November is Children’s Grief Awareness Month

On November 19th, Children’s Grief Awareness Day brings communities together to acknowledge young people as active grievers who often suffer quietly.

1 in 14 Minnesota youth will encounter the loss of a parent or sibling by the age of 18.

Because children process loss differently than adults—frequently shifting rapidly between intense sadness and everyday play—their internal hurt is easily missed. Adults can provide meaningful support by creating safe environments to talk about the person who passed away, validating their changing emotions, and maintaining familiar routines. However, extra care is necessary when ordinary comfort is no longer enough, and grief intersects with broader mental health challenges.

Recognizing what exceeds typical childhood grief involves identifying ongoing behavioral changes, such as prolonged withdrawal, severe sleep disruption, regressions, increase in fear, sudden drops in school performance, or deep expressions of self-blame and hopelessness. When these signs point toward emerging anxiety or depression, professional pediatric grief therapy can become an essential resource. Therapeutic approaches like Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) and expressive arts therapy offer children structured, developmentally appropriate ways to process difficult emotions and build healthy coping skills for the road ahead.

Grief takes many forms. Beyond the loss of a loved one, grief also includes the upheaval families feel when a sibling or adult in the home is experiencing a serious, or potentially life-limiting illness, and the child’s normal routine is changing. Our clinicians at InMind Health have the expertise to support you and your child through these multilayered and often complex changes that can affect emotional coping and behavioral responses.

If you have concerns about the emotional health of a child, teen, or young adult in your circle related to grief, oncology, or chronic illness, contact InMind Health for these specialty psychotherapy services.