By Skylar Batts, Zenovia Cole, Tonya Carr and Kimberly Starks
Trinity Times Correspondents

Trinity Washington University alumna Hownisha Reed’s mother died when she was 10 years old, and that loss reshaped the course of her life in ways she couldn’t comprehend at that tender age.

“I was so angry and anxious after losing her,” said Reed, a 2020 Trinity graduate who grew up in the District of Columbia and how lives in Maryland. “I felt like losing her stunted my emotional growth.”

With no initial help in dealing with her childhood bereavement, she struggled to bond with other relatives in her family and in establishing healthy relationships with other children.

In hindsight, Reed realizes she was longing for that nurturing missing puzzle piece, a sentimental witness to her metamorphosis into adulthood. 

Reed is among nearly 4% of children under 18 in Western countries who lose a parent or caretaker, according to a 2017 article in OMEGA – Journal of Death and Dying, which concluded that the death of a parent in a child’s life presents significant risk factors for physical and mental health problems as they grow into adults.

A group of students in Trinity’s Clinical Mental Health Counseling master’s program researched childhood bereavement as part of their studies during the fall 2023 semester and concluded that a child who loses a parent greatly benefits from grief support.

“It was once believed that children didn’t grieve, and they were very resilient,” said Gilly Cannon, senior director of Children’s Bereavement Services at Caring Matters, a grief support center in Gaithersburg, Md. “They do grieve, they just grieve differently from adults. Children are resilient but they are not resilient on their own. They need support.”

As Reed looks back on her childhood, she recognizes that she would have benefited from someone helping her deal with her own grief when her mother died.

“Losing my mom skyrocketed an uneasy relationship with my stepmom,” she told Trinity Times. “I fought a lot in elementary and middle school. My emotional barriers showed up as anger and anxiety while balancing my academic goals at school.”

The OMEGA article details psychological studies that show parental loss for children under the age of 18 puts them at greater risk of depression, anxiety, and behavior problems, as well as difficulty bonding with surviving relatives. 

Maryland resident Tammy Hawkins was 5-years old when her mother died.

She was left in the care of a paternal aunt, since her father suffered from a substance abuse problem and her teenage brothers who too young to be her guardians.

Hawkins said she was too young to really comprehend the loss of her mother.

“I used to run through the house calling for my mom,” she said. “I did not understand why she was not there.”

That searching intensified a difficult childhood while navigating the loss of her mother, a grief she was unableto communicate.

“My aunt always made me feel like I was a burden,” she said. “I was lacking that emotional bonding and support from her when my mom passed.”

By the time Hawkins was in the fourth grade she did begin counseling, which eventually helped her deal with her bereavement.

“Grief is a normal response to an abnormal situation, so that is where we start,” Cannon told Trinity Times, in explaining how Caring Matters approaches bereavement with the children who are referred to their program. 

Typically, grief centers around the United States share the same philosophy, with an approach that is “heart-centered” and non-clinical for childhood bereavement, she said.

“We do not pathologize grief, it is not an illness that we need to fix,” Cannon said, adding that grieving children, youth and their families need support from programs like Caring Matters.

Though some centers may provide a more clinical approach to individual counseling, most grief center professionals see their role as walking alongside people as they go through the grieving process. 

Mental health experts say that addressing the death of a parent requires delicate and complex approaches to allow a child to articulate their emotions and thoughts freely, and stress that it is imperative for the counselor to cultivate a connection based on trust and support initially. 

Treatments include play, art, or music therapy, as a means for the child to communicate and convey emotions through nonverbal cues.

When Reed eventually received counseling to help her address her own childhood grief, she discovered new ways of navigating her life.

“I was able to recognize my anger and communicate how I felt,” she said, “and develop healthier coping strategies in school and after I graduated.

“Therapy also helped me establish healthy boundaries with my family,” Reed added. “I learned to communicate how I wanted to receive my support and where my family could improve in that area.”