The death of a parent, be it to illness or accident, is always traumatic for a child. The violent death of this little girl’s mother must be seen as trauma compounded by trauma. The social and psychological consequences of losing a parent have been well documented for decades. Recent studies go further, suggesting that traumatic loss in early childhood is a blow to the body as well as the mind. In other words, traumatic loss may well have long lasting neurobiological and physiological effects. For example, a 2012 study in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health established that early trauma stunts intellectual development, with the impact being most damaging when the trauma or loss occurs during the first two years of life. The authors of this paper suggest that the very young are particularly vulnerable due to the accelerated course of brain development during the first years of life.
When someone loses a parent in childhood there is no step-by-step process to promote healing. Everyone, child and adult alike, grieves in a unique way. But the challenge for a toddler is greater, since she has no concept of death and few or no words to help her process what she has experienced. She will only know that the person to whom she was most attached, the person essential to her survival, is inexplicably gone.
What we will often see when an infant or toddler loses a parent is a period of vigorous protest, with inconsolable crying and tantrums. This is an expectable response from a child who does not understand why his or her parent has disappeared and is vociferously demanding that the parent return now. Often when the child realizes that the parent is not returning, angry behavior will give way to detachment and listlessness as the child gradually gives up hope. There may be a regression in development. If the child was speaking at the time of the loss, the words may stop. If she had been toilet trained, she may return to diapers. Caregivers might detect other responses, including anxiety, night-waking, loss of appetite and so forth.