NURSING NUR 265 School Age - Caldwell, Brianne - Grief and Loss /painful

Grief and Loss of a School-Aged Child Scenario: 20 children between the ages of six and seven years old, at a local elementary school were fatally shot as well as 6 adults. The survivors of the school shooting are experiencing extreme grief and loss from the tragedy. School aged children (age 6-12) tend to associate bad thoughts with causing the death or misfortunate event and end up feeling intense guilt and responsibility for the death event. The older school aged children that have higher cognitive abilities can and will respond to logical explanations of what occurred to their loved ones. Children understand death in the concrete sense but still associate death to be the devil, a monster, or the boogeyman. By age 9 or 10 years old, children understand that death is irreversible and inevitable