A Thematic Analysis of Stressors Experienced by Young Adults Navigating Grief After Parental Death

Gaylord National 

One of the most significant challenges young people can face is the death of a parent. Parental death disrupts a child's life and grief associated with the death can contribute to an array of stressors. The dual process model of coping with bereavement points to a combination of loss-oriented stressors, which focus on grief and strain related to the death itself, and restoration-oriented stressors, which stem from difficulty moving forward in life without the deceased. This study examined the sources of loss-oriented and restoration-oriented stressors that children of dead parents describe within an online community of their peers. We collected a sample of 100 threads, consisting of an initial post and all responses to the initial post (N = 901 individual posts) from the subreddit /r/ChildrenofDeadParents from December 2021 to January 2022. All posts were subjected to a thematic analysis to identify relevant categories and the resulting themes were organized into loss- and restoration-oriented stressors. Four themes reflected loss-oriented stressors, including: (a) sense of unfairness; (b) connection with the dead parent; (c) guilt and regret; and (d) pondering "what if." Five themes reflected restoration-oriented stressors, including: (a) growing around grief; (b) difficulty relating to others; (c) identity and self-concept concerns; (d) navigating special events and notable milestones; and (e) tensions in the family. These categories are discussed in terms of their theoretical and practical implications.