The death of a brother or sister at any age profoundly changes the lives of surviving siblings. Research shows that it adversely affects surviving children's health, behavior, schoolwork, self-esteem, and development.

           Surviving siblings may be troubled throughout life by a vulnerability to loss and painful upsurges of grief around the date when the sibling died. They may develop distorted beliefs about hospitals, doctors, and illness. Many bereaved siblings describe feeling sad, lonely, and different from their peers.

          The impact of loss will be felt most by the brother or sister who shared the most "lifespace" with the one who died. Siblings who shared a room, who played together, and spent their spare time together are likely to be those most profoundly affected.

          Many are troubled by guilt due to the ambivalent nature of the sibling relationship. Upon the death of the brother or sister, they remember forcibly all the fights and name-calling, seeing themselves in memory as the bad child and the dead sibling as the good one. This split in self-concept results in the feeling that they are not good enough.

           A child's experience of losing a sibling depends partly on their understanding of death, which is associated with age and developmental level. These age ranges are approximate, and you (as a child) or your child (if you are a parent reading this) may have a broader understanding than those described here.

          Infants suffer both from the absence of their loved sibling and from the grief of their caregivers. The grief stricken family members are not as attuned to the baby as they were prior to the loss. The household becomes less structured and their routines may change, routines that give young babies a feeling of safety and security.

          Toddlers think of death as temporary and reversible. They say things like "Well if Susie is in heaven, we can send her letters, can't we?" They think in concrete terms (what they can see or touch) and may not comprehend why their beloved sibling is lying in a box, or why he or she isn't at home waiting for them when they come back from the funeral.

Toddlers grieving the loss of a sibling may regress to an earlier stage of development, for example, wetting the bed after they had already become toilet trained. Children in the younger age groups may have thought about an

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