Understanding Children And Adolescents’ Grieving: A Study Of The Perspectives Of Adults On Children’s Bereavement Process In Namibia

ABSTRACT

This research study aimed to bring about greater insight into the topic of

bereavement, especially with regards to children and adolescents. Questions

that were answered included: How and why do people grieve? How can one

help a person to cope with his/her grief? How do children grieve, and is it

different from adults' grief? What do adults understand by children’s reactions

to loss?

The sample population was pre-defined according to the following

characteristics. Primary and secondary caregivers of children (between the

ages of eight (8) and eighteen (18), who have lost either one of their parents

during the past three (3) years) were contacted to participate voluntarily in the

study and to supply information with regards to children’s grief processes.

Data generation took place through the collection of data from semi-structured

individual interviews with ten (10) participants. Four primary caregivers and

six secondary caregivers participated in the study. A total of fourteen children

were discussed in the interviews by the different participants.

The interview data was transcribed verbatim and the text was reduced to

include only those text parts where the participant spoke about the grieving

child, the deceased or the participant’s own beliefs and reactions to death.

The text was analyzed by using the Summarizing Content Analysis technique

of Philip Mayring’s Qualitative Content Analysis. It was then interpreted within

the theoretical frameworks of the attachment theory of John Bowlby and

William Worden, and the attribution theory of Bernard Weiner.

Due to the small sample size of the study, it was difficult to draw any

significant conclusions from the data. However, tentative interpretations of the

data pointed to a difference between primary and secondary caregivers’

understanding of childhood grief, as well as a dissimilarity between the

recorded understanding of childhood grief and the predictions from academic

literature.

This emphasized a need for psycho-education in the field of childhood

bereavement for adults who are dealing with children who may have lost

significant people in their lives. It became all the more necessary in the light of

findings about the number of orphans in Namibia and developing countries

generally, and it was suggested that future studies might consider entering

this vast, unexplored field.