The Impact of Childhood Grief
Long overlooked, childhood grief is an important and relevant issue for child-serving professionals. Consider the following:
- One in thirteen children in the U.S. will experience the death of a parent or sibling before their 18th birthday (Judi’s House, 2022).
- For children in Missouri, it is one in ten; Missouri is ranked #13 among all 50 states in estimates of children who will be bereaved due to the death of a parent or sibling by age 18 (Judi’s House, 2022).
- In 2021 alone (the last year for which data is available), nearly 1,200 children were newly bereaved every single day.
- The death of a parent is the 3rd most commonly reported adverse childhood experience (Sacks and Murphy, 2018).
Despite the data showing alarmingly high rates of bereavement among our nation’s children, grief is a subject that often receives less attention than other types of adverse childhood experiences. Many people buy into one or more common myths: that infants don’t grieve; that grief doesn’t impact children’s development and well-being; that people progress through five stages of grief in a linear fashion.
The truth is that people of any age grieve the death of loved ones. Children and adolescents may be especially impacted by grief due to lacking life experience, understanding of death, adaptive coping skills, and autonomy to make their own decisions. Children’s whole lives—where they live, attend school, socialize—can change in an instant upon the death of a caregiver. Bereavement can result in a of myriad emotional, behavioral, somatic, and social difficulties. It is also true that humans are resilient, and that most people’s bereavement-related symptoms subside gradually without intervention or lasting impact. Some people, however, stay “stuck” in their grief, endure symptoms that overwhelm their ability to cope, or experience posttraumatic stress related to how their loved one died.
The impact of the death of a loved one can be especially impactful for children and youth, due to the vulnerabilities discussed earlier. Research on adverse childhood experiences is clear evidence that what happens during childhood and adolescence matters in major ways. Therefore, as professionals working to improve the lives of children and families, we must take it upon ourselves to gain knowledge about childhood grief, how to support children and youth experiencing the deaths of loved ones to buffer the impacts, and the resources available for bereaved kids who continue to struggle.
Project CONTACT encourages our collaborators and stakeholders to dig into the following resources:
Organizations with information for professionals and helpful resources for families:
National Child Traumatic Stress Network
National Alliance for Children’s Grief
Local resources providing services in the St. Louis metro area:
Books, podcasts, and other resources for professionals and families:
Sesame Street – Helping Kids Grieve
Book for younger children: When Dinosaurs Die
Book (fiction) for older kids: Counting by 7’s
TED Talk: How Childhood Trauma Affects Health Across a Lifetime
Upcoming Online Training
The Missouri Academy of Child Trauma Studies is facilitating a training focusing on traumatic grief for TF-CBT providers. If your agency has TF-CBT providers, please consider passing along this training opportunity –
Addressing Traumatic Grief within TF-CBT: Considerations for TF-CBT Providers
April 11th, 2025 from 9am-12pm CST for $75 per person.
Click here to learn more about this training.