Sunny Side Up: Children should be taught about loss, grieving

The Star

2 days ago

When I first visited Amaravati Buddhist monastery in the United Kingdom, I expected my stay to be a blissful 'spa for the mind', surrounded by birdsong and blooming gardens.
Instead, I found myself wondering what I'd signed up for when I'd learned a Theravada Buddhism chant inviting us to reflect on the impermanence of things. It begins, 'All that is mine, beloved and pleasing, will become otherwise, will become separated from me'. British people can have their moments of melancholy, but the monastics of the Thai forest tradition took it to a whole other level.
I soon appreciated that, in spiritual practice, the chant is meant for us to develop a sense of equanimity in the face of life's inevitable changes. In the everyday sense, it can also help us to appreciate the people and blessings we have without taking any of it for granted.
During that time, I realised something else in my initial discomfort when learning the chant. No one really talks about the one experience we're all bound to share without exception. In fact, it's a topic that's generally avoided across many cultures, as though speaking about it will summon what we'd prefer to avoid.
When I was nine years old, my gran died. I was very fond of her and, more than 30 years later, I'm still somewhat troubled that I wasn't allowed to attend her funeral. She was my grandmother, and my grief was deepened by the fact that I couldn't say a proper goodbye. She was the kind of woman typical of Scots and Irish women of the war generation in the 1930s and 1940s: She could silence a whole room with a stare, and yet she had the biggest heart and was able to find joy even in hard times.
My gran was worldly-wise and could sing as well as she could make soup. Most of her kids were musical, and I'm fairly sure my first words were attempts to harmonise with the Everly Brothers.
I can understand my parents felt they had made the best decision – they were grieving, too – but it was the wrong decision. The experience almost certainly contributed to my specialising in grief and bereavement all these years later.
We often underestimate children's capacity to understand grief. We imagine them as too fragile or too innocent – as though sparing them the sorrow somehow preserves their childhood. However, grief isn't something we can postpone on their behalf. It arrives early and often, in all sorts of forms: a pet dying, a grandparent's absence, a best friend moving to a different state or country. We can't spare children their grief, but we can give them the guidance they need to meet it.
Dr John Wilson, in his excellent book, The Plain Guide to Grief (2020), argues that children benefit from honest, age-appropriate conversations about loss. Far from traumatising them, these conversations help children integrate the reality of death into their worldview.
Instead of something morbid, it's a meaningful experience. It allows children to name difficult emotions rather than fear them, and to approach loss with curiosity and compassion instead of confusion.
A 2023 study from the University of Bristol offers compelling support for this view. It highlights how nearly all children experience bereavement before the age of 16, and yet grief is rarely addressed in schools. Many students go through their entire education without a single structured conversation about death or loss. The researchers argue that grief education shouldn't be reactive or incidental. Instead, it should be part of the core curriculum – just like any other important life lesson.
What stood out in the findings was how eager young people were to talk about and understand grief. They also wanted to support friends who'd lost someone.
In a 2012 survey, young people said that coping with grief was something they really wanted to learn more about in schools that had not been offered at that time
In a 2019 study, children aged nine to 12 were asking thoughtful, emotionally literate questions like, 'Why does the pain come back like a swarm of bees?' and 'How do I help someone who's sad?'
The researchers found that grief education, when done well, helps normalise the emotions that follow loss, and gives children the vocabulary to express themselves. It also teaches them that there is no single way to grieve. Some cry, some get angry, some go quiet – and all of it is OK.
This resonates across cultures, even if grief is expressed differently. Whether in a kampung in Malaysia or a housing estate in Scotland, our core emotional needs are the same. Children need honesty, inclusion, and guidance – not by shielding them from pain, but by walking with them through it.
If they're afforded this, they come to learn a very important lesson: following a loss, grief is the love left over in need of a new home. Through the course of their grieving, they'll also learn that within every difficult goodbye is a heartfelt thank you.
Sandy Clarke has long held an interest in emotions, mental health, mindfulness and meditation. He believes the more we understand ourselves and each other, the better societies we can create. If you have any questions or comments, e-mail [e-mail]. The views expressed here are entirely the writer's own.