Helping Children Grieve When Someone They Love Dies
 
by Theresa Huntley
Augsburg Fortress Publishers, 2002.

Recommended by Jane Nicholson, Associate in Ministry


This book offers adults the spiritual tools they need to help children cope with a significant loss.  Children are bewildered and full of questions when a grandparent, friend, or someone they love dies.

We want to help, and yet the needs of a five year old are different than those of an older child. Theresa Huntley shows how children at various ages understand death and offers positive ways for parents and other caring adults to help them grieve. This book will help you listen to children, answer their questions, and guide them in coping with their feelings.

Also included are helps for dealing with the behavior changes that often accompany a child’s grief.


Other books that are designed for parents or a caring adult to read with their children to help them understand death include:

Mama is going to Heaven Soon by Katie Copeland
Augsburg Books, 2005 (for age 6 and under)

My Mom is Dying: A Child’s Diary by Jill Westberg McNamaraAugsburg Books, 1994 (for ages 6 and older)

Lifetimes: The Beautiful Way to Explain Death to Children by Bryan Mellonie and Robert Ingpen
Bantam Book, 1983. (for ages 5 and under)

If Nathan Were Here by Mary Bahr
Eerdmans Books for Young Readers, 2000. (for ages 4-8)

Lou Gehrig; The Luckiest Man by David A. Adler
Gulliver Books, 1997. (for ages 6-10)

The Fall of Freddie the Leaf; A Story of Life for All Ages  by Leo Buscaglia, Ph.D.
Slack Inc, 1982. (for ages 5-8)

Heaven is. . .Lofty Thoughts for Little People by Linda DeYmaz
Little People Books, Vision House Publishing, 1996. (for ages 7 and under)

The Next Place by Warren Hanson
Waldman House Press, 1997. (coffee table book with concepts for all ages)

Saying Goodbye to Daddy by Judith Vigna
Albert Whitman & Co. 1991
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