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School Work and Grief

After a significant death, you may notices that your child’s grades begin to drop.  We often assume that children will move on with their daily lives  the same as  adults will.  Remember that kids’ brains aren’t even completely developed until adulthood, so an expectation for a grieving child to perform well in school may be too much to ask.  School work and grief can create some significant challenges for the parent  and the child.

Before your child has a chance to produce poor grades, make sure that you are monitoring their work.  Also, talk with teachers to find out how your child is behaving in class.  School work and grief may be more than grades.  Your child might be withdrawing from their usual school activities, like hanging out with friends or participating in class discussion.  The student may become disruptive.  All of these things will affect how they learn.

Make sure that counselors and school officials are aware of the death.  They can help support your child through this tough time.  Although kids think the teacher is just there to discipline and teach, it could be a favorite teacher who becomes a confidant to distressing feelings.  Any positive adult is a plus in the bereavement process.

Be prepared to help with homework to make sure that grief does not keep assignments from getting done.  Not only will you be helping your child keep grades good, you’ll be participating in intimate time together that can lead to healthy discussion about the death.  Encourage your child to journal or write about the loss, if the assignment allows.  Try to make the loss a celebration as the child shares the history of their relationship with the loved one.  On a more disciplined note, it may be that you just have to keep reminding your child to stick to the studies and get them done.  But also allow time for bereavement.

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A Grieving Child’s Needs Are Not the Same as Yours

Death effects everyone differently.  Never assume that what works for you will work for someone else.  And especially be aware that a grieving child’s needs are not the same as yours.  Children are not emotionally or neurologically developed to really handle grief well.  Depending on the age of the child, the needs will be different.

Preschoolers
Preschoolers have a very limited understanding of death, if any understanding at all.  When a person is no longer around, they will constantly ask where they are.  If you tell them the loved one has “gone to live with Jesus,” then the  preschooler will literally think that the  deceased is living at Jesus’ house.  If you tell them the person isn’t coming back, it will be distressing, so when you do, make sure you reassure the child that God or Jesus is taking care of the person who died and the child,  too.

Elementary
Elementary age kids are starting to form some real understanding of death.  They may get it that  death is a permanent thing, but the concept may still be murky in their minds.  Therefore, the loss will be more profound than in younger kids.  They may be clingy, whiny and even revert back to bed wetting or thumb sucking.  Make sure these  kids are getting loving attention.  They are feeling a confusing insecurity, and they are aware of the adult grief around them.  There are often kid grief camps for this age group.

Teens
This is the magical age when death is a full blown, completely understood concept.  The first death for a teenager is a really big one.  They will be devastated, so be ready for some serious emotional outbursts and pain.  If you are not able to support this kind of grief, due to your own, find a family member who can.  Teen support groups are a great help, too.  Make sure  you also keep a close watch on children who are away at college.

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Don’t Ignore Grieving Teens

When there is a significant death in the family it is important that you don’t ignore grieving teens.  This age group may not display signs of stress or sadness the way a younger child will. Teens are notoriously secretive, so parents and significant adults in the child’s life need make sure effort is made to communicate with older adolescents more than usual.

To take preventative measure to guarantee a teenager’s grief is supported, look for teen support groups in your area.  A teen may feel more comfortable talking with peers than family members.  If none are available, make sure the child is keeping contact with close friends.  Give kids credit for being able to support one another.  A grieving teen may benefit from getting away from the family grief and expressing emotions within his or her own age group.

Encourage your teenager to journal.  Writing down is are a great way to work through tough emotions.  At a later date, reviewing those early feelings may help the young person  to identify problematic trends in their  bereavement process.  If your child has an artistic flare, encourage them to create artwork that speaks to their grief.  Music is also a powerful tool when dealing with tough emotions.

In some cases, a grieving teen will benefit from professional counseling.  If you are aware of any existing issues, such as drug  use, it might be a good idea to start counseling anyway as a precautionary measure.  If religion is important, make sure clergy is involved.  Just make sure that the religious message in no way puts guilt or unreasonable feelings on the grieving teen.  It is well understood in the professional world of grief support that messages like, “It’s God’s will” are the wrong thing to say.  If the religious message in any way sounds unfair, it can alienate the teen from his or her spirituality when it’s needed most.

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Bed Wetting and Thumb Sucking Can Re-appear in a Grieving Child

Children are often underestimated in their capacity to grieve.  Even though they may be too young to fully comprehend the meaning of death, it doesn’t mean they aren’t going through their own bereavement issues.  Sometimes, regressive behaviors like bed wetting and thumb sucking can re-appear in a grieving child.

As the adults in the household work through their own grief, they may not realize how much their children are going through.  Furthermore, the children are picking up on the stress and pain in the house.  Children may withdraw from friends and family.  They may start to perform poorly in school, and they may act out.  It’s tempting to demand they stop “acting like a baby,” but kids don’t know how to express this strange set of feelings they’re having.  Some major insecurity is probably starting set in.  Some kids will even go back to baby like problems.

If your grieving child starts to wet the bed, reassure him that it’s O.K. and that you understand they are sad, lonely and scared.  Do not scold the child.  This is the last thing a bereaved kid needs.  It’s pretty embarrassing when you wet the bed after you’re potty trained.  If thumb sucking comes back, give it some real consideration.  Kids suck their thumbs in the first place as a security action.  If the behavior re-appears, then guess what?  Fear and insecurity are setting in.

If you don’t have the emotional strength to truly support your children, ask parents or aunts and uncles who are close to the child to step in and help.  The little one really needs love and attention.  He needs someone to patiently answer his questions and be honest with him.  He needs to know that Mommy is hurting, too.  Mostly, he needs to know that he is still loved and he will not be abandoned.

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Behaviors in Grieving Children

When a child suffers the loss of a loved one, they are typically not emotionally or developmentally equipped to handle the situation.  Behaviors in grieving children can go from annoying to very serious.  Children experience loss in a multitude of ways.  Age, who died, and the emotional condition of the adults closest to the child will play into the bereavement process.

The first thing to know is that age has lot to do with how children grieve.  A four year old expect the dead person to come back.  They have no idea the loss is permanent.  Therefore pre-school kids may constantly ask when grandpa is coming home.  They may want to know why he left.  As the children age, they’ll understand the loss is permanent, but they may not realize what it means to die.  However, at this stage, grieving children may become extremely insecure.  Their behaviors may be clinging, whiny and annoying.  If there is a close adult, such as a parent, who is having real difficulty with the grief process, then the irritating kid could be even more insecure.

Children need to know that the world around them is secure.  The sudden absence of a significant adult in their life sends them into very unfamiliar emotional territory.  They’ll cope however they can.  It could be that they think bad behavior will make up for the attention they perceive they’ll no longer get.  Negative attention is better than none. Some kids revert back to wetting the bed.  Teenagers may become withdrawn and may start to engage in dangerous behavior such as drug use or alcohol abuse.

Whatever the grieving children do to cope, it is extremely important for the the adults to be prepared to spend the extra time the child needs to process the loss at his or her emotional maturity level.

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Camps for Grieving Children

Until a child is about thirteen years old, he or she really doesn’t fully grasp what it means for someone to die.  Therefore many hospice organizations offer camps for grieving children.  First through sixth graders are usually the targeted group for these kinds of camps. The activities are designed to be fun while helping young kids to understand the loss and their feelings.

Some grief camps for children will include an overnight stay, but more often the camp will be a day camp where parents can drop the child off for six to eight hours.  Sometimes, these camps will also hold support groups for adult family members in tandem with the children’s activities. Typically, the camps don’t specify whether the loss is that of a sibling, parent, grandparent or other individual.  They are simply available to help the children learn to cope with the scary concept of death.

Activities are usually done in small groups.  Children may make memory boxes that can be decorated and used to store mementos that remind them of the their loved one.  They may create journals with pictures, poems and stickers to help them process the grief they are experiencing.  There is a counselor assigned to each group, and that person talks with the kids and helps them process their grief as they create their crafts.

Games such as emotional bingo may be played.  If a child doesn’t know what an emotion means, he or she can learn about it.  If they have an emotion and it gets called out, the child can be encouraged to give examples of how they feel that emotion.  Along with games that help the kids process, there’s always time for running and playing.  Each group might compete with each other in races or other games.  Lunch and snacks are also shared so that the children have unstructured opportunities to open up and learn to trust others with the uncertainty and loss.

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Thr Purpose of Grief Counseling

While many people believe that the purpose of grief counseling is to help someone “get over” the loss of a loved one, that can not be further from the truth. In reality, grief therapy or grief counseling is meant to help those who are suffering from the loss of a loved one and help that person make choices in their life that eventually show the ability to reflect positively on the loved one with memories of happy times and less pain.

Many grief counselors teach children coping skills to help them deal with their grief. While these skills do not eliminate grief, they help a child understand how to deal with feelings that arise. For example, a child who begins to feel angry about a death can stop and write a letter to the deceased or to God to get their feelings out without shouting or hurting anyone.

Another coping skill that children often learn in grief counseling is called story telling. When grieving children feel a wave of sadness rush over them, it is often helpful for the child to share a story with others of a happy time with that person.

The most important thing a grief counselor can do, is make sure that the child who is grieving does not feel any responsibility for the death over which they are grieving. Children need to understand that it is okay to not be able to control everything, and that this there was nothing that they could do to prevent this death nor to bring the person they are missing back to them.

Prayer can be another important coping skill that covers a wide range of grief-related emotions. Sadness, anger, questioning, and many other emotions can be sent to Heaven in a prayer. This also helps the grieving child understand that he or she is not in control of the world and when they need help, it is best to call on someone.

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Talking Makes a Difference

When children grieve, it is important that they know they can talk about the grief as much as they want. Talking not only lets out emotions, but it also helps caregivers pick out any misunderstandings or misconceptions the children have. Being able to catch a new fear or hang-up in the early stages can save caregivers a lot of trouble in the future, as well as a lot of time dealing with worse issues. It can save the child a lot of emotional pain as well.

It is also helpful to make sure that children who are talking through their grief understand how to have boundaries. They need to know who they can talk to. This could include a teacher, counselor, parent, clergy member, etc.

They also need to know that it might not be okay to talk to some people. A younger sibling or friend might not be as ready to handle things the way he or she is. This can cause confusion and fear in the younger child. Sharing too much information with a seemingly understanding stranger can cause a child to be putting him or herself in harms way if the stranger uses the confidences and weaknesses of the child to take advantage of him or her in some way.

Most importantly, never give a grieving child the impression that the grief should be kept inside or bottled up. Letting them know that there are times and places where sharing too much may be inappropriate, but that there are many times when it is safe and healthy to share their thoughts and their feelings.

Suppressed feelings turn to anger, rage, and depression. It is much better to take the time to deal with the feelings of grief now than it to have to deal with the outward manifestations of the rage or depression in the future as these are much harder to deal with than grief itself.

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Music Therapy for Grieving Children

Many different types of therapy have to shown to be helpful for children who are grieving over the loss of a loved one. Music therapy is one that is used, but is not considered by the majority of people as there have not been a large number of studies on the therapy itself.

There are two main types of music therapy for grief. The first involves the actual playing of soothing music. Music has long been known to help calm children and help with the stress and anxiety that come with grief. Playing the soothing music on a regular basis, at bed times, and sometimes even keeping it with them on an mp3 player is one way that this type of therapy can help. It is all about soothing the child’s fear and anxieties concerning the death of a loved one.

The second type of music therapy involves the creation of music and using music in a group setting to help the children get out their feelings concerning the person they have lost. Children can write songs in honor of the person he or she has lost.

Young children can also play instruments along with others in the group while singing about their feelings. In this instance it helps the others in the group that the child is getting used to sharing feelings and letting others share their feelings as well.

The most important part of any type of therapy, music therapy included, is helping the child who is grieving to understand that it is not only okay to share his or her feelings about the person that he or she has lost, but it is healthy to do so.

Music can be used in many different ways as therapy for grieving children. The power of soothing music has been used for centuries, and if it helps a child process hard to deal with feelings, then it should not be overlooked as a therapeutic option.

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What not to say

People in general often grieve for much longer than other people (those on the outside of the situation) believe they should. This is also true with children. In fact, some children tend to grieve much longer than others. Those who deal with grieving children need to understand that there is no correct amount of time for anyone to grieve.

Children have to be given the time and space they need to get on with their lives. Often, well-meaning people make comments that are hurtful to those who are grieving. Here are a few things that should never be said to a grieving child:

*It is time to get over this and get on with your life.
*You should be feeling better by now.
*I know how you feel.
*This was God’s will or God’s timing.
*Don’t cry.
*Things will be normal again soon.
*You just have to stop thinking/talking about him/her.

These things are so hurtful to someone who is already hurting. It makes them feel that the speaker is not only unsupportive, but also insensitive. These statements are almost worse than avoiding the grieving child or ignoring the situation completely.

There are many appropriate ways to show support to a child who has lost a loved one. Often, just talking about the person who has died can make a grieving person feel better. Grieving children love to know that people still think about their loved one, and hearing stories about that person can help ease feelings of loneliness. Any one of these statements can help.

*Do you need a hug?
*Do you want to talk about him/her?
*I remember one great time we had together…
*I have never been through this, but I want help. Please tell me what I can do for you.
*I love you.

Talking in general is the most important part of the bereavement process. Children need to know that their feelings are not only okay, but they are normal.

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