When a Child Dies - Parents' Pain and Recovery

Dr. Carol Francis, Psychologist, explores parents' pain when a child dies on Dr. Carol Francis Talk Radio archived at BlogTalkRadio.com/dr-carol-francis.com .   Losing a child to an accident, illness, natural disaster, suicide or war is devastating.  Parents become riddled with grief and a deep unbelieveable sadness.  When a child dies, huge portions of a loving-parent's will to live dies too.  Deep, serious clinical depression accompanies such bereavement.

Guilt and the "if only I had's" plague the daily tortured parental thoughts.  Being responsible for the daily care for young children conditions conscientious parents to remain feeling responsible for a child's life.  When a child dies, those feelings of responsibility continue as nagging self-doubts.  

Nightmares and horrific imaginings about a child's painful death or tortures or evils suffered fill in the parent's gap of knowledge as well.  

Years and years pass and still the sting of missing your child's anniversary events haunts parents.  "She would have being going to the prome too."  "He would have gotten his driver's license this year."  Seeing other families, parents and children frolic in the daily routines is a painful reminder that such family happiness is very far away from the pangs of missing out on their child's growth steps.  

Dr. Carol Francis discusses recoverying from such sad and yet common events with mother and author, Pamela Yount.  Pamela Yount wrote how she evolved out of the pain of losing her son to AIDS in her book Wismatic.