Grieving for a disabled child

Families with disabled children are often viewed with a mixture of pity and admiration but when a disabled child dies the family, who have already endured a type of grieving process, may experience other people’s disbelief that we loved our child as much as any parent. We may be thought not to be deserving of the sympathy that is offered to those who have lost a “normal” child and this may make us very angry,

In addition, we may have had to spend more time than usual caring for our children’s needs and so their death may leave more time to fill; we may have come to know health and social workers as friends through our regular visits to hospitals and clinics and find ourselves now without their support; and there may be feelings of guilt that social activities, which have been limited by the disabled child’s problems, are no longer constrained

All these issues and more are covered in TCF’s leaflet Grieving for Our Disabled Child.