Growing up · ages 3 to 13

How children understand death, and how they grieve

11 min read14 sources · accessed on 26 September 2026

The short answer

Children understand death in stages. According to the review by Speece and Brent, most understand between five and seven that it's permanent, that it happens to everyone and that all the body's functions stop; younger children tend to think it's temporary.² Child Bereavement UK describes the same path: children of three to five often think death can be undone, and from about seven they understand that it's final.⁴ Fixed stages of grief that a child passes through in order are not established. Children grieve in waves: ten minutes of tears, then back to playing as if nothing had happened.⁶ And the heart of it is simple: let your child share your grief rather than trying to shield them from it.

The approach

Something to hold on to that grows with your child

A child lives through the same loss again at every stage of development. What a four-year-old can't grasp, the same child truly understands for the first time at eight. What looks like a step backwards is a new stage of understanding.⁶

A book can go along on that path, because it can be read again. Carol Berns describes exactly this as the principle of bibliotherapy: identifying with a character helps a child place what's happening, eases the feeling of being alone, and the book can be read as often as the child needs.¹¹

1No stagesThe story puts the feelings in no order.
2In wavesTears and play sit side by side, as in real life.
3Talking about guiltThe idea of being to blame comes up, and it gets an answer.

This story for my child

Read the whole story for free · no photo needed

Background

The four ideas that make up understanding death

In 1948, Maria Nagy interviewed nearly 400 Hungarian children aged three to ten and described three stages: death as reversible, simply “less alive”, at about three to five; a beginning grasp of permanence, with the idea that it only happens to others, at about five to nine; and from nine or ten, an understanding of cause, of permanence and inevitability, and of all body functions stopping. Later research confirms the direction, but finds that children get there somewhat earlier today.¹

Speece and Brent analysed more than 40 studies and reduced the understanding of death to four ideas: universality, every living thing dies, without exception, including oneself; irreversibility, death is final, nobody comes back; non-functionality, all the body's functions stop; causality, understanding what causes death, illness, accident or old age, and not a wish or an argument.²

A fifth idea was added later: a sense of some form of continuity beyond the death of the body.³ Most children grasp the first three ideas between five and seven, with wide differences, from about three to ten. Causality and their own mortality are often only fully understood in adolescence.²

Child Bereavement UK puts it for parents: babies have no understanding of death, children of three to five often think it can be undone, and from about seven children understand that it's permanent.⁴ Behind this is how thinking develops: as long as magical thinking dominates, the permanence of death is hard to grasp.

In practice

Four, eight, thirteen: three different children

At four, a child uses the word “dead” without grasping what it means. Magical thinking is at its strongest, with a consequence adults rarely see: the child may believe that a bad thought or an argument caused the death. It's a common source of guilt that children don't put into words.

At eight, a child has understood that everyone dies, including them. They ask about biological details and are interested in “what comes after”. Death as a figure or character still appears at this age, then usually fades.

At twelve or thirteen, understanding catches up with that of adults, but it gets mixed up with questions of identity. After a sudden death, steps backwards are possible at this age.

The Irish Childhood Bereavement Network stresses one point for every age: children of all ages grieve, babies included, and their understanding develops as they grow.⁵

What helps

Seven things that help day to day

1. Use direct words. Dead, died, death. Children often take abstract or figurative language literally.

2. Follow their questions, without explaining more than they ask. Children take in as much as they can manage.

3. Include your child in the family's grief, rather than trying to spare them. Shared grief supports a child; keeping them out leaves them alone with what they feel.

4. Expect grief in waves, short and intense. Ten minutes of tears, then back to playing: that's typical.⁶

5. Make sure there's someone they trust. Healthy coping depends a great deal on a steady adult who accepts the expression of feelings.⁶

6. Talk actively about magical thinking and guilt, rather than just comforting in general. Otherwise your child keeps the idea that it's their fault to themselves, and nobody corrects it.

7. Name the cause of death openly. Contradictory explanations from different adults unsettle a child more, at exactly the age when they're looking for reliable causes.

Best avoided

What's well meant and still hurts

Shielding your child from your own grief, by withdrawing or staying silent. They then have no example of how grief is expressed.

Well-meant euphemisms: gone to sleep, gone away, lost. To adults they sound gentler; children take them literally.

Expecting grief to follow a straight line. Grief that returns years later is then mistaken for a setback, when your child is reliving the loss with a deeper understanding.⁶

Missing the guilt. If nobody talks about it, it stays buried.

Explanations that contradict each other, from one adult to the next.

Debates

Where the experts disagree

There are two real disagreements on this subject, with named people on each side. The first concerns something most people take as established knowledge.

Approach	What it says	What it means for the story
The stages, still taughtcommon clinical practice, after Kübler-Ross	The five stages, denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance, are still commonly taught in medicine and nursing. They were developed in 1969 for dying people themselves, not for the bereaved and not for children.	We use no sequence of stages when we build the story.
The stages, criticised as harmfulMargaret Stroebe, Henk Schut and Kathrin Boerner	Using the stages as a guide doesn't help and could even do harm. Backed by Bonanno, who showed that most bereaved people don't follow the supposedly normal course.	The story shows feelings side by side, not in a queue.
Keeping the bond is healthyDennis Klass, Phyllis Silverman and Steven Nickman	A continuing inner bond with the person who died is normal and mostly helpful. It was a deliberate answer to the older idea that healthy grieving means breaking the bond.	In the story, memory is what remains, and nothing has to be overcome.
It depends on the formPaul Boelen, Margaret Stroebe, Henk Schut; Nigel Field and Charles Filanosky	A continuing bond doesn't always go with better adjustment. Outward forms, such as feeling that you talk with the person who died, predicted poorer adjustment; internalised forms predicted a positive course.	The story works with memory, not with an ongoing presence.

What everyone agrees on

Direct words rather than euphemisms, at every age.
Children grieve in waves.
Sharing grief supports a child better than keeping them out.
Guilt that comes from magical thinking needs to be addressed actively.
The same loss is relived at every stage of development.

The first point of debate is the stages. They appear in every guide and are still taught, although they were designed for dying people and never systematically tested.⁷ Leading grief research sees them as useless as a guide, and potentially harmful.⁸ For children, the criticism is sharpest. Three models have replaced them: continuing bonds, Worden's task model without a fixed order, and Stroebe and Schut's dual process model, which describes moving back and forth between the loss and everyday life.⁹¹⁰

The second point of debate: is keeping the bond always healthy? Klass, Silverman and Nickman say yes.⁹ A systematic review sums up the opposite view: it depends on the form, and a bond experienced outwardly predicted poorer adjustment than an internalised one.¹⁰

One gap must be named: we found no version of the dual process model tested specifically in children. Its use with children is discussed, not tested as such.

When a book isn't enough

Signs of complicated grief include: lasting fears of losing someone else or of dying; a wish to join the person who died, or a wish to die; guilt that doesn't fade; aggressive or destructive behaviour and a striking tendency to accidents; excessive worry about others with exaggerated independence; total silence about the person who died or, the opposite, a total fixation; a visible absence of any grief; strong resistance to new bonds, withdrawal, problems with sleep or eating, a clear drop in school work.⁶

It's worth asking for support early when several difficulties add up: losing a parent before the age of four, a move at the same time, money worries, very heavy grief in the remaining parent, a sudden death, or a death during an already hard time.

In diagnosis, there is prolonged grief disorder: no earlier than six months after the loss under ICD-11, twelve months under DSM-5-TR. About 10% of bereaved children and teenagers show symptoms of this kind.¹² Your GP or paediatrician is the first person to talk to.

In Ireland, Barnardos runs a bereavement helpline on 01 4732110.¹⁴ In the UK, Child Bereavement UK has guidance for families. In the US, the Child Mind Institute has a guide to helping children cope with grief.

The story

How a story can help

The evidence is thinner than you'd wish, and we don't dress it up. A systematic analysis of 56 picture books about grief mainly describes what's in them: grandparents are the ones who die most often, the most frequent feeling is sadness, the most frequent way of coping is remembering.¹³ It's a description; it measures no effect.

Carol Berns describes the principle: identifying with a character helps a child place what's happening and eases the feeling of being alone.¹¹ We found no controlled studies that prove it.

For the story, one rule:

The story puts the feelings in no order. Taking a child through five stages means following a model designed for dying people, and never tested.

1-2
Before
Everyday life as it was. So the difference can be seen.
3
The news
Someone says it, with the right word, and stays.
4
Feeling nothing
Sometimes, at first, there's nothing. That's part of it too.
5
The wave
Then suddenly everything at once, and just as suddenly it's over.
6
Allowed to play
Two hours later, laughing. That's the most usual thing.
7
Is it my fault?
The thought is said out loud, without waiting for it to show.
8
The answer
No, and here's why. Calm, concrete, no blame.
9
How does being dead work?
The biological question, with a factual answer.
10
Grown-ups are sad too
Visibly, with explanations, hiding nothing.
11
Anger
At the illness, at the world, at the person themselves. All of it is allowed.
12
Remembering
Telling a story that makes everyone laugh.
13
Later, again
The sadness comes back, and it isn't a step backwards.
14
The end
Nothing is closed, nothing is overcome. There's a place where the sadness can stay.

The story of grief, with your child's name

Describe your child in a few words, and the story follows exactly this path, in the illustration style you choose. You read all of it for free before you decide.

Read the story for free

Questions

Frequently asked questions

When does a child understand that death is permanent?

According to the review by Speece and Brent, most children understand between five and seven that death is permanent, that it happens to everyone and that the body stops working, with wide differences from about three to ten. Child Bereavement UK describes three- to five-year-olds who think death can be undone and an understanding of permanence from about seven. Understanding causes and their own mortality often comes in adolescence.

Do children go through the five stages of grief?

No, and adults don't either. The five stages were developed in 1969 for dying people, not for the bereaved, from clinical observation without systematic testing. Leading grief research sees them as useless as a guide, and potentially harmful.

My child played soon after the news. Aren't they sad?

They are. Children grieve in short, intense waves: ten minutes of tears, then back to playing. It's typical for their age and says nothing about how deep their sadness is.

My child thinks it's their fault. What should I do?

Talk about it actively, rather than just comforting. While magical thinking dominates, a child can believe that an argument or a bad wish caused the death. If nobody talks about it, the guilt stays buried.

Why is my child sad again years later?

Because they're reliving the same loss with a deeper understanding. What a four-year-old couldn't grasp, the same child truly understands at eight. It looks like a setback, and it's a new stage.

Where can I find bereavement support for my child?

In Ireland, Barnardos runs a bereavement helpline on 01 4732110, and the Irish Childhood Bereavement Network has information for families. In the UK, Child Bereavement UK has guidance by age. In the US, the Child Mind Institute has a guide to helping children cope with grief. Your GP or paediatrician is always a good first contact.

References

Sources

1.Nagy, M. (1948): The Child's Theories Concerning Death; summarised in the Institute of Medicine review.What it confirms: Three stages of understanding death in nearly 400 children; later research confirms the direction, with earlier maturity.
2.Speece, M. W. and Brent, S. B. (1984): Children's Understanding of Death. Child Development 55(5).What it confirms: An analysis of more than 40 studies; the four ideas of universality, irreversibility, non-functionality and causality; the first three grasped between five and seven.
3.Death Studies (2025): on the broadening of the concept of death.What it confirms: The addition of a fifth idea, a form of continuity beyond the death of the body.
4.Child Bereavement UK: Children's understanding of death at different ages.What it confirms: Babies have no understanding of death; children aged three to five often think it's reversible; from about seven, children understand it's final.
5.Irish Childhood Bereavement Network: Children's grief.What it confirms: Children of all ages, including babies, show grief; the understanding of death develops with age.
6.Institute of Medicine: Bereavement During Childhood and Adolescence.What it confirms: Grief in short, intense waves; the importance of a trusted person; warning signs after Bowlby, Raphael and Kliman; the loss relived as understanding grows.
7.StatPearls: Kübler-Ross Stages of Dying and Subsequent Models of Grief.What it confirms: The five stages, designed in 1969 for dying people from clinical observation without systematic validation, are still taught.
8.Stroebe, M., Schut, H. and Boerner, K. (2017): OMEGA, Journal of Death and Dying.What it confirms: The stages as a guide don't help and could do harm; backed by Bonanno, according to whom most bereaved people don't follow the supposedly normal course.
9.Klass, D., Silverman, P. and Nickman, S. (1996): Continuing Bonds.What it confirms: A continuing inner bond with the person who died is seen as normal and mostly helpful.
10.Continuing bonds following bereavement, a systematic review. Death Studies (2023).What it confirms: The opposite view: an outwardly experienced bond predicted poorer adjustment, internalised forms a positive course.
11.Berns, C. F. (2004): Bibliotherapy, Using Books to Help Bereaved Children. Omega 48(4).What it confirms: Identifying with a character helps a child place what's happening and eases the feeling of being alone; the book can be reread.
12.European Journal of Psychotraumatology (2023): on prolonged grief disorder in children.What it confirms: ICD-11 from six months, DSM-5-TR from twelve; about 10% of bereaved children and teenagers show symptoms of this kind.
13.Martínez-Caballero, C. et al. (2023): Journal of Pediatric Nursing 69.What it confirms: A content analysis of 56 picture books about grief; the most frequent loss is that of grandparents, the most frequent way of coping is remembering.
14.Barnardos Ireland: Helping children understand death (PDF).What it confirms: Barnardos' guidance for families after a death, and its bereavement helpline on 01 4732110.

Sources accessed on 26 September 2026. Is something missing or out of date? Write to us and we'll correct it, with the date.

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