When Grief Comes Home: A Gentle Guide for Living Through Loss While Supporting Your Child

When death touches your family, you are never quite prepared. Complicating your personal pain and the need to grieve is the equally important task of helping your children understand and process the loss of a loved one. How should you answer your child's questions about death? Should you let them see you cry? How can you support their resilience? How can you help preserve memories?

Drawing from their own personal and professional experience, Erin Nelson and Colleen Montague help you navigate loss alongside your child. They provide honest ways to talk to your child about death according to age and stage of development and offer ideas on how to process, honor, and integrate loss. Chapters end with reflective questions and healing activities that lead to more meaningful connection between parents and children, inspiring hope for the future.

When families find healing practices together, they find ways to integrate their loss and expand their capacity to thrive. Through times of tragedy, when parents and children have the support they need, the shared experience of grief can become part of their family's sacred story.

Erin Nelson is the founder and executive director of Jessica's House, a grief support center for children and families. Through the tragic losses of her husband in a mid-air collision, her mother to suicide, and her son in a car accident, Erin has learned the importance of grief support for children and teens. She is an advanced certified trauma practitioner through the National Institute of Trauma and Loss in Children and has been supporting grieving families for more than 20 years.

Colleen Montague is a licensed marriage and family therapist and director of community outreach for Jessica's House, supporting parents and their children after a death in their family.