Grief, which is often associated with sadness, has the ability to enter our minds in unexpected ways. If it happens to a child, the effect is absolutely different. Children’s brains are still functioning, and they are still learning what feeling safe means. Therefore, in case grief and trauma meet, especially due to loss of childhood, it can unsettle not only the emotional side of a person but also cause changes in behavior, sleep, school, friendships, and so on.
How Grief Sneaks Into a Child’s Mind
Children hardly ever express their problems with mental health straightforwardly by saying, “I’m struggling with my mental health.” Mental health issues in children can be only indirectly observed by adults. A child who was previously full of life and energy suddenly becomes silent. One minor issue may result in an outburst of rage. Or they might hold on to you as if they were scared that you would vanish as well. Such incidents are often a result of emotional trauma in childhood, even though adults sometimes think that a child is “too young to understand.” Children understand quite a lot – just in another manner.
At times, the pressure turns into symptoms of childhood PTSD or the signs of it can be revealed in situations like sleep terror, trouble concentrating, and getting easily irritated. It is not random. It’s their mind working on the problem of the world which has become scary all of a sudden.
When Grief and Mental Health Get Tangled
The contribution of trauma in children to grief and loss mostly results in traumatic bereavement, which is the most difficult and painful loss of grief. This kind of mourning is like going through a horror movie in which anger, confusion, and being overwhelmed are main emotions. Children begin distancing themselves from the past, or they become fixating on it. They could be reenacting the moment of parting over and over, trying to get hold of it.
Parents are very anxious to see it. That is perfectly normal. There is no instruction for this. Thus Bright Flourishing Health, not once or twice but continuously, emphasises the significance of processing grief in children as it helps to understand all these emotional upheavals.
Moving Toward Healing
Support should not necessarily be expensive or faultless. It can be simply being present together when things are tough, or allowing the child to have his/her own space when he/she decides to be alone. Recovery is not immediate. It is a little bit awkward. And it is the nature of being human.
If you wish to get more help in understanding the impact of grief on children’s emotional world, you may visit the page on childhood traumatic grief which is a resource that parents can understand and utilize quite easily.
