old, it is expected that the individual will die eventually. Though, death at whatever age may cause families to struggle emotionally as the passing of a loved one is still hard to bear and accept. But though in grief, the family celebrates the life of a person who has lived to a ripe old age as they leave behind numerous memories which are shared among the family members. These memories have the effect of comforting the family and relieving stress. But the passing of a child is hard to accept, causing a lot of stress to the parents and the family Turnbull (2011), as such a death is generally regarded as cruel twists of fate. Meaning, this was not expected in the family cycle. The parents of the deceased child will be in denial, face heartbreak and loneliness. Society might look at the passing of such a child with disabilities as a relief to the

This essay explores several models and theories that discuss the complexities of loss and grief. A discussion of the tasks, reactions and understanding of grief through the different stages from infants to the elderly, will also be attempted.