Books about child loss can provide support and guidance through child bereavement, often offering advice and coping mechanisms. They can help better understand and make sense of the painful and complex feelings that you experience following the death of a child.
Furthermore, reading stories of how others have experienced child loss and navigated their grief can help feel lees isolated if you are bereaved yourself, or help others understand and improve the ways in which they can support parents who have lost a child.
Our specialist bereavement counsellors have thoughtfully selected the following four books about child loss and bereavement out of the many that exists. We hope bereaved parents, and anyone wanting to learn and understand more about child loss, will find them useful.
Surviving the Loss of a Child: Support for Grieving Parents
By Elizabeth B. Brown
Written after the loss of the author’s own child, this book offers encouragement and hope to those who may think they will never be able to live fully after such tragedy. Bereaved parents, as well as friends, counsellors, and caregivers, will find this book a source of comfort and discover coping mechanisms as they move through their grief. Revised and updated, it has short chapters that are easy to take in, perfect for people going through this difficult time.
Shattered: Surviving the Loss of a Child
By Gary Roe
This book deals with the volatile and unpredictable emotions assaulting bereaved parents, and how to try and manage the massive changes that are occurring in parents’ life and routine. Writing from his three decades of experience as hospice chaplain and grief specialist, Roe seeks to help bereaved parents move through feeling overwhelmed and begin to heal, highlighting the importance of self-care.
It’s OK That You’re Not OK: Meeting Grief and Loss in a Culture That Doesn’t Understand
By Megan Devine
Written by psychotherapist Megan Devine after the sudden, accidental death of her partner, this book is not specific about child bereavement, but it tackles the issue of the range of emotions people feel when grieving and the difficult reactions from others and the things that are said.
Mum, Can You Lend Me Twenty Quid? What drugs did to my family
By Elizabeth Burton-Phillips
This book is specific for loss of a child through addiction. Burton-Phillips’ twin boys became addicted to drugs and, sadly, one of them died. This is the story of her journey through living with their addiction, her other son’s journey to recovery and the pain of losing her son.
