OVC Support Toolkit  >  Psychosocial support  >  Psychosocial Effects of HIV/AIDS 

Grief and Bereavement

This section looks at issues relating to the grief and bereavement that children and young people experience, particularly when a parent dies. This is one of the main psychosocial effects of HIV/AIDS on children and young people. Another section looks at the resilience that many children and young people have to cope with even the most difficult of circumstances.

Key points regarding grief and bereavement in children and young people are:

1. Grief is the emotional response/feelings to an event that affects a person, usually the loss of a person, thing or idea. Grief is a normal emotional response to loss.
2. Children and young people may experience a wide range of feelings as part of their grief. These include anxiety, fear and guilt. Initially, they may not accept or understand the permanence of the loss. The feelings involved with grief may cause physical problems for the child, such as feeling physical pain.
3. The ways children and young people respond to loss and express their grief varies depending on age.
4. There are many ways of assisting a child who is grieving. These need to be appropriate for the age of the child.

Definitions

Bereavement can be defined as the state a person is in when they are deprived of something important to them. It is particularly applied to the loss of a relative through death. Grief can be defined as a deep mental pain or torment. It is particularly applied to those who have experienced bereavement.

Accompanying a Grieving Child

An adult who seeks to accompany a child through their grief needs to have understood the way they feel themselves about grief and loss in their own lives. They need to be able to listen and speak to children in a way which is appropriate for the age of the child. It is helpful for children and young people to be able to talk about the loss they have experienced. This will involve talking about death in situations where a parent has died. Children and young people should be allowed to express emotions in these situations. Creative media, such as drawing, writing, telling stories, games, drama, music and sports are all useful ways of expressing feelings. Children and young people may be better able to deal with their grief if they are prepared for the death of their parent and if they are allowed to participate in rituals related to death, such as funerals.

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