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Helping Children With Grief |
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Helping Children With Grief
• Understand the way you do your own grieving.
It is said that grief is the price we pay for love. How do you grieve?
Do you ignore your losses? Bury the feelings? Stay busy? Talk about
them? Probably you will use the same method with your children. You may
want to think about doing things differently with your children so that
they can have a healthy experience.
• If you express your feelings
and accept support when you need it, your children will learn from your
behavior. We adults are important role models for our children.
• Accept and acknowledge the reality that grief hurts!
Don't try to rescue the child or yourself from the pain hoping that it
will go away. Child grief work is a healing process and it is work.
• At a time of the death and well
beyond, children in grief may feel frightened, insecure, and helpless.
They need love, support and structure in their daily routine. Firm,
caring rules should not be abandoned. In fact, a routine provides that
sense of security and stability in, what to the child may be, a crazy,
scary and mixed-up world.
• When children experience a
death it is common for them to think about it happening again, either
to themselves or to another important person in their life. Especially
in the case of one parent dying, they often question who will take care
of them if the other parent dies.
• Children need information given to them that they will understand at their age level. They
need an explanation of the cause of death using the words die and/or
dead. In trying to protect our children, we may use vague terms like
going away or asleep. This only adds to their confusion. Honesty is the
best policy. Do not tell a child something he or she will have to
unlearn. Children will sense it when something is not true and will be
reluctant to trust an adult who they think is not being truthful.
• Listen to children's responses
to your explanations as well as to the questions they ask. Ask them
what they understood; ask for feedback about your explanations,
especially with the older children; and ask them what they need. It is
important to listen and respect their feelings and experiences.
• Do not close the door to doubt,
questioning, and differences of opinion. People within the same family
will have different ideas, attitudes and opinions about what happened.
This is all right as long as people have the truth.
• Watch out for kids trying to
protect grieving adults by assuming the caretaker role. Children in
grief can be quite supportive. They also seem to know instinctively
that the adults are suffering too and may be reluctant to make the
adults suffer more by being sad themselves.
• Children will often need help
in recognizing, naming, accepting, and expressing feelings. It is
helpful to suggest physical or creative activities for a child who is
in grief. For example, kicking boxes, tearing up paper, writing,
painting, yelling, throwing dishes (preferably ones purchased at a
garage sale!).
• Children can learn about death
and grief prior to the actual death of a loved one, e.g. death of a pet
-- how is this handled? Is the pain unbearable and the puppy replaced
quickly? What does this teach the child about life and death?
• Share personal religious
beliefs carefully. Children may fear or resent a God that takes to
Heaven someone they love and need. This discussion within the family is
very important so the children are not confused or frightened.
• Realize that a child's grief may be difficult to recognize.
Feelings may be expressed more in behavior than in words. Helplessness,
despair, fear, and anxiety may be acted out with aggressive behavior.
Sometimes anger is directed at the safest person, often a surviving
parent. It may not be conscious or rational but the child may feel that
the parent should have prevented this tragedy. Talking about these
feelings openly usually will mean that the child will work things out.
• Some children may go back to
earlier behavior, such as thumb sucking, bed wetting, and clinging to
parents. This is because the earlier time was a safe time, and when
they feel safe again they will no longer feel the need to do these
things.
• Anticipate and discuss possible
strains on relationships with family and other children. Individual
family members, and the family as a whole, most often are establishing
a new identity without the person who died. The other children may be
uncomfortable with your child now as they are forced to think about
death when your child is around.
• Reassure children, especially
younger ones, that they are not responsible for the person's death. All
people die. Just as thoughts or words cannot bring the person back from
death, so thoughts or words do not cause death.
• Parents need to know that once death is explained, it is not a closed subject.
The topic will surface at very interesting times. Plus, grief lasts
longer than anyone expects. Children continue to deal with grief as
they grow and mature. Significant rites of passage, such as entering
school, puberty or graduation, can be triggers for emotional reactions.
• It is a good idea to establish
lines of communication with everyone involved with the child in grief.
Keep each other informed; for instance, grief usually causes difficulty
in concentrating so school work may be affected. The balance between
understanding the effects of grief and setting realistic expectations
should be discussed with teachers, caregivers and other family members.
• Recognize the importance of rituals. Rituals allow you to channel your feelings and thoughts into an activity. They
can make your feelings more manageable. It is often helpful to plan
something at significant dates, like during a holiday season or on a
birthday. Rituals can take several forms and can be done individually
or as a family. For example, hanging a special ornament, lighting a
candle, or setting aside a special time to remember.
From GriefworksBC.com
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