Dealing with death: The role of animal-themed literature in supporting children with grief and loss

Abstract

Abstract The way that children deal with, and develop an understanding of death has long-term effects on their development and wellbeing. Mental health practitioners regularly turn to bibliotherapy (the use of books), many of which portray non-human animals as central characters, as a therapeutic tool for bereaved children. However, the extent to which non-human animal characters are used to assist children dealing with loss and dying, nor how and why it is used, particularly in relation to available therapies, is not well understood. To explore this, we conducted an online survey of 47 Australian mental health practitioners ( M = 45.55 years of age, SD = 12.81; 80.9% female) who specialise in providing grief counselling to children (average of 13.26 years +/− 10.05 of professional experience). Overall, just over half (60.0%, n = 24/40) of practitioners preferred to use animal-themed death literature. However, it was not the most frequently used, nor considered the most effective therapeutic option across all age groups. There was a clear reduction in perceived usefulness with age. Bibliotherapy with animal characters was considered most effective for children between the ages of 2 and 7, and least effective for those over 12. Thematic analyses of open-ended responses revealed three overarching themes: (1) Animal-themed bibliotherapy was viewed as helpful in creating a bridge to access children’s emotions and providing a safe space to share them. (2) Practitioners considered animal-characters helpful for developing accurate death conceptualisation in younger children due to their familiarity with animals. Familiarity helps to encourage children to apply their observations of animal life cycles to human death, children identify with animal-characters, and they generally find animals appealing. (3) Its adoption by a therapist is dependent on children’s unique characteristics, practitioners’ personal preferences and the availability of appropriate literature. Findings from this study provide insight into practitioner perceptions of the role animal-characters play in children’s understanding of death at different ages and help to inform subject-matter choice for bibliotherapy literature. Animal-themed death literature has application as an adjunct therapy tool to assist children experiencing grief related to death and dying, but also more broadly (e.g., teachers and caregivers) to foster a healthy understanding of death in children.