Sibling Loss in Childhood
Photo by Marnie Rochester on Unsplash.
This is the second of two posts about sibling loss. Last week’s post was about the experience of losing a sibling in adulthood, and this week’s post focuses on the effects of a sibling’s death in childhood.
Grief is Socially Isolating for Children
Our siblings are our closest companions in childhood, so when a child dies, the siblings are often left feeling quite lonely and adrift because their sister’s or brother’s presence has disappeared. The impact of the loss becomes more striking if the siblings had occupied more of each other’s life space…for example, if they were close in age, if they spent significant time together, if they played together or if they shared a room. The impact of the death of a twin is a unique form of grief all its own.
In addition to the loss of a playmate and companion in their home, many bereaved children find themselves isolated intentionally and unintentionally from their peers who do not understand their loss. Children, adolescents, and teenagers do not like to feel “other,” to their peers which is what happens when there are no other children who can relate to their experience or when their identity becomes “the one whose sibling died.” Grieving children may also withdraw from activities they previously enjoyed contributing further to their social isolation.
Finally, many children lose their parents for a time after the death of a sibling. Parents who lose a child are often preoccupied with their own grief, which can feel all-consuming and remain unresolved for a long time. As a result of the parents’ need to cope with their own grief, their surviving (or other) children are more often than not simply left to their own devices with no fully functioning adults available to support them through their own grieving process. The deviation from normal parenting (and in some cases unintentional neglect) disrupts the normal developmental progress of a child and can lead to psychological issues in adulthood such as depression, low self-worth, and the inability to maintain lasting relationships.
Additionally, in some families, parents will discourage any mention of the child who died, which can be furthering isolating and confusing for a surviving child who wants to talk about their siblings or who questions why a member of the family suddenly doesn’t count anymore. If a child feels as if their grief is “wrong,” it separates them further from their family, and they may start to wonder whether or not they belong at home just as they feel they no longer fit in at school.
Grieving Children May Feel Many Conflicting Emotions
It is natural for many children to feel increased vulnerability after a sibling has died. They’ve learned something new about the world, as this might be their first realization that a child can die. This may lead them to worry about whether death could then happen to them as well. They may even develop new fears surrounding hospitals, illnesses, and doctors. While some children may need additional reassurance and comfort because they are scared of their own death, they may be simultaneously trying to be strong for and protect their parents. In the latter case, children may hide their own grief from their parents out of fear of being a burden, which leads adults to think that they are “fine” even when they are not. Adults already misunderstand and overlook children’s grief because it does not look the same as adult grief, and it becomes even easier to misread a child’s emotions when they are trying to hide them.
Just like adults, children can experience a complex array of emotions, even if they don’t have the language to articulate those emotions. A grieving child may feel confused, sad, shocked, angry, or relieved after the death of their sibling. Children may also express more indifference than adults because of how they understand death and process and express grief. In previous posts, I’ve written about how children jump in and out of grief quickly.
Children, especially young children are also more likely to feel a stronger sense of guilt than adults. Depending on their developmental stage, children make self-centred connections in the world, which leads to cognitive distortions of events like death. It is common for young children to mistakenly believe that their sibling’s death occurred as a result of bad or angry thoughts they had or verbalized toward their sibling (especially if they ever thought or said out loud that they hoped their sibling would die) or that the death was as a form of punishment for some prior misbehaviour. Their parents’ avoidance or neglect to openly discuss their sibling’s death and/or provide insufficient information about it, can further lead surviving children to develop incorrect ideas about the death due to their age and how they fill in the gaps with their own imagination. Research demonstrates that even young children are often aware of a perinatal deaths when their parents experience a pregnancy loss or stillbirth. In such cases, the child may believe that they or their parents are responsible for having done something that led to the baby’s death.
Family Dynamics Change After a Child Dies
Whether we lose a sibling in childhood or adulthood, the entire family system changes and readjusts to the loss of one member. When someone dies, the living siblings must deal not only with their own grief, but also with the suffering and hurt of their parents and in many cases with the emotional unavailability of their parents as well. Often, the family dynamics will shift with the unofficial adjustment to birth order. With the death of a sibling, a second born may suddenly become the oldest or a middle child may find themselves once again the baby of the family. These changes not only raise questions and confusion over one’s identity, but also about what their role within the family should look like.
Additionally, many parents will idealize the deceased child and remember them as better/more perfect than they were. This creates impossible standards and hurtful comparisons for living siblings. Many children will feel pressure to meet all of the expectations that their parents had for the deceased child and compensate for that sibling’s death while also feeling as if their parents’ approval or acceptance is impossible to attain because they can never live up to the perfection of their deceased sibling. Surviving children may feel pressure to behave better, achieve more, or even fulfill the dreams that were intended for the child who died. This makes it difficult for the living child to feel appreciated for who they actually are and to grow into their own person who is independent of the memory of their sibling. As a result, they may feel a great deal of anger and resentment toward their deceased sibling.
In some families, a parent might actually direct their anger over the unfairness of having lost one child onto another, which further damages the parent-child relationship. In other families, a surviving child may be overprotected by a parent’s intense fear of reliving such a painful loss. Some parents will exercise no discipline while others attempt to control their children’s every behaviour and decision, thus denying their children the ability to develop their own autonomy and independence.
Child Re-Grieve the Loss Over Time
A children’s developmental stage has a significant impact on their understanding of the permanence of death as well as their ability to recognize and work through their own emotions. So, as children age, they reprocess their grief at different developmental stages. This is something that most people and parents are not aware of or understand. Children will re-grieve the loss with each new level of understanding. Children who lost parents and sibling in childhood can have significant grief responses in adulthood during major life milestones that remind them of what their sibling will not be present for or will never be able to experience. Many individuals who lose a sibling in childhood also have strong reactions when they become a parent themselves and realize the depth of pain their parents experienced or when their children reach the age that their sibling was when they died or the age that they themselves were when they experienced the death. Grief support is needed for children not only immediately after the death of their sibling but also in the weeks, months, and years that follow. Like every other form of grief, the pain that comes from the death of a sibling is not something that we ever get over. Our grief changes shape over time, but anyone who loses a sibling in childhood will feel the effects of that loss for the rest of their life.