It's very difficult, especially if the child has had close contact with the grandparent. My own experience was a little easier because we lived hundreds of miles away from both sets of parents so although our children knew them and enjoyed their occasional visits to them, they were so used to not seeing the grandparents for great lengths of time that when they died the children expressed 'sadness' but then got on with their lives.
I work in a primary school and recently a child of 7 lost a grandparent. He's not the first and he won't be the last but I was struck at how each child in the school that I've known has lost a grandparent has handled the loss. Usually, they express sadness, are encouraged to talk about their grandparent when they want to, but generally they are quite happy at school and seem not to be overly upset once the funeral etc is over.
The little boy of 7 I referred to has been off school for almost 4 weeks since the loss of his grandpa. From what I've seen of his mother, she goes in for high drama and she would ring the school to explain why her child was not coming in 'because he's not handling his grandpa's death very well'. I suspect it's more the case the
she is enjoying making much of the attention her parent's death has generated and now she's is projecting her own feeling of grief onto her child.
Personally, I think the child would recover better if he was at school with his classmates. As it is, I think he's being forced to express grief day after day!
Surely that can't be healthy?
