When a death or serious loss occurs, healthcare professionals are often supporting more than the patient. They are supporting a family—and that family may include children who are grieving too.
Talking to Kids About Death & Loss: Navigating Childhood Bereavement gives parents, caregivers, and other adults a practical starting point for understanding and supporting a grieving child.
The book recognizes that a seven-year-old does not experience grief in the same way as a thirteen-year-old or a seventeen-year-old. It uses childhood developmental frameworks to help adults understand how a child's developmental stage can shape their experience and expression of grief.
It then moves from understanding to action.
Adults receive practical guidance about:
The communication section includes specific examples of supportive language such as “I'm here for you,” “We can talk about this anytime you want,” and “Help me understand,” alongside examples of communication to avoid, including minimizing, comparing losses, telling children how they feel, and trying to “fix” grief.
The handbook also provides age-specific guidance beginning with 0–2 years old, continuing through early childhood, school age, and adolescence.
For a hospital, hospice, or bereavement program, this book can become part of the support offered to families—not simply another item on a resource list.
Copies can be provided through:
Hospice admission and bereavement programs
Pediatric palliative care
Child Life services
Hospital social work
Oncology and serious-illness programs
Family resource centers
Bereavement support groups
Community education programs
The book is not intended to replace professional grief counseling. Its purpose is to give adults a starting point and encourage them to connect themselves and their children with the resources needed to heal.
When adults don't know what to say, give them a place to start.
A practical handbook for adults helping children and adolescents ages 0–18 navigate death, dying, and loss.
When a death or significant loss affects a family, adults are often left wondering how to talk with the children in their lives.
What should I say?
How much should I tell them?
How do I explain death to a young child?
What changes as a child gets older?
How do I respond to difficult questions?
Talking to Kids About Death & Loss: Navigating Childhood Bereavement was created for the adults facing those questions.
The handbook provides a developmental framework for understanding childhood grief and practical guidance for communicating with children and adolescents at different stages of development.
Understanding Loss & Grief
An introduction to loss, grief, and the ways grief can be experienced.
Grief in Childhood
Exploration of how children understand and experience grief, including the role of developmental stage.
Developmental Perspectives
Guidance for understanding children's responses to grief from early childhood through adolescence.
Communicating About Death & Loss
Practical guidance about:
Parents & caregivers
A resource to return to as children ask questions and their understanding develops.
Hospice & bereavement professionals
A practical resource to provide directly to families.
Child Life specialists & social workers
A supplemental resource for conversations with parents and caregivers.
Pediatric palliative-care teams
Support for families navigating serious illness, dying, death, and loss.
Oncology & hospital family-support programs
A resource for families when illness or death affects children.
Copies can be provided as part of:
Quantity Price per Copy Order Total
25 copies $6.50 $162.50
50 copies $6.00 $300.00
100 copies $5.50 $550.00
250 copies $5.00 $1,250.00
500 copies $4.50 $2,250.00
Retail price: $7.99
Institutional pricing applies to direct bulk orders. Shipping and applicable taxes are additional. Custom pricing is available for orders of 500+ copies.
Title: Talking to Kids About Death & Loss: Navigating Childhood Bereavement
Author: Sarah Adleman
ISBN: 9798234045171
Format: Paperback
Audience: Adults supporting children and adolescents ages 0–18
Sarah Adleman brings both professional experience and personal understanding to the subject of childhood bereavement.
She has spent the past twenty years working in the space of transition, loss, and grief as a Certified Yoga Therapist since 2007 and more recently as a hospice chaplain. She holds a Master of Fine Arts from UTEP and a Master of Divinity from Naropa University.
Her relationship with grief is also personal. She experienced the death of her mother as a child and later became a parent navigating conversations about loss with her own child. Those experiences, combined with her professional work, informed the creation of Talking to Kids About Death & Loss: Navigating Childhood Bereavement.
Sarah is also the author of The Lampblack Blue of Memory: My Mother Echoes, a creative nonfiction work about the death of her mother that was published by Tolsun Books in 2018 and received multiple award nominations and awards.
Sarah Adleman
WindHorse Books
Email: sarah@windhorsebooks.org
Web: www.windhorsebooks.org
ISBN 9798234045171
Helping adults find the words when children need them most.
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