Note: Losing a parent, partner or another family member is hard. When the loss is due to addiction it can be more complicated. Not only do we feel grief and loss but sometimes shame and stigma. We might be confused about if, when and how to talk to our children about the loved one they lost. Here's a good article with advice and resources.
Excerpt:
But the first piece of advice is always the same: Tell the truth.
“We always recommend being honest with children about the cause of somebody’s death,” Giambalvo said. “What we find is when children don’t get accurate and correct information, what they imagine or how they imagine it is more distressing to them than knowing the truth.”
Children are also very likely to discover the truth as they get older. A guide from Our House Grief Support Center in California notes that hiding the real cause of a parent’s death could damage a child’s relationships in the future.
“When they find out that they were not told the truth, they will be angry at those who lied to them and may have trouble trusting others in interpersonal relationships,” the guide states.
To start a conversation about an overdose, Giambalvo and other experts say to use simple terms.
“There is language you can use to provide a very simple yet accurate explanation for kids,” Giambalvo said. “You can build on that over time.”
One possible way to explain an overdose to a young child is to say the parent had too much of something that was bad for his or her body. The online resource “What’s Your Grief” offers some examples: “Death means the body has stopped working,” and “An overdose is when someone takes too much of a medicine or the wrong medicine and it makes their body stop working.”
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