August often brings sharpened pencils, new backpacks, and the nervous excitement of a new school year. But for some students, it also brings an invisible weight, one they may not know how to name. One filled with grief.
Grief doesn’t wait for the right time. It doesn’t pause for routines or respect school calendars. For students who’ve experienced the death of a parent, grandparent, sibling, or close friend, the return to school can feel disorienting, lonely, and heavy.
According to the Childhood Bereavement Estimation Model, 1 in 12 U.S. children will lose a parent or sibling by age 18. Many more grieve other significant losses. And yet, grief remains something we don’t often talk about in school settings.
As a pediatric-certified Death Doula and a member of the National Alliance for Children’s Grief (NACG), I’m committed to changing that. I believe that when we make space for a child’s grief, we also make space for their healing.
What Grieving Students Need Most
The NACG’s powerful framework, The Rights of the Grieving Student, outlines simple yet profound ways schools can support children through grief. Some of the key rights include:
- To grieve in their own way and time
There is no one “right” way to grieve. Some kids need silence, others need movement. Grief isn’t linear, it rises and falls in unpredictable waves. - To have privacy and choice
Students should never be forced to share their loss, and what they do share should be held in confidence. - To receive flexibility with schoolwork
Grief can affect memory, focus, and stamina. Flexibility with deadlines and class participation helps students stay connected. - To be seen as more than their grief
They are not “the kid whose mom died.” They are readers, artists, athletes, jokesters, and they need to be held in that fullness.
Tools for Educators and Families
The NACG also offers an Individual Student Bereavement Support Plan, a customizable document that helps schools co-create a path forward with the student and family. It offers strategies like:
- Allowing non-verbal signals when a student needs a break
- Making space for big emotions without judgment
- Creating options for sensitive events (e.g., “Donuts with Dad”)
- Using inclusive language like “grown-up” instead of “parent”
These small adjustments can have a big impact.
A Moment of Connection
This fall, I’ll be partnering with HopeKids to facilitate a hands-on family grief workshop. Each family will create a “Best Day Ever” collage, a beautiful keepsake that invites storytelling, connection, and celebration of life. Before a single glue stick is picked up, families will sit together and reflect on joyful memories.
It’s in these simple moments of remembering, laughing, crying, and creating, that healing begins.
As someone who has walked beside grieving children and teens, I know they need more than just information. They need adults who see them. Who will listen without fixing. Who will respect their rhythms and not try to rush their return to “normal.”
How We Can Help
- Parents: Share NACG’s free tools with your child’s school. You are your child’s advocate. Links are available at the end of this post.
- Educators: Display the Rights of the Grieving Student. Learn to recognize grief’s many faces.
- Administrators: Consider grief-informed policies around attendance, mental health referrals, and staff training.
And all of us, whether we’re neighbors, coaches, bus drivers, or relatives, can choose compassion over assumptions.
Because Every Child Deserves to Feel Safe at School
Grieving students don’t need to be “fixed.” They need to be supported. Held. Heard. As we prepare classrooms for a new school year, let’s remember that some children are also carrying the ache of someone they miss.
Let’s make sure they don’t carry it alone.
