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Hopkins, A. (2002). Children and Grief: The Role of the Early Childhood Educator. YC Young Children, 57(1), 40-47. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/42728691

Townsend, V. (2018). How the Death of a Parent Affects a Child. Retrieved from: https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/a3y9g4/how-the-death-of-a-parent-affects-a-child

NASP School Safety and Crisis Response Committee. (2015). Addressing grief: Tips for teachers and Administrators. Bethesda, MD: National Association of School Psychologists. Bethesda, MD: National Association of School Psychologists.

N, N. (2016). Children and Grief Statistics. Children's Grief Awareness Day. Retrieved from ChildrensGriefAwarenessDay.com.

Global Children’s Fund specializes in Child Safety and Sexual Abuse Prevention programs. (1993). http://www.keepyourchildsafe.org/about_us.html
Dalhousie Nursing (Mar 2018) Explaining Grief to Children

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Alesha's Self-awareness, new to me, and how I would use this information working with children and families.

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Alesha's Self-awareness, new to me, and how I would use this information working with children and families.

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Notice when a child is quieter then normal and ask questions about what might be going on. Let the child know that I am here if they want to talk about it or need their space at that moment. Children need to know that they can come to me with any questions or concerns about this subject and I would try the best to my ability to answer them as honest as I can. Help children feel safe in the environment, where they can express their grief without any kind of judgement, give appropriate learning opportunities for children to discuss death in either drawing, writing or in playing. I would use this information to build a better relationship with each child and their families. Helping the whole family sort out their feelings about death and how we can make it a positive thing together moving forward. Talking with the family about allowing the child to bring an object from home that brings them some comfort about their loss of the love one or encourage the parents to stay a little longer when bringing in or dropping of the child. Help them come up with ideas on how we can celebrate them in a way that they can remember them by and having their families help in the process from the beginning to the end.

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Children and Grief: The Role of the Early Childhood Educator

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Andrea Ruth Hopkins, Children and Grief: The Role of the Early Childhood Educator, YC Young Children, Vol. 57, No. 1 (January 2002), pp. 40-47

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The death of family is going to affect children and may last for whole life . We could provide a stable environment for children to make them feel safe. When children  express their sadness of losing the family member, we should provide comfort, hugs or hold them. We can also creating a supportive classroom for children. Children who lost a love one in life could be sensitive, anything could recall the memory, instead of minimize the feeling, we are support to  encourage them to express their feeling, or maybe we could let them bring the item to daycare to remember this particular person. Recognizing and expressing the death are more likely to help children acceptance the death.  It also important to talk to other family member of the grief children, feel sad of their loss and remain them to pay attention to the children's emotion, especially the "separate anxiety" of the child (a typical reaction when children loss a love one).  Anyway, as an early childhood educator,  it is an essential job for us to take care the mental health of a child, we should try our best to give the support to them.

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An idea a educator could do to help children express grief in a positive way

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An idea a educator could do to help children express grief in a positive way

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Could create a celebration of life wall where children could create natural clay tiles with their hand prints with their families. The tiles are then fired and assembled to the Celebration of Life display. During this time you could share stories about loss and grief, as well as happy memories of a loved one.

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Does the death of family member impact children to children later development? 

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Does the death of family member impact children to children later development? 

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Nicki Fuchs got her first period at her mother's funeral when she was 11. A few days before, on Valentine's Day, her family had found her 34-year-old mom, Rachel, dead with no explanation. At the time, Rachel worked at a veterinary clinic and lived with Nicki's stepdad and Nicki in California. Then suddenly they were burying her and Fuchs was bleeding.

"I had to become a woman that day. That was a pretty painful thing for a very long time, getting that period," Fuchs says. "From February until June, I lied about having a period every month because I was in denial about life. I just shut down."

After her mom's death, Nicki's biological dad gained full custody of her, and she had to move from California, where she had a tight-knit, supportive group of friends who were there when her mother died, to Maryland with her dad. There, she says she had to learn how to live a new life. She felt like her dad and his wife wanted her to forget what had happened.

For two years, she didn't believe her mom was dead. She thought maybe her mom was playing a game or testing her. "Because I was so young, I didn't get to grieve her. I just had to keep living life, go through school, and pretend like everything was okay," says Fuchs. "I can't tell you how many times my stepparents and dad asked, 'how are you not over it?'"

Although grief is a normal human experience that most people adapt to over time, losing a parent when a child is young is a significant stressor that requires extra support, says Dan Wolfson, a clinical psychologist specializing in grief and loss. Wolfson speaks from years of personal and professional experience. His mom died from breast cancer when he was 18, and he's the clinical director of Experience Camps for Grieving Children and a researcher at Columbia University's Center for Complicated Grief.

"Having the loss of a parent disrupts our foundation-our sense of security and safety, having secure attachment, having this parent provide everything that parents provide for us. That all gets blown to pieces when we lose a parent," Wolfson says.

An estimated 1.5 million US children lose one or both parents by the age of 15, comprising about five percent of the population. In younger children, grief often manifests in anxiety. Because children rely on their parents to meet their basic needs, kids who have lost a parent may ask who will pick them up from school or make dinner. They sometimes worry about their surviving parent dying, too.

The death of a parent often leads to other losses, too, such as having to move, switch schools, or live with a different parent, like Fuchs experienced. Because the family's financial situation may change if the deceased parent worked, teens may have to get a job to help support the family or watch younger siblings. If the parents were together at the time of death or maintained a strong bond after ending their relationship, the surviving parent may also be grieving deeply, which can impact their ability to support their children.
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As teens, Wolfson says kids' grief can begin to look more like depression or low self-esteem. Having a parent die at a young age is a life-altering experience that can make them feel different from their peers. Feeling socially isolated can hurt kids' self-esteem, which can put them at risk for anxiety, depression, and substance abuse. Fuchs says that almost 20 years after Rachel's death, she still felt out of place up until recently.

In adolescence, kids also typically become more independent and less affectionate with their parents as they develop their own identities. If a parent dies during this healthy individuation process, their teenager may feel guilty about it.

A 2000 Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry and Allied Disciplines study found that about 1 out of every 5 children who've lost a parent will develop a psychiatric disorder. Childhood bereavement research also suggests that having a parent who died due to suicide, an accident, or another sudden cause may further increase the risk for major depression and post-traumatic stress disorder.

But Wolfson is quick to emphasize that with the right kinds of support, children and teens can adapt, learn to express their grief in healthy ways, and thrive. A parent's death is going to have psychological and physical impacts on a child, but those impacts can often be overcome with time and help.

"I feel like I've been able to witness for myself and children I've worked with real hardships, real trauma, real challenges. I've been able to see their individual capacity to adapt and overcome and lead fulfilling, positive lives," Wolfson says. "I really believe in human potential to overcome challenges that life throws at us."

After a parent dies, Wolfson says children immediately feel that their world is unsafe, so families need to provide them with structure and assurances that their needs will be met. To help build those structures, Wolfson tells surviving parents and guardians, "don't parent alone." He recommends drawing on community resources, like support groups and camps, such as the Experience Camps where he works. He says that encouraging bereaved children to connect with other kids is one of the best things parents and guardians can do, as well as telling stories about the deceased parent and helping the child build a redefined relationship with them.

As time passes, it's important for children to know that it's okay to say that something sad and hard has happened to them, but they can also go on to have a positive life. In his 2013 book David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants, journalist Malcolm Gladwell details the work of psychologist Marvin Eisenstadt, who found that from a selection of 573 famous or high-achieving individuals, a quarter had parents who passed away before they were 10. Almost 35 percent had lost parents by the age of 15, and 45 percent by the time they were 20. Wolfson attributes this phenomenon to the power of human resilience.

"I don't think I would say, 'it's a good thing to have your parent die,' but what I would say is that it teaches people from a younger age that I can have shit happen to me, I can have really challenging things happen in my life, and I'm able to deal with that," Wolfson says.

In college, Fuchs says she binge-drank and was obsessed with sex. She dyed her brown hair blonde like Rachel's hair because she felt like she needed to look like her mom so she wouldn't forget her. It wasn't until Fuchs was in graduate school that she says she felt safe enough to process her mother's death.

Yet Fuchs' desire to know what killed her mom led her down a path where she's found fulfillment. As a biology major, she took pharmacology class where she had to write a paper on a drug of her choice, so she looked up her mom's toxicology report and read about the drug combination found in her system. That's how she learned that her mom probably acquired at least one of the drugs from her job at the veterinary clinic. Now a scientist and comedian, Fuchs says Rachel's death sparked two of her greatest passions.

"I don't think I would have become a drug scientist if I wasn't curious about what happened to her," Fuchs says. "I think my job is really cool and what I do everyday and how I make money is really exciting. I don't think I'd be able to do stand-up comedy without having gone that low to want to show people that laughing is the cure for everything."

Fuchs says there are still times when she wishes her mom were alive. Other times, she thinks that if Rachel were here, Fuchs wouldn't be leading the life she has.

In August 2016, Fuchs went on a retreat for women who were 21 or younger when their mothers died. Led by Hope Edelman, author of Motherless Daughters: The Legacy of Loss, and a grief counselor, the retreat allowed Fuchs to reflect on losing her mom through writing and sharing exercises and spending time with other women who experienced the same loss. Fuchs says she cried a lot. The retreat showed her that she wasn't alone.

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How the Death of a Parent Affects a Child

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Nicki Fuchs got her first period at her mother's funeral when she was 11. A few days before, on Valentine's Day, her family had found her 34-year-old mom, Rachel, dead with no explanation. At the time, Rachel worked at a veterinary clinic and lived with Nicki's stepdad and Nicki in California.

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What to do when children express magical thinking about death

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What to do when children express magical thinking about death

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Engage a child in a discussion about these beliefs. Ask them questions
like. . .
- What makes you think that?
- How does that work precisely?
- Do you think it would have made a difference if?
- How does this make you feel?
Talk about things we can control:
Talk about how we can stay healthy; eating good and exercising
· Talk about how we can be sure to treasure those we love each and every day of our lives to ensure we have the best times together possible.
· Talk about how we can make sure we drive sage and take other precautions to avoid accidents.

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These types of inquiries will help you understand what the child is thinking while possibly pointing to the underlying fear this belief is covering up.

4. Once you understand a child's beliefs a little bit better, what you want to do is patiently work to replace the implausible explanations with a more rational understanding of death that will provide some the same level of comfort. This is a good time to nurture a discussion about feeling helpless in the face of death, because this is basically what your child is conveying. Say something like...

"It can be scary to think about death. I'm all grown-up, and even I find it difficult to think about on many occasions. But I don't think your get well card had anything to do with it, my dear, although I'm sure grandma was extremely happy to receive it, and it may have even brightened her day so much that she kept fighting a little bit longer. Your grandma died because..."

Then talk about the process of death and help them understand the specifics about how and why it happened.

5. Most of all, since magical beliefs tend to originate out of feelings of helplessness, you should combat these feelings by talking about the things we can control:

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Thinking rationally about death; Helping children understand death rationally

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These types of inquiries will help you understand what the child is thinking while possibly pointing to the underlying fear this belief is covering up. 4. Once you understand a child's beliefs a little bit better, what you want to do is patiently work to replace the implausible explanations with a more rational understanding of death that will provide some the same level of comfort.

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Love is stronger than death even though it can’t stop death from happening, but no matter how hard death tries it can’t separate people from love. It can’t take away our memories either. In the end, life is stronger than death.”—Anonymous

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 Issues and challenges in the family in death 

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 Issues and challenges in the family in death 

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--Emotional depression
--Finance issues
--Threaten to mental health (inability to sleep, loss of appetite)
--Affect to the later development (lack of security)

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Tips for for preschool aged children in dealing with death

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Tips for for preschool aged children in dealing with death

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Avoid euphemisms as preschoolers have trouble understanding death and may believe the death is reversible.

Provide opportunities to express thoughts and feelings about death through play activities and drawing.

Answer questions using concrete descriptions and be prepared to repeatedly answer questions.

Possible reactions include:

Crying or screaming

Clinging to caregivers or other trusted adults

Fear of separation

Regressive behaviors such as wetting pants and thumb sucking

Decreased verbalization

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National Association of School Psychologists (NASP)

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Addressing Grief: Tips for Teachers and Administrators

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School-based support and increased understanding are essential when a student experiences the death of a friend or loved one.

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Emotions: Children upset or reluctant to discuss a recent death. So, encourage them to talk, draw or write about the loss.
Risk-taking: Children, especially teens, engage in risky behavior. So, keep a close eye and help steer them away from unhealthy activities.
Selfish behavior: Children may ignore the death at times, behave selfishly and think of themselves. They need their needs met before processing feelings about the loss.
Regression: Children may behave as they did at a younger age. Do not judge, continue to show caring and concern. Remember they are still grieving.

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Nationwide Poll of the Parents of Grieving Children

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The statistics of families dealing with death in Canada