Friends More Help Than Family For Bereaved Teens, Says UF Researcher

October 1, 1996

GAINESVILLE — Talking to friends about the death of a parent is more helpful for teens than discussing it with family, a new University of Florida study finds.

“Children are very protective of the surviving parent,” said Lucia Young, a graduate student in counselor education who surveyed 70 adolescents in seven north Florida counties. Each teen had recently lost a parent. “They’re more comfortable talking with their friends about their feelings because they don’t want to upset the parent. They don’t want to see the parent cry.”

The death of a parent is considered to be the most stressful life event for adolescents, said Young, a counselor at Hospice of North Central Florida, who sought to understand how these young adults best cope with the loss.

Ninety percent of the respondents, all between the ages of 12 and 19, said they found talking to both friends and family most helpful in dealing with the death. But when asked to specify slightly more (41 percent) found conversing with friends more comforting than talking to parents or family members (37 percent), Young found.

“There is a certain time after the death of a parent when children can get caught in a caretaking role of the surviving parent,” she said. “They’re so concerned with protecting the parent that they don’t grieve. Talking to friends helps them get their feelings out and grieve.”

Not surprisingly, the youths in the study said they found it most helpful to talk with friends who had themselves experienced a death in their families.

Memorializing the deceased parent by keeping some of that person’s belongings or recalling good times was another effective way for the adolescents to cope. “Keeping the memory of the dead parent alive helps children integrate the loss of that parent into their lives,” Young said. “One way to do this is to celebrate the life of that parent and to think

about what that parent would want for them. Children will usually say, Oh, they would want me to be happy’ or they would want me to do well in school.’”

Redirecting children’s thinking so they can assimilate the loss is important because many of them have never encountered death before and are unfamiliar with how to deal with it, she said.

“Younger children do not have a complete understanding of what death means,” she said. “Many times they think the dead parent will come back. It’s not until adolescence that kids really have an understanding and feel the effects of the permanent loss of a parent.”

For adolescents, losing a parent of the same gender can be especially traumatic because they are also losing a role model, Young said. But for children of any age, the loss is more difficult if the surviving parent’s financial situation suffers to the extent that the family must move and adjust to a different lifestyle, she said.

Children who have had the least amount of change in their lives after the death of the parent cope better than those who experience many changes, Young said.

How a parent dies also affects how children accept the death, Young said. “For most of the kids in this study (67 percent), the death was due to a long illness, and so the kids had time to begin to prepare,” she said. “But it’s very different with a violent death. I’ve noticed in the bereavement groups I’ve led that children in these families are much angrier and experience more behavioral problems.”

Schools are so overwhelmed with other issues that few offer special services such as bereavement groups for these children, leaving it largely up to the family to deal with these problems, she said.

Surviving parents can make a death or fatal illness easier for both children and adolescents by encouraging them to talk about their grief, she said.

“I remember visiting one family’s home where no one had talked to the 8-year-old boy whose mother was dying in the other room,” she said. “When I asked him if there was anything he would like to say to his mom, he said, Oh yes.’ Then he went into her room and said Mommy, I love you and I’m sorry that you’re sick.’ That was his way of saying goodbye. It’s so important for children to be able to do that.”