An article on The Independent website highlights the importance of encourage children to talk if they’ve experienced a bereavement.
There is a lack of statistics about how many children suffer a bereavement, but in Britain a child loses a parent every half hour.
Sir Al Aynsley-Green, the Children’s Commissioner has been discussing the issue, particularly as he himself experienced a bereavement at a young age, and said: “I can relate to these children very closely because I was a bereaved child when my dad died unexpectedly when I was 10. I won’t go into the personal circumstances but he died unexpectedly when I was 10 and the impact on me, looking back on it, was very considerable indeed”.
The article recommends that children are told the truth, and that parents do not use euphemisms, but explain death in a honest and age appropriate way.
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