Q&A | How Can I Best Help My Child In Their Grief?
SHOW NOTES SUMMARY:
When tragedy strikes or challenging times knock on a family’s door, the children involved can feel cast aside or as if they are an afterthought while the adults are experiencing their emotional crisis. However, it doesn’t have to be that way.
As adults become more knowledgeable about grief, learning new tools and new information, beliefs about grief and how to respond to it can change, too. As children’s adult caretakers/caregivers connect to their own grief and apply new knowledge and tools, they also learn new (and healthier) ways to cope with grief and loss.
Grief education begins at home and starts as early as a child having their blanket or pacifier taken away or losing a pet. This episode explores how our children can be better cared for in their grief.
RESOURCES:
CONNECT WITH VICTORIA:
_______
NEED HELP?
- National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-8255
- Crisis Text Line provides free, 24/7 support via text message. Text HOME to 741741 to connect with a trained Crisis Counselor
If you are struggling with grief due to any of the 40+ losses, free resources are available HERE.
Are you enjoying the podcast? Check out my bi-weekly newsletter, The Unleashed Letters.
Grievers Tend To Isolate
I wanna start by saying reminding listeners if it’s been a while since you’ve heard my earliest episodes or if you haven’t listened to them yet, there are six myths of loss that I discussed in this podcast and my blog posts, and all sorts of places and they’re discussed heavily in the Do Grief Differently™️ program that I facilitate. And the six myths of loss are don’t feel bad, replace the loss, grieve alone, be strong, keep busy, and time heals all wounds.
And I imagine that you’ve probably heard or had many of these taught to you as a child or that you do many of these things still today. When you are struggling in your grief or have a challenging time in your life, that’s causing grief. And the one thing that’s true is that grievers tend to isolate but it’s not natural because if you think about it, infants cry out when they hurt and we don’t isolate by nature, we isolate by training, by education, and by socialization. And we isolate because we are taught that we laugh together, but we cry alone. And so it doesn’t mean that we need to be surrounded by others 24 hours a day, seven days a week. And don’t get me wrong. I am someone that loves my solitude, and solitude is not bad.
Collecting one’s thoughts and feelings is not bad. For one am an internal processor of my emotions and my feelings and I need that time in private to do so. And if you know somebody who may be quick to anger or is maybe under a lot of stress. Maybe one thing you could ask them instead of becoming defensive is
“Hey, I see that you have been upset lately. I see that you have been angry lately.”
“Can I give you space?”
“Is that what you need? Do you need space?”
It’s kind of seeing the need before the other person really even realizes maybe what they need. But if you’re asking what that person needs or if that’s possibly what that person needs because maybe they are an internal processor of their feelings like myself. Space is exactly what they may need. But I think if you ask, what can I give you right now? That could help you or how can I best help you? And if one of those things is space, then to be respectful of that as well. Because not everybody wants to talk it out or even if they want to talk it out, maybe they’re just not ready. Or maybe you’re not a safe paint person to do that with. But we isolate because we are taught many of these different myths that I just mentioned.
How Can I Best Help My Child In Their Grief?
There is a normal and natural need to keep our own council away from others and away from busy activity and sometimes you just need to go into the bathroom and close the door and have a good cry. But the question this week is about how do I help my child in their grief? But I’m starting this episode this way because I want you to see and maybe recognize how you are responding to your own grief because if you listen to the first part of this, you heard me say, we isolate by training, by education, and by socialization. And so if as a parent or a caregiver or caretaker of a child who is grieving, who’s going through a really difficult time but doesn’t have the language, to articulate what they’re experiencing or what they’re feeling or if you assume that because they are not exhibiting behavior issues or they’re not, they’re being a good child, air quotes, good child, that they’re not struggling. You’re doing that child also a disservice because it could just be how they’re coping. It could be because every time they try to share how they’re feeling, they get a negative response.
What if our children learned different beliefs about grief?
So what if our children learned different beliefs about grief? And how to respond to it. Do you believe that that might produce better results for them in their life? Maybe even as an adult because they would have learned different ways to cope, more healthy, positive ways to cope with their grief as an adult, which in turn impacts their children because if they have children and they’re responding to their child’s grief and to their own by what they know and what they were taught as kids that may not be healthy. It may be more like those STERBS that are in one of the earlier episodes. I talk all about STERBS, the short-term energy-relieving behaviors, the gambling, the shopping, alcohol, drugs, whatever it is that people resort to feel better for a short period of time. You can see we’re learning new behaviors. Learning new ways to cope can have not only short-term but long-term benefits for children who have been raised with better beliefs about dealing with loss.
The Importance of Teaching Our Children About Grief Recovery
There was doctoral research that was done comparing children who experienced the death of a family member. And one group was made up of children whose parents or guardians had substantial awareness of the principles of grief recovery, which you can find in the grief recovery handbook, which I will link in the show notes but the second group had no knowledge of the book or any of its principles or recommended actions. The essential difference between the two sets of parents or guardians was this. One group was helped to look at their own beliefs about dealing with loss. And while the other group was not. As a direct result of looking at and adjusting their own beliefs, those parents and guardians passed on better skills and ideas to the children in their care. The children in this first relatively enlightened group made much better transitions in the area of communicating about sad, painful, or negative feelings. They can talk safely and accurately about feeling sad, then move on to other feelings. Individuals in this group do not perceive themselves to be defective when they are sad. And over time, their bond of trust with their parents and their openness about their feelings remained steadfast. This group includes children who ranged in age from four to eight when the major loss occurred in their lives.
And they have sustained positive lessons learned as the result of their parents or guardians, acquiring information about dealing more effectively with loss. Others in this study who were eight or nine when their loss occurred that were then teenagers feel incredibly safe in talking about or hearing others talk about loss. And in addition, they’re very helpful to friends who are dealing with loss. Keep in mind that what you believe is what you teach. So if you acquire more effective information about dealing with loss you will be a better teacher. And your children will be the automatic beneficiaries.
I know a lot of the people that I’ve worked with through grief recovery, who are also parents, realize a lot of ways in which they feel they failed their children just because they didn’t know the lessons and these things that they are taught through grief recovery and in my program Do Grief Differently™️. And even personally myself, like learning this information for the first time caused me a lot of grief because I can’t take back the clock. I can’t go back in time and fix how I was responding to the stressors and the grief in my life and that of my children because I simply did not know. I did not know then what I know now.
You Can Make A Change
And so if you’re hearing this information and you’ve taken part in grief recovery or if you haven’t read the book, A Grief Recovery Handbook or you listen to my previous episodes and you think “Oh my gosh, I’ve screwed up my kids or I am screwing up my kids.” I want you to be gentle with yourself and realize “yes you can’t turn back time but you can make a conscious effort and change moving forward.” You can decide to arm yourself with better knowledge, with better information, and a part of that may require you to look at your own bosses. And it helps you to connect the dots of the patterns that you’ve repeated throughout your life so that you don’t repeat those patterns and pass those patterns on to your kids. It’s often why we see so many parents who struggle with substance abuse disorder or alcoholism, who have children that struggle in the same way or in a similar way. And maybe it’s not alcohol, maybe it’s a different vice. But if we can understand and learn more helpful information and how to address our own grief. Our children are better off for it. And so my response to the person that asked me this question was to learn to be open to learning new information. Be open to learning about yourself because that’s how you integrate this new information and apply it to your own life.
And when you start applying this information to your own life, you show up differently in the lives of your kids. And so I just want to encourage anyone out there who has children or is a caretaker of children who is grieving or struggling in grief. As I can tell you, when I was a kid grieving, nobody knew what to do. Nobody had a clue, but there wasn’t anyone that I could talk to. Or anyone that was a safe person because, frankly, they weren’t comfortable talking about their own sad stuff. I mean that’s the point of it is that if we can start getting comfortable with talking about our feelings, Our kids will get comfortable talking about their feelings but you often have to go first as the adult. You do have to go first because if you’re not going to share and you’re not going to be vulnerable with your child, how do you expect them to be vulnerable with you?
P.S. I just want to encourage you to be open to new tools and new knowledge. Seek it out you can go to my website, www.theunleashedheart.com. Check out the book, The Grief Recovery Handbook. And better yet go through my program, Do Grief Differently™️, or a Group Program, specifically for grief that I also offer online and in person and address the stuff on your own doorstep. Because once you clear that life is just that much sweeter.
And you can create connected relationships, not only with your children but with other people in your life as well. I hope you found it helpful. And if you did I hope you share it or leave a review.