The teen years are filled with rapid growth and change that sometimes can feel challenging. Teens are forming their identity as people outside the family and school, experimenting with roles within their family and peers, and getting ready to enter the world and explore what it means to be part of a larger community. Layer grief on top of all of these ‘typical’ changes happening during adolescence, and it can be tricky to navigate and sometimes hard to figure out what might be a grief response and what might be ‘typical’ adolescent behavior.
The experience of grief can be very different for teens than it is for younger kids and for adults. A teen is no longer a child but not quite an adult either––so how might grief show up? Grief doesn’t look the same for everyone, and though experiencing a death can be a life-changing event for anyone, adolescence is a crucial period of development.
While everyone grieves differently, there are some behaviors and emotions commonly expressed by teens who are grieving. While grieving, teens may withdraw from family, struggle with concentration, experience changes in eating and sleeping, have intense emotional reactions, and engage in increased risk-taking behaviors. These behavior changes could be happening for various reasons, but if your teen was one way before a loss occurred and then is displaying significant behavior changes after a loss, it could be tied to the loss versus some other factor. Having some knowledge around adolescent development and knowing who your teen is as a person can serve as a roadmap to help you understand how your teen is growing and changing and what to expect physically, cognitively, socially, and emotionally – so that ultimately, you can find ways to support them.
Above all else, remember that while grief can add to an already complex time for teens, it can also be a time of growth, maturity, and hope. There can be feelings of strength and resiliency that emerge – “I got through this; I can do hard things, and I can thrive,” as well as an appreciation for life experiences (even difficult ones) having an impact on identity shaping – “it made me who I am today.”
Our team here at TCR is knowledgeable about the intersection of grief and development and is repeatedly asked about ways to support teens. Here are some tips and resources that may be of help.
Understanding Grief in Children and Teens: Normalizing and Nurturing the Process
Experiencing Grief as a Teenager
Tips for Supporting Grieving Teens:
- Reassure safety and security.
- Maintain routines with flexibility.
- Allow expression of feelings without judgment.
- Provide honest answers to questions.
- Offer choices and adjust expectations.
- Facilitate connections with support systems.
- Model healthy coping strategies.
- Listen actively without advising.
- Exercise patience and seek professional help if needed.
This entry is by the TCR Program Team. Learn more about the TCR team here
