Support For Children and Young People

Our Compton Care teams can offer advice and support on how to talk to children and teenagers when a loved one has been diagnosed with a life limiting illness. Giving young people time to prepare for what is happening now and what is likely to happen in the future helps minimise any uncertainty, anxiety, and distress.

The way children react to changing circumstances can vary depending on their age and level of understanding. It’s normal to want to protect them but it is also important that children are told when something is wrong.

Children can sometimes become forgotten about and their need for information, attention, and support overlooked. Sometimes this is an attempt to protect them. Generally, children are helped by adults who are honest and direct in their communication with them and by feeling included and valued.

The team use memory building activities to help children explore their emotions, better understand illness, and make sense of loss. Some examples include:

• Building memory boxes with loved ones
• Creating colourful handprint canvasses
• Making and decorating sand jars

For more information about our support for children and young people, please speak to a member of the team or call our Advice and Referral Line on 01902 774570.

Want to find out more about our services? Use our service finder below. Alternatively, return to our Clinical Services page.

Grief is a normal response to the death of someone close to us, and this is true for children and young people too.

It can be difficult to watch a child or young person grieve. As adults, we want to encourage grieving children and young people to be happy rather than see them upset or angry.

We may try to protect children from grief by avoiding or adapting the truth about death and dying however it is really important to explain things in an age-appropriate way and provide clear and honest communication.

Younger children may not have the vocabulary to explain their grief. Encourage them to talk about how they feel, where it hurts and what it feels like.

Children often find it difficult to express how they feel with words. They explore and make sense of the world through creativity and play. They often ‘puddle jump’ in and out of their grief moving quickly between tears and normal play. This is normal and helps them cope.

Young people may feel their grief as all encompassing, like an adult, but be unable to jump in and out like children.

Young people are experiencing huge developmental changes and their responses to the death of a loved one are likely to be intense – yet they may not have the emotional maturity to express the big emotions that can come with grief and have not yet developed resilience through life experience to bear those feelings. It might look like a young person is grieving in a similar way to the adults around them, but they are not adults.

Things that can help:

Young people usually have a good understanding of death and dying.

Young people are much more likely to show us their grief through their behaviour, rather than tell us about it.

They may begin to ‘act out’, become destructive, volatile, or aggressive. This can play out in real life interactions, and online via gaming and social media. It’s ok to feel angry, but adults can guide young people not to hurt themselves or others when they feel angry.

They may appear to swing between emotions, which can be due to their hormones and development, and also the intensity of their grief.

They may begin to consider their own mortality and how they can make meaning in their life. They may question their religious or spiritual beliefs too.

They may become concerned about finances, living arrangements, domestic chores, or the childcare of younger siblings.

They may be anxious about the health of their loved ones.

Some bereaved young people may take on adult roles and appear to grow up too quickly.

It is really important to remember that young people are not adults and should not take on the responsibilities of adult roles.

Young people may experience unexplained aches and pains if they do not have ways to express the strong feelings they are experiencing.

If they are unable to express how they feel, they may develop unhelpful coping strategies. It can feel difficult or unnecessary to impose limits on bereaved young people, but it is important that they have boundaries in place from the adults around them, especially when they are grieving.

If you are struggling with your own grief you may feel you don’t want your children to know but children and young people can sense if something is wrong. If children observe adults not sharing feelings they may learn its ok not to share theirs.

It’s essential you look after yourself too, be kind to yourself.