Children, like adults, can experience various kinds of loss and loss of relationships with loved ones.
Children also experience such losses when a friend falls ill or dies, or when loved ones move far away. All these losses can result in the emergence of a grieving response in children.
Young children have difficulty in understanding that death is universal. These children need to understand that all living things, including themselves, will one day die. It should be explained to the child in an appropriate language that death is the end of life and that a deceased person
will never return. Children may have difficulty understanding that a deceased person's bodily functions have stopped, that the person is no longer breathing or is not hungry. It is possible to see a child whose mother has died playing hide and seek with his friends at the funeral. Likewise, a child who has lost a parent may think that he is being punished for misbehaving. In such cases, it is of great importance to tell the child about death in the most accurate and concrete way. The loss of a pet should definitely not be underestimated, and the grieving process should be allowed to be experienced properly.
Abstract thinking ability develops in children exactly at the age of 12. For this reason, in order for children to understand and make sense of death better, what death is, what it can cause, and what will happen to someone when they die, should be expressed in concrete terms as much as possible without using abstract words.
While children try to make sense of death;
*Anxiety and fear
* Sleep disorders
* Anger and fear Behaviors to get attention
behaviors
* Behaviors to withdraw and isolate oneself from the environment
* Sadness, longing and loss
* Guilt
They may react like.
The best things to do for a grieving child are; To give the feeling that the child is cared for and to be taken care of, to tell the child what happened and to listen to him in order to know what he understands, to care about openness and honesty, to maintain the existing order. As it may vary from person to person, it would be correct to get support from a professional in a period exceeding 6 months to 1 year.
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