Bereavement Responses of Kibbutz and Non‐kibbutz Children Following the Death of the Father

Abstract

This article examines the comparative prevalence of grief reactions, behavioral symptoms and 'pathological bereavement' in 25 kibbutz and 21 non-kibbutz children aged between 3 1/2 and 11 1/2 yr eighteen months after the death of the father in war. The findings indicate that in both kibbutz and urban settings the loss of a father becomes a serious traumatic situation for a large proportion of the children, influencing multiple areas of functioning and causing manifold behavioral symptoms. The particular differences regarding the quality of the reactive symptoms exhibited by kibbutz and non-kibbutz children appear to be related to the different sociocultural surrounding influences.

Sundered Families: The Effect of Loss of a Parent

“…Anger and aggression were much less prominent in these children compared with divorced children and similar results were found by Kaffman andElizur 1983 andVan Eerdewegh andcolleagues 1982. By the second anniversary of the death about 30 per cent of the children were symptomatic but serious problems were not significantly greater than in the general population. As with divorced children the mental and physical health of the surviving parent affected the children's well-being and the family intervention appeared to shorten the period of children's distress and improve the parental mood.…”

“…Children of divorce and bereaved children alike have been shown to have high levels of emotional disturbance (Hetherington et at 1979, Wallerstein and Kelly 1980, Kaffman and Elizur 1983, Raphael 1982, Van Eerdewegh et at 1982). In the short term approximately 50 per cent of both groups show considerable impairment of functioning and distress during the first two years following the loss.…”

Gender Differences in Grief Reactions following the Death of a Parent

“…However, other studies have found that boys may experience more negative psychological effects of parental loss than girls (Fristad, Jedel, Weller, & Weller, 1993;Lifshitz, 1976). To further complicate matters, Kaffman and Elizur (1983) found no relationship between the gender of the bereaved child and subsequent psychological adjustment. Therefore, the association between gender and depressive symptoms in parentally bereaved children remains unclear.…”

Family Protective Factors and Behavioral Outcome

“…URING THE PAST SEVERAL DECades, research has consistently suggested that exposure to stressful family events is associated with maladaptive behavior in children (Garmezy & Masten, 1994;Rutter, 1996). This has been documented in research detailing children's exposure to a multitude of family life events, including parental marital disharmony (Garmezy & Rutter, 1985;Jenkins & Smith, 1990), psychopathology in caretakers (Beardslee, Keller, & Lavori, 1988;Welner & Garrison, 1985), physical and/or sexual abuse by caretakers (Green, 1983;Kiser, Heston, Millsap, & Pruitt, 1991), divorce between caretakers (Wallerstein, 1991), and death of a parent or family member (Kaffman & Elizur, 1983;Van Eerdewegh, Clayton, & Van Eerdewegh, 1985). However, the relation between exposure to family stress and behavioral outcome might not be a direct or unidirectional one and might be moderated by several other variables.…”