Children Coping with Death and Loss
by Teresa Sullivan
Children and Grief
Another roadblock to an adult moving through grief is children. “Adults won’t do grief work until their children are taken care of,” says Leary. And, children grieve very differently than adults.
A child does not fully comprehend the concept of death until about age 10, according to Leary. If a child has lost a parent, it is very likely that he will not grieve in front of his surviving parent. There exists an unconscious fear that if he cries in front of her, she will fall apart and die too. Therefore, out of a sense for his own safety, a child will delay his grief process.
It is for this reason that a child needs a lot of help in order to grieve properly. As a helper, you can be a grieving spouse’s safety net for her kids. Besides the obvious physical care of her children when a death occurs, a helper can also do the leg work to see that the kids are properly tended to in their grief.
You can research certified grief counselors for children and offer to take them. You can contact TAPS for peer counseling and camps on her behalf.
Grief and Moving
Another form of invisible grief can occur for a spouse when the active duty member gets a set of orders. A military spouse herself, Leary does not downplay the real sense of loss that can be brought on by a transfer.
“Moving is loss,” she states. The active duty member may be getting a promotion, but for the spouse, it may be a demotion. She explains that even though the active duty member moves, he gets to stay with his culture - the military, with all its customs, uniforms and language. The spouse has to create a new culture, time and again, and it is exhausting.
She grieves her job, her colleagues, her friends, her routine, and her stability. She grieves for lost opportunities. And, her grief may go unacknowledged. This can make her feel unimportant. It may be a great new assignment for the active duty member, but as Leary notes, “Probably no one asked if it would be a great assignment for the spouse.”
What’s worse, she continues, “She may feel ashamed of her ill feelings towards what everyone else considers a great move.”
To help alleviate these feelings, Leary suggests that we as military spouses acknowledge this loss in our fellow spouses. “We have to allow it.” By allowing her to “be with her sadness,” by not judging when she expresses conflicting emotions about a transfer, or even decides to stay behind, we can help that spouse negotiate her way through a very real, albeit invisible, loss.
Moving Forward
It has been six years since Shelly Hall embarked on the lonely, painful process of grief, a process that will most likely touch all of us in some form in our lives. With the help of grief counseling, TAPS, a strong will, her faith, and friends who were there for her, Shelly has made a life for herself and her children. She relocated near a military base, because that is the environment that she loves. She will graduate from college this spring, and go on for her master’s in grief counseling. Her children are thriving. She notes, “Nothing can be done to stop the pain, everything must be done to ease it.”
To know what to do and what to say to a fellow spouse experiencing grief from any form of loss can be an extraordinary opportunity to deeply touch another human being, and in so doing become more fully human ourselves.