Death comes everywhere, also in foster homes. A foster child has
even more chance of losing a beloved person. Not only can someone
die in its ‘own’ family, but also in the foster home a member
of the family, grand parent or other relation can die. Foster children
have gone through more than other children who have not been placed
in care. That makes them more vulnerable when a new loss occurs. Sometimes
their base is too weak to deal with the blow. And sometimes you notice
that children who have gone through a lot are wiser and stronger than
you had ever thought possible. It is important for foster parents
to realise that a loss through death requires extra care.
In order to help children in their mourning process a number of aspects
are important. Firstly, children need space and safety; here involvement,
contact and invitation play a major role. In addition, knowledge,
insight and information about various mourning phases and different
ways of mourning by children is important. Adults who offer this,
really support children in their mourning. Mourning takes place in
phases and differs by age group.The first mourning reactions of children
sometimes occur not sooner than a few weeks or months after death.
They often postpone the mourning until they feel that their physical
and psychological safety has been met. Children like to have things
go back to normal, that there is peace again. You can compare it to
soldiers in a war situation: you cannot allow yourself to mourn over
a mate, you first have to manage to survive yourself.
It is fitting that children then seem egocentric and concentrated
on their own problems: ‘Who is going to take me to swimming class
now?’ ‘You don’t seriously think (to father) that I
am going to buy brassieres with you now!’
In order to conclude a mourning phase properly, you first have to
go through a number of phases:
1. you have to realise what the loss means and understand what has
happened;
2. you have to live through, cope with and accept the pain of the
loss;
3. you have to adjust yourself to a changed environment, where mummy
was for each child a mummy in a different way;
4. and you have to invest in new relations, learn to have new relationships
and to think about the future.
