The death of a parent is, for a child, a disabling ordeal which awakens fears of abandonment and isolation. Often these children will feel very alone and detached from other children by this experience,. They may also feel constrained to protect the surviving parent. The passing away of a young human being is matchless in its loss of what could have been. The senselessness of it is shared by all. The loss of your child, who has yet to realize his potential, is a most extreme loss. The loss of a sibling can cause a multiple sense of loss in that one might feel that one also loses one’s parents to inconsolable grief. Friends may feel racked with guilt for not having seen the signs, not having prevented it or for having kept quiet about secrets they shared. Bewilderment, anger, guilt, hurt and existential fear may cause them to act out or withdraw. Although we all understand grief, as adults, we frequently forget that children grieve intensely too. The loss can have a profound and lasting effect on the rest of a child’s life. Many of us believe we can protect children from grieving! Not broaching the subject of the death with children, or choosing, instead, to inform them in veiled or complicated metaphors designed to placate half-wits, or excluding them from the rituals and preparations of

burial, are some of our favourite devices. Some of us will even mask, or deny,our own grief in front of them, in a misguided attempt to shield them. If a child is silent, or shows unwillingness to talk about the subject, we take that as our cue to keep silent too, thereby missing an ideal opportunity to share feelings with the child. If thechild is seen enjoying a laugh, or playing happily, grown-ups heave a great sigh of relief, taking this to be a sign of being “over it”, thereby denying the child, with, oh! the best intentions in the world, the support he or she needs in his or her continuing grieving process. Children grieve differently from us. They may be reluctant to talk about such existential themes as death, preferring to conceal their deep, emotional and psychological pain – often because they have no schema to integrate the depth of feeling this new experience demands. The risk of building a frozen wall between themselves and their feelings is high and can twist normal personality development. Complicated grief – as this is often called - can put children at risk of suicide. More normal symptoms are anxiety, loss of concentration, aggression, apathy, somatization (headache, stomach-ache, loss of appetite, insomnia), acting silly, and having nightmares.

In children, grief is often expressed in spurts, moving rapidly from powerful and intense feeling - where they may be verbally or physically aggressive, rejecting or angry – to moments of apparent harmony and forgetfulness. Parents are often perplexed by the unleashing of these conflictual and unpredictable feelings. This is often compounded by the child’s resistance to parental efforts of support. It is important to understand this instability as an expression of grief, not a personal rebuff, and to help your child find words for those feelings. Naming things often normalizes them.
Remember:
We all grieve in different ways. There is no “right” or“wrong” way Feelings of, or thoughts around, grief can be surprising or unexpected. It is normal to feel any of the following: shock, indifference, desire to hide your feelings, sadness, anger, fear that you may be dying or that others close to you may die, uneasiness, stressed, guilt, relief, wanting to join the loved one, regret, a combination of any of these feelings, numbness or other feelings that are not in this list

• Grief can make you feel different from others
• Grief is something every human-being can expect to experience, so although you feel alone, you are not alone
• Grief cannot be scheduled, it lasts as long as it lasts, and it may suddenly overwhelm you at night, during class, at the dinner table, at the mall
• Grief can affect your concentration and therefore your grades at school. It may even affect your desire to go to school at all.
• Grief can make it difficult for you to pay attention or remember things
• Grief can make your heart and mind race, make you feel sick, sweaty and low on energy
• Grief is a NORMAL reaction to loss.

If a child has any of these reactions, it would be advisable to find an adult he can talk to, besides his parents. There are some feelings and thoughts one cannot share with parents, or, if shared, parents, in an effort to help their child become happy again, unwittingly close down the grieving process of their child.

Make sure you are open to talk with your child when the opportunity offers itself. Resist the urge to “repair” your child by telling him or her it’s time to “get over it” and to try and “pull him/herself together”. It is also easy to take your child’s anger personally, allowing yourself to get distressed and make it all about you, in reaction to his or her grief. Knowing what to do is not easy. However, making sure basic needs like enough rest, food and general care are catered for, is a good option. Grieving does end.

There is, unfortunately, a dearth of support systems or organizations for grieving children and their parents in Uganda. Most are left alone to get on with it as best they can. Many times it is not necessary to bring in external help. If the death is expected or natural, children have the capacity to deal with it with the support of their parents, friends or school. However, when it is sudden, unexpected, violent, a suicide or accident, help can become necessary. Current belief has it that in traditional culture, the extended family plays a vital role. It does, although, here too, having many people around you, if at all helpful, is so only in the initial period of grief. My own experience has been that the Ugandan adults, when dealing with the emotional and psychological reactions and consequences of loss among children, are just as helpless.

Tradition has undergone change, funerals are no longer long drawn out affairs designed to support the grieving family. They are carried out with perfunctory efficiency. When the rituals are over, it is business as usual. Many Ugandan children are left to face their grief alone, often separated from siblings, with whom they could have grieved.

Among non-nationals, when death occurs in Uganda, the loneliness of grief is intensified by having to cope alone, in the absence of support from the family. There are websites that can help both children and adults in dealing with grief. Another option is to find help from an experienced grief counselor or psychologist. Families, children and parents can find respite, solace and support here. There is no good reason to struggle alone.
For more information or a consultation,

please contact:
Elizabeth Kibuka-Musoke (Clinical Psychologist)
Mobile: +256 759 300302.
Email: ekmusoke@hotmail.com