Is Art Therapy Helpful for Children Dealing with Grief and Loss?
If you are searching for grief counseling for a child, I want to extend my condolences. Searching for therapist for a child at any time means they are going through something difficult, and grief is especially difficult. Their world has changed in an instant, and now you are trying to help them cope and get through each day.
How Are Children Affected by Grief?
You may have already witnessed some of the ways the child in your life has been impacted by loss. Grief impacts people differently. Several factors contribute to how someone grieves. For children, one of the contributing factors is their stage of development. Within a child’s stage of development, there are some key things you may notice when a child is grieving.
I work mainly with elementary school-aged children; however, children of all ages may exhibit behavioral changes. A typically outgoing child may become reserved, or a compliant child may suddenly argue every rule. With grief in general, some adults and children express their emotions more externally. They cry more easily. A lack of crying does not indicate that someone, even a child, is not grieving.
Sometimes a child will demonstrate behaviors from an earlier stage of development, referred to as “Regressed behavior”. An elementary school child may wet the bed or want to sleep with parents. Commonly, grieving children do struggle with sleep issues. They may be having thoughts about the person who died, or even a pet that died. Some, depending on their developmental level, may develop a whole host of worries they never had before. These worries may manifest as somatic concerns, such as stomach aches and headaches. All driven by worried thoughts and anxious bodies.
Grief can look a lot like depression. Some individuals will present with deep sadness and withdrawal, but some with irritability. Your child may be having a difficult time processing all the emotions they feel about the loss.
Outward grief expressions may show up months or even years later. A child who grieves a major loss may revisit that loss in a later stage of development and during milestones. A child in 3rd grade, who experiences the death of a parent, will also grapple with it as they move on to middle school, then again in high school and graduation. As an adult, as they get married, have children, reach the age of the deceased parent, and at other times, their loss can reemerge. This is why getting support for children matters.
How Do Children Understand Grief?
Younger children have limited cognitive understanding and often engage in magical thinking. It is very difficult for them to understand that death is final. They don’t often grasp that universally, all things die.
As a therapist in San Marcos, I work with elementary school-aged children and their parents. This stage, referred to as latency age, typically occurs between the ages of 6-11, or 12. Children this age can think more logically and concretely about many things. They can understand death as a person or a pet stops breathing and their heart no longer beats. What comes with this knowledge is fear about their own death or the death of someone else close to them. However, they still need clear information about a death.
Children of all ages will ask questions, sometimes repeatedly, to help them understand. Children can also wonder if they caused the death somehow because they were angry with the person, or did something wrong, and will carry misplaced guilt about the person's death.
How Does Art Therapy Help Children with Grief?
How do you put into words that someone you love is no longer living in your presence? How do you express that life will never be the same? Expressions of grief are important for processing the pain of the loss. Yet, grief is often beyond words, making talking about it in therapy difficult for adults and children alike. It’s a gut-level feeling.
Grief involves making sense of what has happened and integrating the loss into one’s life story (Neimeyer, 2001). Art Therapy provides unique ways to communicate about loss, deep feelings, and about a person or situation in symbolic ways. It helps a person with the meaning-making.
The feelings of grief can feel overwhelming, like a flood that will carry you away. Art made in art therapy can contain difficult emotions. They can be held at a distance. This feels safer, more manageable. It also provides a sense of control, in that you are making choices. Choices feel empowering when we face a loss because we don’t choose to have someone die.
Art Therapy, by its very nature, relies much, much less on words. As a sensory experience, creating art has the power to settle the nervous system.
What Are the Positive Benefits of Art Therapy with Grief?
Knowing the benefits of therapy can provide hope that things can improve for your child. Through my work with hospice organizations, I often worked with children providing Art Therapy, as I still do now. While I have seen Art Therapy help children give voice to horrible things that have happened in their lives, here are some of the benefits that research suggests about Art Therapy with children:
Emotional Regulation & Coping
One of the main things that parents share during consultation calls is how their child is struggling with regulating their emotions. Research shows that bereaved children are at increased risk for emotional dysregulation and anxiety (Melhem et al., 2008). Art therapy has been shown to improve emotional expression and regulation in youth across clinical settings (Bosgraaf et al., 2020; Versitano et al., 2025).
Increased coping skills
Parents tell me how they are trying to help their child cope, and they’re struggling. Creative expression helps children externalize difficult emotions and build adaptive coping strategies (Bosgraaf et al., 2020). Meaning-making processes are central to healthy grief adaptation (Neimeyer, 2001).
Reduced Anxiety:
One thing that often comes up with children who are grieving is increased anxiety. Death anxiety, fears of separating from a parent, and feelings that the world is no longer a safe place. Meta-analytic evidence indicates that art therapy significantly reduces anxiety symptoms in children and youth when compared to controls. (Zhang et al., 2024).
Art Therapy interventions have also been associated with a reduction in anxiety and depression for children dealing with their own cancer. (Zhou et al., 2025). Their overall emotional functioning showed improvements, as did stress levels. While this is a loss not associated with the death of a parent or family member, it is nevertheless a form of loss.
Another study concluded that art therapy can meaningfully reduce children’s pain and anxiety during stressful medical procedures. (Ramji et al., 2025).
Improved sleep or school functioning
Sleep issues are often paired with anxiety and dysregulation. Anxiety also often impacts how a child learns in school. As emotional regulation and anxiety symptoms improve, many families report secondary improvements in sleep and school functioning.
Continued bond with loved one
Art Therapy interventions can be tailored to help children create tangible reminders of a loved one, to contribute to continuing bonds. Modern grief research recognizes that maintaining a symbolic, internal connection with a loved one can be part of healthy adaptation rather than a sign of being “stuck” (Klass et al., 1996). Children often revisit and reinterpret loss as they grow developmentally (Worden, 1996).
What Kinds of Things Will My Child Be Doing in Art Therapy for Grief?
Asking what your child will be doing in therapy is an important question whenever your child will be working with a trained licensed therapist for any reason. Goals and treatment plans guide the kinds of things kids “do” in therapy. A treatment plan is created based on goals for therapy. Setting a goal or goals for therapy is something therapists will work with you to develop based on the specifics of the loss and your child’s response.
The treatment plan guides a therapist in introducing interventions. The first and most important intervention will be to connect with your child and help them feel safe to begin expressing what feels inexpressible. Once safety is established, providing opportunities for your child to draw, paint, work with clay, and other materials will take center stage.
Interventions will flow from how your child processes information and emotions, as well as what art materials they naturally gravitate toward. That said, art therapy for grief and loss is not an art class or an open studio where sessions are undirected. The goal set for therapy guides the therapist and their interventions with your child.
For some children, telling the story of the death through drawing may be a key element of their therapy. Others may spend a great deal of time identifying and expressing their deep feelings through clay work or painting. Art therapy can involve working with photos of loved ones, and creating special projects using boxes to hold keepsakes and memories.
If you have more questions about how Art Therapy can help your child with grief and loss please visit my Grief Counseling for children page.
I am Tamatha "Tami" Earnhart, LMFT, ATR, a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and Registered Art Therapist serving North County San Diego.
I help children and adults manage anxiety, grief, and life’s stressful events through talk therapy and art therapy. By combining evidence based strategies with creative expression, I guide clients in understanding their emotions, building coping skills, and strengthening resilience.
I specialize in Art Therapy, Child Therapy for Anxiety, and Anxiety Therapy for Adults. Learn more about my approach and services on my therapy website.
Resources for Further Learning
Bosgraaf, L., Spreen, M., Pattiselanno, K., & van Hooren, S. (2020). Art therapy for psychosocial problems in children and adolescents: A systematic narrative review on art therapeutic means and forms of expression, therapist behaviour, and supposed mechanisms of change. Frontiers in Psychology, 11, 584685. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.584685
Klass, D., Silverman, P. R., & Nickman, S. L. (Eds.). (1996). Continuing bonds: New understandings of grief. Taylor & Francis.
Melhem, N. M., Porta, G., Shamseddeen, W., Walker Payne, M., & Brent, D. A. (2008). Grief in children and adolescents bereaved by sudden parental death. Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, 47(10), 1156–1163.
Neimeyer, R. A. (2001). Meaning reconstruction and the experience of loss. American Psychological Association.
Ramji, B. K., Mahalakshmi, B., & Subramanian, S. N. (2025). Effectiveness of art therapy on pain and anxiety in children undergoing invasive medical procedures. Annals of Pediatric Research & Reports, 21(10), 3843–3846.
Versitano, S., Tesson, S., Lee, C.-W., Linnell, S., & Perkes, I. (2025). Art therapy with children and adolescents experiencing acute or severe mental health conditions: A systematic review. Australian & New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry. Advance online publication.
Worden, J. W. (1996). Children and grief: When a parent dies. Guilford Press.
Zhang, B., Wang, J., & Abdullah, A. B. (2024). The effects of art therapy interventions on anxiety in children and adolescents: A meta-analysis. Clinics, 79, 100404.
Zhou, S., Li, H., Yang, Y., Qi, Y., Liu, W., & Wong, C. L. (2025). Effects of art therapy on psychological outcomes among children and adolescents with cancer: A systematic review and meta-analysis. BMC Complementary Medicine and Therapies, 25, 149.
