Research shows that a child's understanding of death will vary according to their age and stage of development.

In our experience, Primary School aged children can:

• start to understand the permanency of death
• experience anxiety about their future care, their own survival and the survival of other family members
• feel anxiety when they are separated from their main carer
• think that something they said or did caused the person to die
• regress in their behaviour for a period of time
• find it hard to concentrate at school
• fall out with friends
• have difficulty getting to sleep / interrupted sleep / nightmares
• develop physical complaints e.g. tummy-aches, head-aches etc
• have angry outbursts or cry unexpectedly  
• only sustain their grief for short periods of time

Our experience has shown that children in this age group need:

• reassurance
• affection
• age-appropriate information 
• honest answers to their questions
• chances to express their feelings
• opportunities to play