Coping with bereavement is not a regular phase in teenage life – the young person has to face normal environmental and physiological demands, and also develop new skills for coping with the death of a loved one. Coping is therefore a process of managing specific external and/or internal factors that can tax or exceed the resources of the teenager.
A 2002 Finnish study looked into how 14-16-year-old teenagers in two secondary schools coped after the death of a loved one.
Things that helped
The researchers identified the following separate things helped bereaved teenagers:
Self
- Here, two forms of personal coping were identified: activities and a personal belief system. Of the bereaved teenagers, 27% noted that different kinds of activities, such as music, crying, keeping busy and thinking helped them cope with grief. Having a personal belief system helped 3% of the teenagers.
Family and relatives
- One‐third (31%) of the bereaved teenagers stated that a parent or parents helped them cope with bereavement. Family as a whole or siblings in particular provided help by caring and supporting 26% of the bereaved teenagers to recover. Other relatives, such as grandparents, were supportive for 19% of the respondents.
Friends
- One‐third (34%) of the respondents reported that friends were of great support. Friends were perceived as ‘always being there’ when the bereaved teenager needed them.
Time and the social system
- 7% reported that nobody helped them or that they were not able to say whether somebody or something had helped them cope with the grief.
Things that hindered
The bereaved teenagers identified themselves, other individuals and the social system in general as hindering their coping with bereavement.
Self
- Almost one‐fifth (16%) of the bereaved teenagers reported that they themselves hindered coping with the death of a loved one. They wrote that fear of death, depression, intrusive thoughts and a sense of loneliness made coping hard.
Family
- 2% of teenagers stated that parents or siblings made it hard to recover (for example, when family wanted to talk about the bereavement when the teenager did not).
Friends and their parents
- 3% of the bereaved felt that friends or friends’ parents were an additional burden on them.
Social system
- 2% reported that the social system (school) made the coping hard.
Summary
Coping with grief places great demands on a teenager and self‐help was considered as a way of coping with bereavement during adolescence. However, the bereaved participants in this study also felt that their own thoughts, fear of death and loneliness hindered coping with grief.
Social support from parents, family, relatives and friends was also considered helpful by bereaved teenagers. Family support is strongly related to family dynamics, which has been found to play a significant role in the development of well‐being and adjustment during adolescence. However, parents, family, relatives and friends were also seen at times to be a hinderance in coping with grief.
The dual process model of coping with bereavement provides a method for understanding these results. The helping factors in coping with bereavement were related to both the loss‐orientated and restoration‐orientated coping. Crying alone and with a friend and thinking of the deceased referred to loss‐orientated coping, whereas keeping busy and interaction with friends indicated the restoration‐orientated coping.
The results also suggested that for teenagers coping with bereavement, it is a dynamic process between confrontation and avoidance of the bereavement.
References:
- Barnet, L. ed. (2009) When Death Enters the Therapeutic Space: Existential Perspectives in Psychotherapy and Counselling. Hove: Routledge.
- Lendrum, S. and Syme, G. (2004) Gift of Tears: A Practical Approach to Loss and Bereavement in Counselling and Psychotherapy. 2nd ed. Hove: Routledge.
- Rask, K., Kaunonen, M. and Paunonen-Ilmonen, M. (2002). Adolescent coping with grief after the death of a loved one. International journal of nursing practice, 8(3).
