How Children Grieve

An informative, empathetic and accessible guide to understanding childhood grief at every age, which will help caretakers to support children mourning after loss.

From Dr Corinne Masur, an award-winning clinical psychologist specialising in grief and mourning, comes a necessary and impactful guide to understanding children's grief from the inside and to guiding children through loss, from the death of a parent and other family members, to the loss of friends, pets and even the family home. Dr Masur describes how to understand, help and guide children at each age and stage of development and uses her own childhood experience with loss through empathetic yet clinically informed advice.

When Dr Masur was fourteen years old, her father died. Like most children and teens facing loss, Masur didn't know how to handle her grief, and she was never encouraged to acknowledge or share what she was feeling with her family, teachers or friends. Her experience of shock and emotional paralysis around her loss is what led her to become an expert in childhood grief in order to help grieving children and to help others to support the children in their lives who have experienced loss.

As a psychologist and child psychoanalyst, Dr Masur has helped many children recognise and express their feelings after loss. In How Children Grieve, Masur shares her expertise with caregivers of all kinds, giving them the tools they need to help a child or teenager to mourn, to move forward and to make meaning of terrible loss.

A wise, thoughtful and practical guide to children's grief -- George Bonanno, PhD, author of 'The Other Side of Sadness'
I would recommend How Children Grieve to any friend with children who are grieving . . . because the hardest thing is knowing what children cannot name, cannot express. Through Masur's years of experience as a therapist, her knowledge of bereavement science, and her beautiful writing about her own childhood loss, she gives us insight into what gets missed and how to find out what your child's grief is really like -- Mary-Frances O’Connor, PhD, author of 'The Grieving Brain'
A thoughtful and comprehensive guide for any adult who takes care of and/or works with a young person who has had a loved one die . . . This book is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand what this process looks like at different developmental stages as well as practical and helpful ways to allow for the expression and treatment of those feelings -- Mia Roldan, LCSW, LCDC, author of 'Navigating Grief: A Guided Journal' and 'How I Feel: Grief Journal for Kids'
Corinne Masur writes beautifully for parents and guardians about the danger of unexpressed grief in children and youth . . . She deftly merges scholarly information with her own experience and wisdom. How Children Grieve is a must for anyone who cares for children or teens who need help in expressing their grief after a loss -- Dr Pauline Boss, author of 'Ambiguous Loss' and 'The Myth of Closure'
A wonderful book about grief, mourning, and losses of various kinds in children of all ages. Dr. Masur writes in a tone that is respectful, jargon-free and accessible for parents, extended family members, teachers, mental health practitioners, medical professionals and others who work with or are friends of children and their families. This is a well-referenced guide which is both absorbing to read and helpful in finding words to talk with parents and children who have experienced deep or violent losses -- Barbara Shapiro, MD, clinical associate professor of paediatrics in psychiatry, University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, and child and adult psychoanalyst
Using a developmental lens, a knowledge base regarding grief and mourning, and the wisdom of a masterful clinician, Dr Masur offers ways and means that adults can lean into curiosity, deep listening and observing to make room for the internal world and meaning-making of the child and adolescent navigating loss. Written to inform caregivers, this book is also of value to health and mental health professionals supporting bereaved children and their families -- Susan K. Schultz, PhD, child and parent psychotherapist
This guide is an invaluable practical resource for anyone seeking to understand and support a grieving child, offering expert guidance built on four decades of clinical experience. Looking back at my own experience of losing my mother at the age of eight, I wish the adults around me had access to such insightful support. Masur is wise, compassionate and authoritative; I can think of no one better equipped to help us understand what children need to survive and thrive after losing a loved one -- Jane O’Rourke, child, adolescent and family psychotherapist and founder of MINDinMIND

Dr. Corinne Masur is a clinical psychologist, a child and adult supervising psychoanalyst and an adult personal analyst at The Psychoanalytic Center of Philadelphia (PCOP) and is on the faculty there as well as at the Institute for Relational Psychoanalysis of Philadelphia. She worked with children of all ages for forty-five years, and now works with parents, teenagers and adults, supervises other clinicians, teaches and runs parenting groups. Dr Masur is the author of Flirting With Death: Psychoanalysts Consider Mortality; Finding the Piggle: Reconsidering D.W. Winnicott's Most Famous Child Case; When a Child Grieves, a book on grief in childhood for a professional audience; and the parenting blog Thoughtful Parenting. She is a sought after speaker and interviewee.

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