Almost every child or adolescent faces the death or illness of a person close to them at some point in life and are affected in one way or the other. Children under two years do not understand illness but rather sense the feeling of adult’s non-verbal communications. While children between three-five years view illness as being temporal, they question the cause of disease or may feel the sickness of a loved one is a punishment, they feel sad, increased aggression and develop regression behavior (Marcussen et al., 2019) . Children between five-ten years fear illness of self and others, they establish guilt feelings. Likewise, children between ten-eighteen years may get troubled about their condition, experience denial, fear for their future; they may also hide anger and sadness feelings or even become depressed.
Despite infant and toddlers (0-2 years) not understanding the dying or death of someone, they actively sense any change or disruption in their everyday environment. They are aware of any situation that threatens their security, emotional and physical needs. School-aged children display physical symptoms such as tiredness, headache and stomach-ache. Children become inactive, reduce their activity or being too quiet (Dalton et al., 2019) . Other children may revert to bed-wetting or thumb-sucking, while others develop a sense of guilt and see themselves as the causer of the death. Besides, children, my cling, and over depend to help them cope with their grief and sadness. According to Corr, et al. (2018) , children may react to death by expressing shock; they may not believe the death occurred and behave as if it has not. Children may also become angry towards the dead person or God. Further, behavior change develops; for instance, they may become reluctant to go to schools, perform poorly in school and daydreaming. Moreover, teenagers find it hard than younger children to deal with death. They may develop aggression, experience school dropouts, and physical complaints, develop sexual promiscuity. Others may attempt suicide as a result of their feelings of pain and loss.
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References
Corr, C. A., Corr, D. M., & Doka, K. J. (2018). Death & dying, life & living . Cengage learning.
Dalton, L., Rapa, E., Ziebland, S., Rochat, T., Kelly, B., Hanington, L., ... & Bluebond-Langner, M. (2019). Communication with children and adolescents about the diagnosis of a life-threatening condition in their parent. The Lancet , 393 (10176), 1164-1176.
Marcussen, J., Hounsgaard, L., Bruun, P., Laursen, M. G., Thuen, F., & Wilson, R. (2019). The Divorced Family–Focused Care Model: A Nursing Model to Enhance Child and Family Mental Health and Well-Being of Doubly Bereaved Children Following Parental Divorce and Subsequent Parental Cancer and Death. Journal of family nursing , 25 (3), 419-446.
