Death and dying: A systematic review into approaches used to support bereaved children

Abstract

Supporting, caring for and working with bereaved children is both daunting and challenging, yet not much is known about how schools can help children to cope with death and dying. The main objective of this study was to identify approaches used to support children who are grieving, and to explore implications for teachers. The use of retrospective autoethnography sets out this review as a practitioner enquiry-based project. A systematic review of literature involving school-aged children was undertaken. The focus of these studies was on approaches to death and dying taken by children, parents and teachers-which helped recently bereaved children to cope. The studies all relate to children aged 3-18. Four databases were searched, up to and including the spring of 2019: British Education Index; Child Development & Adolescent Studies; ERIC; and PsycINFO. The included studies were analysed using a qualitative enquiry model which draws on metaethnography. Abstracts and titles of 765 articles were examined. Following the selection process, 15 studies were included. All of the studies were peer-reviewed, published after 2000 and used qualitative methods of data collection (interviews, ethnographies, a case study and observations). Encouraging children to openly communicate, find comfort in various ways and express emotion regularly were the most common approaches. The results indicate that if the correct approaches are taken, children can feel supported during a challenging and fearful time in their lives. Future research is required on the effects of specific teacher-led approaches in schools.

The one thing guaranteed in life and yet they won’t teach you about it':

“…While mandatory grief education cannot take away the pain of a bereavement and many children will need further support, it could ameliorate some of the difficulties for some bereaved children by providing them with a vocabulary and framework to understand and express their feelings (Duncan, 2020). It could also prepare other pupils to understand and support bereaved friends and classmates, normalising the varied and volatile emotions that follow the death of a family member or friend and benefitting all involved (Paul, 2019;Duncan, 2020) 15 . Holland's research ( 2004) on schools in Hull, England, reports that bereaved children can feel excluded if no one in their class ever talks about death and grief, or acknowledges that someone they love has died.…”

Parental death in young children’s lives: health professionals’ and kindergarten teachers’ contributions in meaning-making

“…The international literature provides guidelines for professionals directing them to support children experiencing parental death by engaging in open communication about illness and death (Duncan 2020;Hanna, McCaughan, and Semple 2019). The present study's findings show that such open communication may involve very different ways of engaging in dialogues with young children, depending on the availability of resources and the purposes of engaging in meaning-making work, tied to the societal institutions.…”

“…First, to our best knowledge, this is the first study to focus on kindergarten teachers' contribution in joint meaning-making work with children experiencing parental death because of a severe, somatic disease. With some exceptions (Bugge et al 2014), previous studies within the field of childhood bereavement have focused on parentally bereaved children above 6 years old (Duncan 2020;Hanna, McCaughan, and Semple 2019). Second, involving two professional groups allows a comparison that could not be done in previous studies involving only health professionals.…”

The price of loss – how childhood bereavement impacts education

“…If a teacher understands a child's grief and the educational challenges a loss entails, better school outcomes can be expected. However, further research is needed to determine the influence of general teacher support (for a review, see Duncan (2020)) and whether more specific measures intended to assist with attention and memory difficulties can improve bereaved children's learning ability. Nevertheless, teacher involvement necessitates that teachers feel comfortable engaging with bereaved children and perceive doing so as part of their core duties.…”