'I told them, 'Mommy did everything she could, but we lost Dad.'' More than 214,000 children and teens in the U.S. and more than 6 million worldwide have lost a parent or grandparent caregiver to COVID-19. How do we help them cope?
Illustration by Iris Johnson"Susan, I need you to come in here," said 44-year-old Rogelio Lechuga, who was isolating with COVID-19 in the rear bedroom of the house he rented with his wife and three children in Mesa, AZ.
"The paramedics were in there for about 10 minutes," continues Susan, hesitating now and then to choke back emotion."The kids were still in their rooms, but they heard the machines and the screams of 'Clear!'" "As crazy as it sounds, I didn't want to tell the kids. I wanted to protect them," Susan says. But she sat the kids together on the bunk bed and broke the news."
These statistics prompted the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry , and the Children's Hospital Association to jointly declare a"national state of emergency in children's mental health."report, released in December 2021 by the nonprofit advocacy group COVID Collaborative, helped raise awareness about this issue by uncovering those previous statistics and updating them online.
At the height of the pandemic, Ng says, people were ostracized for having COVID. It's like they had a big red C on their door, warning neighbors to stay away. The father was sick at home while the mother was working nights. The boy was sleeping in bed with his dad when he passed away, and he didn't realize it until his mom got home the following morning. He was distressed that his father wouldn't wake up and that his mother was so overwhelmed and grief-stricken. Having to quarantine afterward compounded their situation.
"The child loses not just a caregiver but a breadwinner," Treglia explains."Suddenly, the family can no longer afford to live in the same place. Suddenly, they're moving or become homeless or food insecure. Suddenly, they no longer have health insurance. This creates all kinds of other challenges." "We have yet to be able to say this is over, the pain can now heal," she continues."The media, politicians, and society keep throwing it in our faces every day, and we cannot step out of this cycle of grief.""We need a nationwide plan that says, 'These are the hotlines; here's where you can go to get some help.' But none of that is happening.""People are doing things individually, but we're not doing a whole lot as a country," Shah says.
Jaynes says her organization is working with various government departments and the Biden administration to"create a coordinated response." This summer, the Collaborative will also work to"bring awareness of this issue to schools," Jaynes says, and convince them to add a box to student registration forms that a parent or guardian can check if their child has lost a primary caregiver to COVID.
The New York Life Foundation is also targeting Children's Grief Awareness Month in November, potentially including a National Day of Remembrance for parents and caregivers lost to COVID-19. Ng notes that kids progress through four stages of cognitive development. What level they're at affects how they understand death and grieve. The resources on this site are tailored to these stages."You can't assume all kids are the same,"Ng says.
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