Why shielding children from death does more harm than good

Telling them 'Grandpa's gone to sleep' can be confusing and lead to unhealthy behaviour. Here's how to support them so they can grieve the loss.

- Gracia Lim

In my work supporting grieving families, I have often seen parents wrestle with the delicate task of explaining to a child that a loved one has died.

Take the case of a three-year-old boy I worked with, whom we'll call A. His father had died on the operating table during the removal of a brain tumour.

His family, thinking A was too young to understand the loss, didn't take him to the funeral. They just said Daddy had gone to the hospital for an operation on his head.

A was referred to me for art therapy as he repeatedly asked when his father was coming back. In one session, he began cutting the heads of the male figures in a collage activity.

I realised he was trying to make sense of his father's disappearance. As there was no other information from adults, he imagined that the doctors had cut off his father's head.

It's natural for parents to want to shield their children from the finality, sadness and confusion over the loss of a loved one. We often hear well-meaning parents tell their children that "Grandpa has gone to sleep", or "Mama has gone on a long journey", hoping that will soften the blow.

Other parents avoid having a conversation altogether, assuming that by not talking about the death, the pain will somehow pass unnoticed.

But children can sense when something is wrong. They can pick up on the sadness, changes in routine and whispered conversations.

Trying to soften the blow by using metaphors like "gone to sleep" can lead to children below the age of five developing anxieties around bedtime or separation anxiety because they interpret these explanations literally.

Without clear guidance, they may also imagine worst-case scenarios. For example, when someone close to them goes away and disappears without warning, the child may think that he has been abandoned and will never return again.