Supporting children and young people after a sudden, violent or traumatic death

When someone in your life dies, feelings of grief can be overwhelming. These feelings may be even more difficult to handle if the death is traumatic, sudden or violent. There are many types of traumatic death – it could be through an accident, illness, terrorism, murder, manslaughter or suicide.

Is grief after a traumatic death different?

While some of the feelings associated with traumatic death may be similar, everyone is unique and may experience things differently to that of another family member. The way the person died may also play a part in the way someone feels and behaves. Each person will have their own unique experience of grief.

When the death of someone in your life is traumatic or sudden, it can be difficult to take in and to make sense of what has happened. You may feel a sense of disbelief or numbness. This can be especially difficult for children, particularly if they do not know or understand the circumstances of the person’s death.

Some people experience feelings of guilt, irritability or anger, others may have difficulty concentrating. When a child experiences a bereavement, particularly if this is a traumatic loss, they may have fears about their own safety or the safety of other important people in their lives. It helps to reassure children that they are safe and cared for.

Support after a death by suicide

Support after a death through homicide

How might children and young people react after a traumatic death?

Adults and children can experience symptoms of trauma after the death of a loved one. These can include: nightmares, flashbacks, trouble sleeping and physical symptoms like stomach aches and headaches. Trauma symptoms can feel frightening and leave people confused and feeling out of control.

Symptoms of trauma can be triggered by places, people, sights, smells or sounds which are linked to the person who died, or the way that they died. For example the sound of screeching breaks may trigger flashbacks for a child whose parent died in a car accident.

For some people, it can be hard to think about memories of the person who has died, even happy memories can lead to intrusive or upsetting thoughts or images of the way that the person died. These upsetting images may occur repeatedly and lead to an avoidance of thinking about the person.

When we work with families and we think about memories we try to help them think about the ‘whole person’; remembering who that person was, not just the way they died.

Explaining homicide to children and young people

Support after a death in the military

How to help children after a traumatic death

Children need help from the adults in their lives to make sense of their experiences. When a family faces traumatic grief it may feel completely overwhelming and impossible to make sense of.

1. Give factual information

Giving children factual information so they can put together in their own minds what has happened is important. Doing this in an open and clear way enables the child to ask questions and the adults to give answers, this can help to clear up misunderstandings.

2. Listen

If you are an adult supporting a grieving child, it can be hard to know what to say or do. Just being there and available to listen is so important. Children may have lots of questions which you can’t answer, but it can still be helpful for the child to ask them anyway. Just as adults may feel the need to have information about what happened; when, where and why, so can young people and that is why it is important to listen to what a young person is asking and answer as openly and honestly as you feel able to.

3. Talk about it

We can naturally worry that by talking about tragic events, we can trigger fears or make people feel worse. However, we have learnt that ‘not talking about’ something as important as people dying or the way they died is more likely to have the effect of increasing anxiety and confusion.

These can be some main reasons for this:

Children may make up, or have heard, more frightening, inaccurate stories about what has happened and/or will happen in the future. Sometimes the images of what happened that they make up in their heads can be scary, and helping them to share what they are thinking of can be useful.

Not talking about an important event gives the implicit message that this is something we cannot manage.

After a traumatic death, life can often feel ‘unreal’; this feeling of unreality can last for some time. It can be helpful to ask about it, name it, and reassure them that this is okay, that our brains and bodies go through a process of coming back down to ground. Talking about it helps to normalise this feeling, and talking about what happened helps to confirm that it really did happen.

Talking about it gives them a chance to voice it. They may know more than we think, or they may have witnessed the death, or heard or seen some of what happened and need to speak with someone to unpack their thoughts.

If the child has witnessed the death

Sometimes there may have been adult witnesses, but at other times the child may have been the only witness to what happened. Sometimes it might be unclear as to whether they witnessed it. The child may need to talk about what they witnessed with police officers or other officials, and it is important to help them feel safe and comfortable when doing this. Give them opportunities to share what has happened with you, let them say as much or as little as feels right.

It’s okay to ask questions; they may want to talk, draw, use figures or toys to show what happened, or act out what they saw. Keep in mind to ask, what did they see, what did they hear, what did they do? They may need to go over what happened several times to understand it themselves.

Helping them get to the end of what happened, for example, when safety or help arrived, can be a good way of bringing them to a safe stopping point. Throughout these conversations, reassure them that they are safe. You could use grounding techniques like checking in with the 5 senses: 5 things you can see, 4 things you can hear, 3 smells, 2 things you can touch, and 1 taste. Techniques like this can really help them to settle back into the present.

Where to get support

If you need advice on supporting a child or young person after a sudden, violent or traumatic death, we are here to help. Our team of bereavement specialists are available to speak with right away. No appointments or waiting lists, just real-life grief support. Call us on 08088 020 021 (open 8am-8pm, weekdays), email ask@winstonswish.org, use our online chat (open 8am-8pm, weekdays) or text or WhatsApp us on 07418 341 800 (open 8am-8pm, weekdays). You must be 13 or older to receive support via WhatsApp.

For urgent support in a crisis, please call 999.