Health and Wellbeing
Be the Adult a Grieving Child Needs
When someone they love has died, a child needs you to stay close and be honest, even while you're grieving too.
- 35 minutes
- 7 modules
- Certificate
Members
Parent membership: all 50 courses for parents and carers, £40 a year or £4 a month after 14 days free.
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If you need help now
- If someone is in danger, call 999.
- For urgent mental health help, call NHS 111.
- Samaritans: call 116 123, any time.
- Shout: text SHOUT to 85258.
- Childline (for children and young people): 0800 1111.
- Papyrus HOPELINEUK (suicide, under 35s): 0800 068 4141.
What you'll learn
- Show a grieving child it's all right to be upset by being real with them
- Become a steady, predictable safe base for a child whose world has changed
- Answer blunt questions about death honestly and stay with their distress
- Keep the child connected to their interests and who they were before
- Build a wider circle of adults so the child isn't relying on you alone
About this course
After a death, many adults feel they have to be strong and get everything right for the child. Some steer away from the hard questions to protect them. Children often ask the blunt ones anyway: why did his heart stop, what happens in the grave.
The child doesn't need a hero. They need you to be human, a grief role model who shows that sadness is allowed and that you're still here. You'll learn how to become a safe base when their world feels uncertain, and how to stay with their distress instead of smoothing it over. You'll also hold on to who they were before, and the things they love, so grief isn't all they are.
And you'll see why you shouldn't be the only adult they lean on, for their sake and yours.
7 modules
Open in order
- 2 min
Introduction
- 3 min
Wrap Up & Summary Notes
- 6 min
Be a human not a hero
- 9 min
Become a safe base
- 7 min
Run towards and sit with their distress
- 4 min
See the whole child
- 8 min
Don’t be the only adult