Love your parents and treat them with loving care, for you will only know their value when you see their empty chair Unknown. Currently, in America, most children take their parents or guardians for granted. Most children presume their parents are out to ruin their lives and are awfully bothersome. However, it is extremely difficult for children to imagine their lives without their parents. What if a child woke up one morning to find their parent to be gone forever? To have a parent die dramatically affects a childs life and makes them come to the realization of the thoughtfulness and love in their parents words and actions. In a national poll of 531 American children and teenagers who had lost a parent, 62% of the 531 children said they would give a year of their life to spend one more day with the person who died (National Poll). When born, a child is copiously dependent on their parents for love and life. Yet in the m
idst of growing up, children soon become independent find love in and from other things, and believe they are capable of taking care of themselves. Once a childs parent dies, the child is now considered a bereaved child. To be bereaved means to be deprived of a loved one through a profound absence, especially due to the loved one’s death. After a parents death, many bereaved children can suffer from long-term mental illnesses such as depression if they do not participate in activities to help with the recovery process. In the same poll mentioned earlier, 66% of the 531 children say that the death of their family member was the worst thing to ever happen to them (National Poll). The death of a parent causes children to respond with changes in emotion, attitude, and action and bereaved children of all ages must find activities to help them cope and recover from the death before they face long-term depression and despair.