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Helping Children Cope with Stress

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You can refer to this book as your children encounter all the horrors modern children face: divorce, death, substance abuse, etc. It is meant to be a resource for non-therapists to use in time of crisis.

Brenner gives us insight into the coping strategies children often use, distinguishing between those which are healthy and those which are dysfunctional. Symptoms are described in charts which make it easier when to call in specialists and how to help children ourselves.

At times of grief Brenner suggests that we share adult sadness and tears with children, support crying, join in yearning, review pleasant and unpleasant memories of the dead person, make a memory book of photos captioned by the child, collect home movies, videotapes and tape recordings for this memory file. That we accept and facilitate regression (if wanted, give a toddler a bottle) yet support attempts to regain mature skills. That we allow the child to search for the dead person until the child feels the search has been thorough. And then we help the child talk about repeated disappointments.

This book also has excellent bibliographic material.