10 Ways to Support Grieving Children at School 

Millions of American students are experiencing grief. In this article, you will learn 10 ways to support grieving students in your classroom or school. You can also download a free Grief Emotions Chart to help kids talk about the many feelings they may experience when a loved one dies.

Grieving Students by the Numbers

There is a grieving student in your classroom. In fact, you probably have more than one. By 18, one in every 12 children will have experienced the death of a parent or sibling (Chen and Panebianco, 2018). When you include the losses of other family members like grandparents, aunts, uncles, and community members like classmates, or even teachers, you can see just how common the experience of childhood grief is. According to the Childhood Bereavement Estimation Model, in any given elementary classroom across the United States, you can find at least two to three students that have experienced the death of someone they love.

Supporting Grieving Students

As an educator, you can support the grief experience of your students. According to the National Grief Center for Children & Families, teachers who intentionally provide support by listening and responding with empathy can be a positive force. Here are 10 ways to support grieving children in your classroom or your school.

Talk with your students using open-ended questions and statements.

Instead of saying, “I know how you feel,” try, “Can you tell me more about what this has been like for you?” or instead of saying, “You must be feeling so sad,” try, “Can you tell me what you are feeling right now?”

Understand the ways grief impacts the way students learn.

Grief affects many parts of the brain, including the ability to focus and concentrate. Short-term memory is impacted. You may notice students zoning out or unable to retain new information. This is a normal part of the grief experience.

Acknowledge that grief is a lifelong developmental process for children.

A loss that occurs when a child is three will be re-grieved as they continue to grow and develop. When that same child reaches the age of seven, they may, for the first time, really understand the finality of their loss.

In my own practice, this very thing happened. A seven-year-old was making Father’s Day gifts in class, and his dad died when he was three. During that class, it was the first time he realized his dad was never coming home and that to die means to die forever. Developmentally, this makes sense as this child was entering a new stage of cognitive development and forming the ability to navigate abstract concepts with more mastery.

Listen more, talk less.

As adults, we often like to fill space with our words. Yet, sometimes what children need is for the adults in their life to just listen. Not to ask questions, not to probe with inquiries, but simply to sit with them, to play with them, and to really listen to what they are saying with their words, their behaviors, and their emotions.

Understand that grieving students may feel different from their peers.

Educators can strengthen grieving students’ social connectedness with their peers to reduce isolation and encourage emotional expression (Heath and Cole, 2012). However, there is a delicate balance to achieve. On the one hand, you know that grieving students have unique needs. On the other hand, these same students don’t want to be singled out for this difference.

Instead of excluding these students from experiences, such as excusing them from making Mother’s Day cards if their mom has died, try to invite them to make a card in honor or memory of their mom, or ask what the student wants to make. That student still has a mom despite now navigating life as a child without a living mother.

Make space for the class to learn about grief.

Use literature and children’s books to support learning about and expressing grief. Many well-written psychotherapeutic books can help you find the words to talk about such challenging topics.

Remember, your grief is not your student’s grief.

Since grief is a normal experience, we have all had our own losses and our own unique grief experiences. It’s important to remember that a child’s grief experience is unique to them. Some may cry, some may not. Some may want to talk about it, others may not. When supporting grieving students, it’s helpful to recognize that how grief feels to you isn’t necessarily how grief feels for your student. Do your best to meet your students where they are and validate their grief experience. There is no right or wrong way to grieve, and there are no stages or end point to the grief process.

Develop a code or sign for overwhelm.

Grieving students will have times during the day when they feel emotionally overwhelmed. To prepare for these times, create a sign, signal, or something that you can see that tells you the student is having a hard time.

One client I worked with decided that her sign would be to put her hair in a ponytail because she always wore it down. When the teacher saw this sign, they would tell the student they could go to the counselor’s office or opt out of doing work at that time.

Be flexible and gentle . . . with yourself.

You’ll make mistakes. It’s normal. If you realize you may have said or done something that you feel may not have supported your grieving students, you can always talk with them about it. Or, if that is not appropriate, you can learn from those experiences and work towards changing the way you engage with topics of death and grief.

Grief is a normal part of loss.

As an educator, you are uniquely positioned to use teachable moments as touchpoints for lifelong social-emotional capacity. The way you approach and hold experiences of death and grief will inform the way your students cope with grief and loss.

This means that you, as the adult, must learn where your own struggles and challenges are with talking about such emotional topics. Children will pick up on subtle emotional cues; if you’re uncomfortable or nervous, they will feel that.

Grief Resources for Educators

You can also explore these additional educator resources:

• Coalition to support grieving students
• Judi’s House Childhood Bereavement Estimate Model
• NY Life Foundations Free Bereavement Resource: Supporting our grieving students
• What does grief feel like? A psychotherapeutic book about grief

The grief of our students can impact the ways they learn and interact in our classrooms and schools. There are many ways we can intentionally support children in the lifelong process of grieving. Incorporate these ten suggestions into your teaching practice as you listen and respond to the students in your class or school experiencing the loss of a loved one.

Chen, C.YC., Panebianco, A. Interventions for Young Bereaved Children: A Systematic Review and Implications for School Mental Health Providers. Child Youth Care Forum 47, 151–171 (2018) https://doi.org/10.1007/s10566-017-9426-x

Heath, M. A., & Cole, B. V. (2012). Strengthening classroom emotional support for children following a family member’s death. School Psychology International, 33(3), 243-262. https://doi.org/10.1177/0143034311415800