Helping Them Grieve

MAINTAIN ROUTINE

Figure out the child’s routine and stick to it. “The younger the child- babies included the more important this is. Even when a child does not understand death, it’s important to keep a routine in place”. Children do things at a specific time in a certain way, so someone needs to step in to maintain that. If a child loses a primary caregiver they experience a “broken attachment”.

The best way to stop this happening is for someone to fill the gap. Then a child learns that when things go wrong other people will be there. “If that does not happen, they learn that when things go wrong they get left behind. This has a profound developmental impact.” Try to stick to a routine and introduce changes gradually.

BE CONSISTENT AND HONEST

A child will ask different people what happened to their parent. Make sure everyone tells the same story. “Children know death is a painful subject, but not allowing them to talk adds to their suffering and confusion.” Children need honest answers. If a parent died violently, stick to the truth without giving all the details. For example, say ‘A cruel man hurt mummy and she died.

Young children understand things literally, so avoid euphemism like ‘gone to sleep’. If you don’t tell them the truth they’ll hear it from someone else or make up their own story, which could be worse. Sometimes adults think children need to be protected and a child is relocated to live with a relative without knowing why.

GIVE CHOICES AND CAUSES

Explain what a funeral is and, if the child is old enough to understand, ask if they want to attend. Let them decide. Try to help them understand, according to your beliefs, where the person who has died is now. Make sure the child knows that their parent isn’t coming back and that the funeral is when people say goodbye. Explain what will happen during the funeral and afterwards regularly ask if they would like to visit the grave.

MODEL APPROPRIATE BEHAVOUR

It’s okay for you to cry and for a child to see you crying. Hiding your emotions is not healthy for anyone. Be honest about how you are feeling, but find middle ground. Crying to the point that you are no longer functional – you stop feeding the child or stop doing chores – is not modeling good behavior. The child will learn that when go wrong, things stop working. Show sadness and talk about the person who died and bring them into conversations. ‘Your mother would have loved that dress’ or ‘I wish your mother was here to celebrate your birthday.’ “If you don’t show them how to behave, they will come up with less appropriate ways to cope with their grief.”

EACH DAY IS DIFFERENT

Some people think that during the grieving process a person moves through different stages with each day being better than the last. But grief does not follow a sequence or last a certain amount of time. It’s therefore important to allow a child to grieve in their own way. You are in a boat with your family meandering down the river of life. At some point the bottom falls away and the boat tumbles down a waterfall. You all fall out of the boat and someone dies.

As you reach the bottom of the waterfall you hit the whirlpool of grieve. You are gasping for breath, hardly able to keep your head above water. You go around and round in shock, in denial, not believing. At some point you end up on the rocks, battered and bruised and feeling as though you aren’t in your own life.

You think you aren’t going to survive. But then, at some point, which varies for everyone, you will find yourself back in the boat. There are other people in the boat and, for a moment, you think you may survive. Then, for no reason, you fall out of the boat and are back on the rocks – it may be a birthday, an anniversary, the first Christmas, no reason, but you are crushed as before.

“Eventually you manage to get back into the boat and continue along the river of life. The boat doesn’t contain the same people but there are people in it – some from before and others that are new. You are back the journey of life. Eventually, you will find calm water”

HELP THE HEALING PROCESS

There are various activities that can help a child process grief and heal.

• Create a memory box containing tangible memories – like scarf or ring – of the person who died, or cut out images from magazines that are reminders. This is useful for all ages and particularly if a parent died when the child was a baby.
• Build a memorial by making a collage using all kinds of objects around the house, including images. This is helpful for all ages from three upwards.
• Draw a freedom bird when someone dies, we all wish we had told certain things. A child feels the same way. The freedom bird is an opportunity to write down what they wanted to say. Draw the outline of a bird and write messages on it. This is useful when the child can write.
• Color a stripy remembrance painting on sheet of paper, draw lots of lines in different colors. Ask the child to cut holes in the lines for every person in their life who has died. The holes can be any shape or size. Let the child hold up the picture and see the gaps. At this point, the child’s life, like the picture, has a big hole with wind blowing through it. They feel incomplete and empty, but explain that they won’t always feel that way. Give them another piece of paper to cut shapes to stick onto the back of the page covering the holes. Like the picture, their lives will never go back to the way they were but the gaping holes will close up. They will still miss the person, but won’t feel broken forever. This is helpful from ages four to twelve.