A soft, warm-toned photo of a parent and child sitting together, journaling or drawing at a table, surrounded by gentle natural lighting, with a framed photo of their loved one in the background.

Supporting Children Through Sudden Loss And Grief: A Gentle Guide for Families

When a Child Loses Someone They Love

Sudden loss shakes the ground beneath a family. When children experience the death of a sibling or loved one, it can be confusing, frightening, and overwhelming. As a mother who has lived this reality after the sudden death of my 11-month-old son, Dhian, I know how important it is to support our children—gently, honestly, and with intention.

In this guide, I share everything I’ve learned: from understanding how children grieve to using therapeutic tools that have helped my two young children (then aged 5 and 2) hold onto memories, process their emotions, and feel safe expressing love and sadness.

1. Understanding How Children Grieve (by Age & Personality)

Grief in children is not linear or predictable. Each child’s emotional world is shaped by their age, personality, and understanding of death.

  • Toddlers (2–3 years) often react through behavior, not words. My daughter mirrored my grief with crying, resistance, and emotional outbursts. She stopped brushing her teeth for months, something that may seem minor but was deeply connected to her emotional pain.

  • Preschoolers & young children (4–6 years) may ask imaginative questions or incorporate the person into play. My 5-year-old son would include Dhian in pretend games and showed remarkable emotional insight. Once, I caught him crying quietly while clutching a photo of his baby brother. Another time, he told me: "It's okay, Mum. Dhian's in heaven now."

  • Tip: Children may revisit their grief at different stages of development. It’s okay if they seem "fine" one day and deeply sad the next.

Remembering Someone I Love Journal – A gentle grief workbook to help children express feelings and keep memories alive.

2. What Children Need Most After a Sudden Loss

Children need reassurance, routine, honest answers, and space to feel without pressure.

  • Emotional safety is crucial. It’s okay for children to see adults cry.
  • Involvement matters. My sister helped my children fill out "goodbye pages" for Dhian. These simple prompts about what they would miss most went into his casket. We made copies to show them one day.
  • Validation: Let them talk about the person who died—even if it’s painful to hear.

You don't need to have all the answers. Just showing up, listening, and allowing space for grief is enough.

3. Gentle Ways to Remember Someone They Love

Memory-making doesn’t end after the funeral. In fact, for children, it’s just beginning.

  • Display pictures of the loved one
  • Create a memory corner or box
  • Record stories, dreams, or drawings
  • Read books about loss
  • Use printable grief journals with prompts and drawing pages

My children still talk about Dhian and include him in games. We speak about him often. I document the beautiful and heartbreaking things they say in my “Mum’s One Line a Day” journal so they can look back one day and know how much he was—and still is—part of our family.

Remembering Someone I Love Journal – Includes prompts like “This is us together” and “My letter to you.”

4. Helping Children Express Big Feelings (Without Overwhelm)

Children may not have the vocabulary to say what they feel—but they can draw it, act it out, or explain through metaphors.

  • Use a feelings rainbow
  • Ask “Where do you feel this in your body?”
  • Let them write or dictate letters to the person who died
  • Answer big questions like “Can we go to the airport and save Dhian?” with patience and age-appropriate truth

Year of Firsts Journal – A milestone tracker for grieving families to remember, reflect, and gently process a year without their loved one.

5. Supporting Yourself as a Grieving Parent While Holding Your Child’s Grief

Supporting your child while grieving yourself is one of the hardest things a parent can do. I won’t sugarcoat it—I was broken. But I knew I needed to stay connected with them.

  • Lower your expectations of yourself
  • Let routines be flexible but safe
  • Lean on others where possible
  • Write things down to release them (even if only into a phone note)

Journaling gave me space to fall apart. I wrote raw, painful thoughts in one journal, and in another, I captured sweet moments with my surviving children. Two kinds of pain. Two kinds of love. Both kept me going.

6. Tools, Keepsakes & Printables to Help Children Grieve Gently

I created tools like the Remembering Someone I Love journal because I needed them myself. My children needed them. And nothing else like it existed.

Includes:

  • Drawing prompts
  • Letter-writing pages
  • Goodbye pages
  • Support team overview
  • Affirmation posters
  • A4 printable format with re-printable pages
  • Bonus page for adults on supporting grieving children

Start supporting them now:
Remembering Someone I Love – Printable Grief Journal for Children

Gentle Tools for Brave Hearts

Children are capable of incredible wisdom and resilience—but only when they’re met with love, honesty, and presence. You don’t have to do this perfectly. You just have to do it together.

Grieving alongside our children is possible—and it can deepen the bond between us. Through small steps, memory-making, and the gentle tools we give them, we show them what it means to love bravely, even after loss.

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