The Unspoken Grief of Children Who Lose a Parent

Key points

The death of a parent in childhood is a devastating experience.

Children don’t have the capacity to cope effectively with loss on their own.

Children who have no one to support them may turn to drugs for relief from painful feelings.

When boys lose their fathers, they long for and seek father figures, sometimes in dangerous places.

Each year, two to three million children under 18 in the United States lose one or both parents. The loss of any important person in a child’s life, whether a parent, grandparent, sibling , or other close relative or caregiver , constitutes a profound loss and leaves a void that is both physical and psychological. The death of a parent may be the most stressful event a child can experience, given that parents are at the center of children’s