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what to do for kids when their sibling dies

what to do for kids when a sibling dies

My older brother died when I was ten. My twin daughters died when their brothers were 6, 4, and 2.

I’m not a professionally trained grief expert, but I know a few things from what life (and death) has taught me.

After our daughters died, we struggled to know how to help our young sons in their anger, sadness, confusion, and grief. The following list of ideas was born from our efforts, the advice of therapists, and the help of friends who had suffered similar losses. If you’re wondering what to do for kids when their sibling dies, I hope these ideas can help.

Here’s what you can give to kids who are grieving: something they want, something they need, something to keep, or something to read.

Something They Want

After a sibling dies, kids need your time and attention more than anything else. Clearing space to simply sit with them, talk with them, give extra cuddles and love – this is kids’ #1 love language during the trauma of losing a sibling. Here are ways to spend quality time with children during the chaotic time of grief:

  • Give siblings one-on-one opportunities. Take each one on a special errand when you have the energy, or simply spend a few private minutes with each one.
  • Meet at bedtime. For months after our babies died, we found that our sons needed to talk about them at day’s end. In quiet moments in the dark, they could ask questions about death or heaven and share how they were feeling. Older children and teenagers let down their guard at the end of the day, too. Listen when they talk.
  • Pray together. Instead of worrying about how to explain death or heaven to children, praying together can be a simple way to speak the name of their sibling and remember that God still cares for all of us, even when we are sad, angry, or confused.

Kids also want distraction. They need opportunities to laugh and play when stress and sadness hang heavy in the house. Grief takes more time and energy for adults, so kids benefit from an outlet for fun.

Here are some easy ideas for distraction:

  • Kids love mail: If you’re far away, send a package to the kids (my cousins sent a box full of small games, wind-up toys, and new books – inexpensive, but thrilled our kids for days!). If you’re local or lost-distance, there are sympathy cards specific to children, too.
  • Family games: Our middle son’s godparents gave the kids a new board game and card game for our whole family to enjoy. (We played Uno Attack for three.solid.weeks, but it was a great distraction for all of us.)

Something They Need

Kids need space to talk. Their ability to understand death depends on their age and maturity level, but even the youngest need opportunities to voice their feelings.

Extra time on lets adults meet kids at their level and learn what kids needed to get through this tough time. (This article gives a great introduction to help children cope with the loss of a baby.)

Here are ideas for talking about grief:

  • Be honest. Talk about death in simple, truthful terms. Euphemisms like “lost,” “sleeping,” or “angel” can confuse children. Depending on your family’s beliefs, you may find it helpful to talk about how each person has a lifetime (some short, some long), how bodies can stop working, or how death is a natural part of life.
  • Share your own grief. Instead of hiding your tears for fear of upsetting your children, explain that adults cry when they are sad, too. Let them know that it is okay because it means we love and miss the person who has died. Later you can share when you feel better, so that children can see how happy and sad moments are healthy parts of life after loss.
  • Talk to a therapist. A professional counselor can offer important support for kids dealing with grief. Play therapists and psychologists who specialize in children are great places to start. Hospital bereavement staff or chaplains can provide local recommendations for children’s therapists in your area.

Kids also need exercise: time off to release energy and natural feelings of aggression or frustration that arise from grief.

Here are ideas for helping kids exercise:

  • Get outside. Our twins died in February, a rough month for outdoor time in Minnesota. (So we played lots of “basement sports!”) But our therapist wisely advised us to make sure we all got outside as much as we could once spring came: to breathe in fresh air and move outside of the spaces that held our grieving. Whenever it was nice, out we went together – and it made a huge difference.
  • Burn off energy: My sister recognized that our boys needed someone to “beat up on” in the early days and weeks after their sisters died. So whenever she visited, she let them wrestle and climb all over her. I try to keep tabs on this now: to notice when they need to burn off steam and let them tackle me (before they attack each other).

Something To Keep

Kids need something to hold when their world feels like it’s spinning out of control. Tangible, concrete gifts mean a lot to grieving parents, but they can mean just as much to grieving siblings.

  • Stuffed animals: We bought teddy bears with the twins’ names embroidered on them and a “heartbeat” inside so our kids could hear this comforting sound. Naming the bears after their sisters has been a lovely way for all of us to hear their names in a fun, playful way each day. (See Build-A-Bear to create your own personalized gift.)
  • Prayer partners: My in-laws gave our family a battery-operated candle that we used for our evening prayers together. The kids loved being able to light it themselves, and it became a lovely symbol of light in the darkness. For Catholics, check out my friend Annie’s beautiful Rosary Roses. She sent us a set as a gift after Maggie and Abby died, and our sons love holding the roses when we pray at night.
  • Personalized gifts: Inspired by Abby and Maggie’s story, the Etsy owner behind My Little Felt Friends is now making these beautiful Saints in Heaven: personalized felt dolls for families who have lost children.

Something To Read

Loving Baby Louie: Hope in the Midst of Grief is the best kids’ book on losing a baby that we have found. It speaks from a Catholic perspective about a family knowing their baby would die shortly after birth. But the family’s love for their baby and celebration of his short life can connect with many families’ experiences of death.

The Story Of…Books offers personalized books for children dealing with the death of a loved one. Our kids loved the gentle story, especially seeing their sisters’ names in print. I was grateful for the option to make the book about twins. Now you can personalize the book even more: for the loss of an adult (parent, grandparent, or other favorite person), loss of a child, multiple loss, or loss of a twin.

The Chronicles of Narnia became our family’s bedtime read for the summer after our daughters died. It turned into a beautiful, healing practice, since the books translate abstract concepts of faith, God, heaven, and death into simple conversations that speak to both children and parents. Aslan helped all of us to make sense of our grief.

What has helped your family or children you love after the death of a sibling? What suggestions would you add to this list?

Disclaimer: This page includes Amazon affiliate links. I am a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com.

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I’m Laura Kelly Fanucci. Mother, writer, wonderer. This space is where I explore mothering through writing. It’s where I celebrate how God shows up in the chaos of raising children. It’s where I love to build community with readers like you. Read More…

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thismessygrace

Mother, writer, wonderer.
Seeker of God in chaos & life with kids.
Author of Everyday Sacrament & Grieving Together.
Glimpses of grace & gratitude.

thismessygrace
Woke up tired of tears, ready to move, Psalms in m Woke up tired of tears, ready to move, Psalms in mind. Who’s with me?
I am not resigned to the shutting away of loving h I am not resigned to the shutting away
of loving hearts in the hard ground.
So it is, and so it will be,
for so it has been, time out of mind:
Into the darkness they go, the wise and the lovely. Crowned
With lilies and with laurel they go; but I am not resigned.

Lovers and thinkers, into the earth with you.
Be one with the dull, the indiscriminate dust.
A fragment of what you felt, of what you knew,
A formula, a phrase remains,—but the best is lost.

The answers quick and keen,
the honest look, the laughter, the love,—
They are gone. They are gone to feed the roses. Elegant and curled
Is the blossom. Fragrant is the blossom. I know. But I do not approve.
More precious was the light in your eyes than all the roses in the world.

Down, down, down into the darkness of the grave
Gently they go, the beautiful, the tender, the kind;
Quietly they go, the intelligent, the witty, the brave.
I know. But I do not approve.
And I am not resigned.

Edna St. Vincent Millay, “Dirge Without Music.”

Margaret Susan Fanucci,
2-27-16 - 2-28-16.
Abigail Kathleen Fanucci,
2-27-16 - 2-29-16.

Thank you for walking these days with me. For your love, your kindness, and your generosity.

We will never forget them.
Now you'd be three, I said to myself, seeing a chi Now you'd be three,
I said to myself,
seeing a child born
the same summer as you.

Now you'd be six,
or seven, or ten.
I watched you grow
in foreign bodies.

Leaping into a pool, all laughter,
or frowning over a keyboard,
but mostly just standing,
taller each time.

How splendid your most
mundane action seemed
in these joyful proxies.
I often held back tears.

From "Majority" by Dana Gioia, a poet-father who knows.

2.27.2016.
Always a birthday.
Even when not happy.
I am standing in a fluorescent-lit gym, dingy mesh I am standing in a fluorescent-lit gym, dingy mesh tank top hanging off my scrawny shoulders. I am eleven years old, listening to a grey-haired coach with a whistle round his neck.

"Here is how you pivot," he says, grabbing the ball & crouching down. "Plant your foot, solid like a rock. Don't ever move it."

I am trying to learn, because basketball is cool & I am not. I desperately want to be good at shooting, scoring, stealing, anything. But he is teaching me something I will not forget.

“The power of pivoting is you can turn any way you want. You can move where you need to go. You just have to keep this foot planted."

Today I pivot.

One day between birthdays. 24 slim hours to turn from joy to grief.

Yesterday the bouncing babe turned a whole year old. He has seen all sides of the sun by now. He gets to keep going: an ordinary miracle.

Tomorrow his sisters would have turned 5. A ghost of a birthday, shared by twins, lost to us, held & gone all at once.

All I can do is pivot.

Here is my foot planted firmly in the ground of now. I can turn in any direction I want: from joy to sorrow & back again. This is the only power I have, but it is enough for today.

I will wobble. I will feel the frantic rise in my throat of attack coming at me, blocking my view, trying to steal what I hold. For a few desperate moments I will want to pick up both feet & run far away, run fast as I can from what I never wanted.

But my pivot foot is stronger & steadier. It will stay where I have asked it to stay, from when I learned deeper truth.

Pivoting is still movement, still freedom, still control over a small corner of here. You are the one who decides to stop & plant your foot.

And the pivot is not forever. It is part of a move, not the end point. It is an interim, a passage, a survival strategy.

Part of me is forever awkward & eleven, scrawny & uncertain. But more of me is almost-forty, scarred & stronger. Knowing I can stop when I need to stop & go when I want to go, even in a full court press out of my control.

Today I pivot. I never want to forget the strength here too, the potential to turn between all that comes at me. The power of knowing this is not the end.
One day I’ll tell him the story. How after days One day I’ll tell him the story.

How after days of long labor, sick & scary, heaps of drugs to save both our lives, I stared bleary-eyed at the hospital clock: ten to two, clear as night, & made a decision.

How with no midwives in the room—unknown OBs now, nurses we didn’t know, no familiar face among them—and the clock ticking, I had to do what all those strong women I trusted had taught me to do.

How I decided to midwife my own birth.

How with no strength left, I struggled up through fog & pain, fumbled for my phone, scrolled through the dark until I found the song, & turned it up to rise above the beeping & the monitors & the awful alone sounds of awake at 1:50 am in the hospital.

How I closed my eyes & waited for the beat to come & prayed for the strength. To be my own midwife.

Drop beat. Beat drop. Pause.

The battle of Yorktown. 1781.

I cranked one weary smile. Closed my eyes as the song picked up. Turned my clumsy body to the left side to bring on a contraction.

Gotta meet my son.

Breathed through the pain. Timed it. Heaved to the right side to bring on another wave.

The world turned upside down.

Smiled when the night nurse came to check, surprised. Feigned shock when she raised her eyes that things were changing.

How as soon as she left the room, I glared at the clock, hit repeat, turned to one side, then another, kept contractions coming & coming, coaching my body hour after hour to do what I knew it could do.

History will show that this child was born from pitocin for induction & magnesium sulfate for preeclampsia & a failed epidural or two & eight shots of epinephrine when maternal blood pressure tanked.

But I will know that he was born from sheer grit & the strength of every midwife I’ve loved & the back beat of Hamilton at 1:50 am in a lonely hospital room.

The world turned upside down, then 100 more times in the tumultuous first year of his life.

But I did what I had to do & what I could do & I did it all for love of him. That day & every one that followed.

That is a story worth telling.

His birth. (Mine, too.)

2.25.20
A story and a word of thanks. You are amazing huma A story and a word of thanks. You are amazing humans.
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