4 Elementary School–Aged Children 99
Parents also encounter an economic toll after a child’s death. Recent
research indicates that the costs associated with funerals and time off from
jobs for bereavement leave actually pale in comparison to economic costs asso-
ciated with “presenteeism”—being present at one’s work site but not fulfill-
ing duties or being able to work at typical levels of efficacy and efficiency
(Fox, Cacciatore, & Lacasse, 2014). Fox et al. (2014) observe that others have
found that overall lifetime earnings of bereaved parents are lower than those
not bereaved, but it is unclear whether this is due to ramifications of low-
ered productivity while on the job (“presenteeism”) or the result of changes in
bereaved parents’ work priorities or capabilities that find them assuming less
demanding but lower paying employment.
Forgotten Mourners—The Grandparents
With lifespans extending into the 80s and 90s, many grandparents experience
the death of a grandchild. Like parents, grandparents inhabit an assumptive
world in which grandchildren outlive both themselves and the grandchild’s
parents. When grandchildren die, grandparents are believed to experience a
double-loss in that they mourn the grandchild with whom they often had a
special relationship, and their child who is bereaved and whom they cannot
comfort. Recent research identifies grandparents as experiencing five aspects
of pain: pain from previous bereavements; pain from the loss of the grand-
child; the pain of witnessing the son or daughter’s grief; the pain of witnessing
subsequent negative changes in the son or daughter; and pain that is common
to all grief (Gilrane-McGarry & O’Grady, 2011). Providing support for adult
children while mourning a grandchild is clearly stressful. New loss triggers
older/prior losses and grandparents may be particularly vulnerable to cumu-
lative grief as they are likely to have accumulated more losses. Regardless, it is
important not to forget grandparents when developing bereavement resources
following the death of an elementary school-aged child.
Losses (Nondeath) Related to Child Protective Services
Sometimes parents and grandparents lose custody and care of their children
due to their removal from the home by child protective services (CPS). In the
first edition of this book, Tara Sinclair traced the long-term consequences for a
child (Nina in Chapter 3) after her removal from her parents; those consequences
included attachment problems and difficulty trusting on the part of the child.
Parents have consequences too. Nixon, Radtke, and Tutty (2014) have empirically
confirmed what has long been assumed: mothers experience deep pain and grief
when their children are removed by CPS. They explore the particularly fraught
situation where children are removed from their mother when there is intimate
partner violence (IPV). Mothers’ ambiguous grief of not knowing where their
child is, whether she or he is being well-cared for, and losing her identity as a
mother are such destabilizing losses that one of the mothers actually returned to
her abuser looking for comfort (Nixon et al., 2013). They note that women’s par-
enting has often been controlled within the IPV relationship and the removal of
