How to support an 8 year old who’s lost both grandparents.

2 replies

BelleWell80 · 11/02/2024 09:19

As the title says we lost both grandparents (my in-laws) within close succession last year, 10 weeks apart. They were both kindof traumatic in their own way. So I’m wondering if there are any books or support materials for when both grandparents have passed away, that is suitable for an 8 year old. All the ones I can find at the moment are aimed at younger children and seem to be one or the other, grandma or grandad, not both. Also, not overly religious either, we’ve talked about heaven but not gone into any deeper conversations around that as heaven alone sparked enough questions. (Can we get to heaven in a rocket, what happens to heaven when there are no clouds in the sky etc).

Bit of background…my son (7 at the time) saw his grandma collapsed, it was totally unexpected and such a shock. This left my FIL who was already very poorly with COPD needing round the clock care. After 6 weeks we had no choice but to seek help from a local care home as he needed 24 hour care and we just couldn’t tend to all of his needs adequately. We visited the care home every day and I took my son as much as I could. It was sad and upsetting but also good for everyone to spend time together. The care home went into a lockdown and we were unable to visit for a week, this had a detrimental effect on his health and he sadly passed away not long after, In total 3 weeks in the care home and 10 weeks after losing his wife.

It’s been such a rollercoaster since, for all of us, my boy, now 8, has been brilliant but we are having regular highly emotional outbursts about how he misses them and I try to encourage him to talk about them and tell him that it’s ok to feel happy and it’s ok to feel sad etc. We have a journal and I have engaged with school who have been brilliant with pastoral care and said that they can look into counselling.

Their house (which also happens to be on our road) is about to be sold and I’m wondering if there is anything i can do to support him though this as it’s bound to bring everything back to the surface. It’s hard enough as adults to process the enormous loss, my OH has had a really hard time with it all and I know is struggling but he’s not ready to consider counselling or anything like that just yet.

So, any books or materials that might help. Child come to terms? Or an adult for that matter?

Thanks in advance.

OP posts:

maxelly · 12/02/2024 10:22

Sorry to hear of your loss . Two in such a short period of time must have been really hard. It sounds as though you are doing all the right things to be honest and I'd just keep on as you are with lots of reassurance and hugs and opportunities to discuss.

Regarding a book, I don't think it's that important to find one that fits his exact situation, more one that can help him process some of the things that might be worrying him or provoke questions - personally I quite like the ones that have animals as characters, somehow that seems more accessible for the younger children I've known (obviously for older children that can be babyish) - winston's wish has quite a good list https://www.winstonswish.org/suggested-reading-list/ . There's some very good resources and blog posts on the site too.

Re the house, I wouldn't necessarily expect him to find that quite as hard as the adults TBH, children don't always attach quite the same importance to homes as we do. Has the house already been cleared as that's obviously a really difficult part of the process? I think I'd talk to him about it in a fairly matter of fact/positive way if you can, about how grandma and grandad don't need their house any more so a new family will be coming to live there which is a good thing, houses should have people living in them etc. If he sees you or his Dad getting emotional that's not necessarily a bad thing because you can talk about how it's OK to feel sad and miss Granny/Grandad - sometimes I think one of the hardest things for children to process around a loss is that everyone puts on a brave face for their sake but if the children only see people being cheerful and normal around them how are they to know they are allowed to feel sad too?