Understanding children and adolescents' grieving

Abstract

Abstract provided by author:

The sample population was pre-defined according to the following characteristics. Primary and secondary caregivers of children (between the ages of eight (8) and eighteen (18), who have lost either one of their parents during the past three (3) years) were contacted to participate voluntarily in the study and to supply information with regards to children's grief processes

Data generation took place through the collection of data from semi-structured individual interviews with ten (10) participants. Four primary caregivers and six secondary caregivers participated in the study. A total of fourteen children were discussed in the interviews by the different participants

The interview data was transcribed verbatim and the text was reduced to include only those text parts where the participant spoke about the grieving child, the deceased or the participant's own beliefs and reactions to death

The text was analyzed by using the Summarizing Content Analysis technique of Philip Mayring's Qualitative Content Analysis. It was then interpreted within the theoretical frameworks of the attachment theory of John Bowlby and William Worden, and the attribution theory of Bernard Weiner

Due to the small sample size of the study, it was difficult to draw any significant conclusions from the data. However, tentative interpretations of the data pointed to a difference between primary and secondary caregivers' understanding of childhood grief, as well as a dissimilarity between the recorded understanding of childhood grief and the predictions from academic literature

This emphasized a need for psycho-education in the field of childhood bereavement for adults who are dealing with children who may have lost significant people in their lives. It became all the more necessary in the light of findings about the number of orphans in Namibia and developing countries generally, and it was suggested that future studies might consider entering this vast, unexplored field