Chief Executive Officer, Naval Children's Charity

How do you explain the trickier parts of life to a young child? 

The death of Her Majesty, The Queen earlier this month got me thinking about young people and grief. 

Her Majesty was very important to a lot of young people - especially those associated with the Royal Navy.

It might also bring up feelings about lost loved ones closer to home, especially if a relative is unwell or has recently died. 

Resources that can help adults explain difficult emotions and concepts are so valuable. We have recently developed two booklets to support children and young people and their parents and carers when a parent dies. These will be on our website soon. 

We’re also partnering with Thinkably, an online resource bank of e-books and other materials, that can help parents, guardians and teachers help children through some of life’s big questions and challenges. Naval families will be able to access this library for free for the next 12 months. 

One of the topics they cover, ‘Tech Anxiety’, has been a focus of ours over the past few months. We found there was a significant gap in understanding how serving families use social media during periods of deployment. 

We’ve commissioned the Anglia Ruskin University’s Veterans & Family Institute to look at this in more detail, in particular the differences in how parents and children use instant messaging, some of the limitations in internet based communications and how this is impacting children’s emotional wellbeing. 

You can read a summary of the launch event, or the report in full, on our website. 

Clare Scherer

Chief Executive Officer, Naval Children's Charity