Five Things Professionals Must Do to Give Grieving Children What They Really Need
- Jun 9
- 6 min read
Leoniek van der Maarel is a Dutch psychologist, grief expert, author, and trainer with a clear and powerful mission. "Creating a world where grief is no longer a silent struggle, but a supported path forward."
By protecting children from grief, you actually take away the tools they need to cope with it. You do it out of love. That is the first thing I want to say before I say anything else. When an adult decides to protect a child from the pain of loss, by not naming it, by avoiding the conversation, by saying that Grandpa has “gone on a long journey” it comes from a deep desire to spare that child. Not from indifference. Not from unwillingness. But the protection you think you are offering does not work. That is exactly what I want to demonstrate here.
Children already feel the absence, even when nobody says anything
Imagine this. You are eight years old. The atmosphere at home is different than usual. Adults speak more softly, or not at all. People come by and cry. Someone who was always there is suddenly gone. You feel that something is happening. But nobody explains what.
Imagination is worse than reality
What does a child do with that tension? They fill in the gap. With what they know, with what they suspect, with what they tell themselves in the silence of their bedroom. What children tell themselves is rarely less frightening than reality. Often, it is worse. Because imagination has no limits, and neither does fear.
Silence does not protect the child. Silence enlarges the loss. It makes it bigger, scarier, and unnameable, and therefore unmanageable.
Children are already aware of the atmosphere in the home. They are waiting for information. They are waiting for permission. Permission to feel what they already feel, to understand that what they are feeling makes sense. Permission to ask questions. Permission to be sad.
Silence makes loss bigger and scarier than it is
There is something remarkable about loss that is not spoken about. It grows. Not the loss itself, but the fear surrounding it. The uncertainty. The feeling that there is something you are not allowed to access, something too big to talk about, something that even the adults around you cannot handle. For a child, that is a disturbing message. If even the grownups cannot carry this, how am I supposed to?
An honest explanation of what is happening
What an honest explanation does, age appropriate, calm, without giving every detail at once, is bring the loss back to a human scale. It gives it a name. What has a name can be pointed to. What can be pointed to can begin to be understood. What is understood can begin to be carried.
That is not a small step. It is precisely the difference between a child who learns to grieve and a child who learns to avoid.
Children who do not learn to grieve carry it with them
Unprocessed loss does not disappear. It moves into the background, but it remains present, as an unnamed emptiness, as a pattern of avoidance, as a sensitivity that suddenly appears later in life without the person understanding where it comes from.
In my work with adults, I meet them regularly, people who experienced a major loss as children and never spoke about it. Not because they were not affected by it, but because the conversation simply never happened. The loss did not officially exist. Therefore, they could never officially stop and acknowledge it, cry about it, ask questions, or say goodbye.
Those children are adults now. They are still grieving, sometimes decades later, sometimes without knowing exactly what they are grieving for. They carry a burden they were never given the opportunity to put down.
Protection that was well intended at the time has, in the long run, stood in the way of something essential, the opportunity to learn that loss is bearable. That sadness is allowed. That it does not destroy you.
Honest communication gives children language, it creates understanding
Children do not need protection from reality. They need language to understand reality. When you tell a child that Grandma has died, that her heart has stopped, that she is not coming back, that you are sad too, you give that child something valuable. You give them words for what they are feeling. Words are tools.
With those words, a child can ask questions. They can name their sadness. They can tell their teacher what happened at home instead of remaining silent out of shame or confusion. They can cry in bed at night because they miss someone, instead of lying awake with a vague fear that has no clear source.
Being honestly age appropriate does not mean telling everything. It means telling the child what they are able to understand right now. Concrete, simple, without euphemisms that create more confusion than clarity. "Gone on a journey," "we lost him," or "he is sleeping forever" are phrases that mislead children. They are not accurate. Children sense that. Even phrases such as "Grandpa is a little star in the sky now" can be confusing, however understandable it is that adults use that language.
A child who knows the truth, however difficult that truth may be, is stronger than a child who is left in uncertainty. That is not theory. It is what you see in practice, again and again.
What this requires from you as a professional
As a coach, therapist, or social worker, you meet parents and caregivers who want the best for their child but do not know how to have the conversation. People who are grieving themselves. People who barely have the words themselves for what has happened.
Your role is not to take over the conversation. Your role is to help the adult around the child have that conversation. To show that honesty is not the same as causing harm. That a child who cries is not falling apart. That sharing sadness is something that connects people, not something that damages them.
This requires knowledge. It requires an approach that creates space for the complexity of loss in children without losing your way. It requires that you know how to take the lead in that conversation, even when it becomes uncomfortable, even when the pain is greater than anyone expected.
The five things you do not want to skip
1. Give words to what has happened
Children sense that something is wrong, even when nobody names it. Help parents explain the loss clearly and honestly, using language that matches the child's age. No euphemisms, no detours.
2. Give permission to feel
Many children try to be strong for the adults around them. Help them understand that sadness, anger, confusion, and fear are normal responses. Feelings do not need to be fixed. They need to be allowed.
3. Make space for questions
Children process loss in pieces. They ask a question today and ask it again next week. That is not a sign that they were not listening. It is a sign that they are gradually understanding what loss means.
4. Involve the important adults
Supporting a child almost always means supporting parents, caregivers, or other important adults as well. Help them start the conversation, tolerate emotions, and remain emotionally available to the child.
5. Take the lead when loss becomes complicated
Children need adults who do not look away from pain. As a professional, you provide structure, language, and direction. You help the family make loss discussable, so the child learns that grief is something they can carry.
Children can cope when adults are present
Children can cope with big losses in their lives, provided they have adults who support them, who teach them how to cope, how to feel, how to find the words for feelings that just cannot be put into words. Children can cope when they learn that what they feel matters, that it is valid, that nobody tells them, "You should not talk about this" or "Let us just go on with our lives."
We teach children how to live. Let us start teaching them how to deal with loss.
Read more from Leoniek van der Maarel
Leoniek van der Maarel, Academie voor Verlies/Grief Training Centre
With over 25 years of experience and a deeply personal connection to her work, Leoniek has become one of the leading voices in the field of loss and transition. Her approach is grounded in the understanding that grief does not always begin with death, and healing is never one-size-fits-all. Her career is defined by one central truth, grief is everywhere. In the aftermath of a death, a divorce, a broken family bond, or a lost dream, it weaves itself through human lives in ways both visible and silent. And yet, society still often asks us to "move on" too quickly, or without the right support. Leoniek’s life's work is to change that.
