Spiritual Care for Children in the End-of-Life Setting

Both healthy and life-threatened ill children and youth exhibit thoughts and feelings of a spiritual, existential, and/or religious nature. These thoughts and feelings increase when a child is confronted with serious illness and/or impending death. This chapter presents literature on how to care spiritually for children in an end-of-life setting, whether they are relatives of a dying family member or terminally ill themselves. We introduce cases from an ongoing empirical study. The study is based on 17 qualitative research interviews with children and youth from 6 to 23 years of age and numerous visits in hospices across Denmark from the fall 2021 until spring 2023. The children and youth are relatives of either a mother, a father, a grandparent, a great grandparent, or a spouse who is dying. Four aspects seemed particularly important in terms of providing spiritual care for children. These are: (1) The caring conflict, (2) The conversation, (3) The confrontation with death, and (4) Alone in my world. This chapter provides perspectives and concrete guidance on how to care for and communicate with children at different age stages about their existential concerns in an end-of-life setting.