My surviving children, despite their pain, always held that parental grief was the most poignant within our family, and even now they are extra conscious of the preciousness of their own children. So, the death of a child can arouse anxiety in the siblings, when they, too, have children of their own. Look at the special relationship between parent and child, a relationship that is forged in a biological and genetic way. Our role as parents is to keep our children safe, and accidental death can give rise to complex guilt feelings.
The death of child can cause relationship tensions in a family, because family members may be grieving at different rates. Misunderstandings can arise because of this. An awareness of the differences that cause such tensions increases understanding, and eases stresses. Gender differences in grief responses are likely to surface, with the mother more openly expressing her feelings, and the father being more emotionally repressed. It seems that women are more vulnerable to the death of a child than men, and complicated grief is more common among women. I cannot say if this is our experience.
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