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Home › Articles › Your Children › The Long Goodbye

The Long Goodbye

Coping With the Death of a Friend

By Felicia Hodges

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Kidney says that notifying the school psychologist or guidance counselor should be done with the child's permission and should also be shared with someone with whom the child has already developed a rapport. "[School officials] need to be alerted so they can be a bit gentler with the child and allow him or her to cry and talk when and if needed," she says.

Expressions of Grief
Being the individuals that they are, children will express their grief in many different ways. Some children may seem extremely sad and withdrawn while others will throw themselves into activities with an intensity the parent may have never seen before.

"Not all children exhibit behaviors that parents might expect," Bachenheimer says. "But just because the child does not exhibit outright sadness or depression, it doesn't mean that they are not affected." While some children may be unable to talk about what they are feeling for a while, Bachenheimer cautions parents not to assume that their child is not emotionally "going through."

Kidney says that the grieving process may begin when the survivor accepts the idea that the person is not coming back, even if a person diagnosed with a serious illness doesn't die for a while or at all. Also, the process may not be limited to the child, but may also include his or her parents, especially if they, too, were close to the child who died.

"The parent may also want to engage in seeking individual or family help, via the family religious leader, insurance program or other employee assistance program," she says, adding that such measures might help everyone cope with the idea of not seeing the friend anymore and the new situations that may develop as a result.

For Samantha and Madeline, seeing Anna's mother sell her house and watching new neighbors move in brought on a whole new set of feelings that Madeline says she didn't really anticipate. "That emptiness that hung around once Anna's mom sold the house is what did it for me," Madeline says.

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