Young People's Grief during the Pandemic

Young People’s Grief during the Pandemic

The pandemic has produced a myriad of loss issues impossible to have imagined just a few years ago. Young people cannot go to school, eat lunch in the cafeteria, play with friends, see their teachers in-person, enjoy recess, learn in a classroom, or partake in the holidays with their entire family.

College students who come home for family holidays are continuously anxious about getting the virus or giving it to their parents. Sara, a college freshman explained, “I’ve had seven COVID19 tests and am doing one more before Thanksgiving. It is so stressful. I don’t want to kill my parents.”

Young People in Confinement

Children confined at home for a long period of time are coping with the newfound challenges of zoom meetings, virtual lessons, and productive ingenuity to create boundaries in their own homes. Some kids have taken to building forts and making tents to create their private space. Loss of their sense of protection is apparent as they worry and wonder if the virus will ever end. Will a loved one get sick or die, will they get the virus if they go to school, and how will they help someone they know in the hospital who is alone with no visitors?

Ten-year-old Sophia was weary from quarantining at home during the pandemic. She answered her grandma’s daily question, “What was the rose in your day, and what was the thorn in your day?” She responded: “The rose was being home with my family and the thorn was being home with my family.”

Constant confinement with family members and parents serving as teachers while they work from home during the virus has often amplified anxiety and depression, as children and parents wonder if quarantining and shutdowns are forever in their future.

Financial Grief During the Pandemic

Financial loss is another biproduct of the virus, resulting in deprivation of food, clothing, and shelter. Too many kids and families are faced with loss of businesses, jobs, and income leading to additional stress and lack of basic needs. One school system explained their homeless population had risen to sixty families, a quantum leap from how many families were homeless before the pandemic.

Fourteen-year-old Alicia told her teacher she could not participate in her after school activities. Alicia explained, “My mom is waiting for me to come home from school to be able to go to work. We only have one coat, so we have to share it.”

Julia Pelly writes in the Washington Post (2020) that even our youngest children are concerned about the pandemic yet may lack the ability to express their feelings verbally. Many have turned to projective play, a therapeutic tool to release worry and anxiety. During quarantine, kids are turning to their own imagination to work through fears, challenges, and outcomes.

The Possibilities of Play

Pelly’s article (2020) speaks of a four-year-old who liked to pretend he was a doctor. Mom was shocked when she overheard his make-believe dialogue using a toy stethoscope to examine his toy. With a very serious tone, she listened to him say, “You are not well, you’ve got the coronavirus.”

This little boy began exploring ways the virus might work, and soon told Mom his idea about a vaccine. “What we need is a vaccine made of tiny alligators that could be injected into the blood to eat up all the coronavirus (2020).” His sister used projective play with a make-believe restaurant. She pretended with toys, squirting them with a hand sanitizer, and then having them wear masks and social distance before their imaginary curbside pickup.

Often children reenact stressful events like the virus through play. They may choose to act out with faithful toys to express anxiety and worry and begin to normalize an uncertain event.

Excerpted from Linda Goldman’s book, Life and Loss: A Guide to Help Grieving Children Classic Edition, Routledge, 2022

Hear more from Linda on Open to Hope: Children Grieve Differently Than Adults – Open to Hope

Linda Goldman

Linda Goldman has a Fellow in Thanatology: Death, Dying, and Bereavement (FT) with a Master of Science in counseling and Master's equivalency in early childhood education. Linda is a Licensed Clinical Professional Counselor and a National Certified Counselor. She worked as a teacher and counselor in the school system for almost 20 years. Currently, she has a private grief therapy practice in Chevy Chase, Maryland. She works with children, teenagers, families with prenatal loss and grieving adults. Linda shares workshops, courses and trainings on children's grief and trauma and teaches as adjunct faculty in the Graduate Program of Counseling at Johns Hopkins University and King’s University College in Ontario, Canada. She has also taught on the faculty at the University of Maryland School of Social Work/Advanced Certification Program for Children and Adolescents and lectured at many other universities including Pennsylvania State University, Buffalo School of Social Work, University of North Carolina, the National Transportation Safety Board, the University of Hong Kong, and the National Changhua University of Education in Taiwan as well as numerous schools systems throughout the country. She has taught on working with LGBT youth and working with children's grief and trauma at Johns Hopkins Graduate School, the University of Maryland School of Social Work and the Child Welfare Administration. Linda is the author of “Life and Loss: A Guide to Help Grieving Children” and “Breaking the Silence: a Guide to Help Children with Complicated Grief”. Her other books include “Bart Speaks Out: An Interactive Storybook for Young Children On Suicide”, “Helping the Grieving Child in the School”, and a Chinese Edition of “Breaking the Silence: A Guide to Help Children With Complicated Grief”, the Japanese Edition of “Life and Loss: A Guide to Help Grieving Children”, and "Raising Our Children to Be Resilient: A Guide for Helping Children Cope with Trauma in Today’s World" and a children’s book “Children Also Grieve”, Chinese translation of “Children Also Grieve” and “Coming Out, Coming In: Nurturing the Well Being and Inclusion of Gay Youth in Mainstream Society”. She has also authored contributing chapters in resources including Loss of the Assumptive World (2002), Annual Death, Dying, and Bereavement (2001-2007), Family Counseling and Therapy Techniques (1998), and The School Services Sourcebook: A Guide for School-Based Professionals (2006). She has written many articles, including Healing Magazine’s “Helping the Grieving Child in the Schools” (2012), “The Bullying Epidemic, Creating Safe Havens for Gay Youth in Schools” (2006), “Parenting Gay Youth” (2008), “Talking to Kids About Suicide” (2014), “Helping Kids Cope with Grief of Losing a Pet” (2014) and “What Complicates Grief for Children: A Case Study” (2015). Some of her articles on Children's Grief and trauma have been translated into Chinese for the Suicide Prevention Program of Beijing. She appeared on the radio show Helping Gay Youth: Parents Perspective (2008) and has testified at a hearing before the MD Joint House and Senate Priorities Hearing for Marriage Equality (2007) and the MD Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee for the Religious Freedom and Civil Marriage Protection Act (2008).