Parental death in young children’s lives: health professionals’ and kindergarten teachers’ contributions in meaning-making

The present study focused on professionals’ meaning-making support to young children (1–6 years old) anticipating and grieving the loss of a parent because of a severe, somatic disease. A two-phased interview study with palliative health-care professionals (11) and kindergarten teachers (18) provided data for a comparative analysis of professionals’ contribution in making meaning about parental death across the contexts of palliative health care and kindergarten. The analysis focused on forms of interactions and resources for meaning making. Dialogues in the health systems centred on death and dying as natural, biomedical processes and relied on the dead or dying body as a context-specific resource for meaning making. The dialogues in the kindergarten centred on trying to understand the affected child’s behaviour and emotional expressions together with the peer group. Keywords: early childhood education, palliative care, parental death, children (1-6yrs), meaning-makin