Helping Children Cope with Death [Paperback]

Donna L. Schuurman (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 1, 1998

This guidebook offers a comprehensive, easy-to-read overview of how children grieve and strategies to support them. Based on The Dougy Center’s work with thousands of grieving children and their families, you will learn how children understand death, how to talk with children about death at various developmental stages, how to be helpful and when to seek outside help. This book is useful for parents, teachers, helping professionals and anyone trying to support a grieving child.

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About the Author

Since 1983, The Dougy Center for Grieving Children & Families has provided loving support in a safe place where children, teens and their families grieving a death can share their experiences as they move through their healing process. Based in Portland, Oregon, The Dougy Center works regionally, nationally and internationally to provide support and training to individuals and organizations seeking to assist children in grief.

The Dougy Center is supported solely through private support from individuals, foundations and companies, and receives no state or federal funding. The Dougy Center does not charge a fee for its services.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Six Basic Principles About Children and Grief

1. Grief is a natural reaction to loss.

Grief is a natural reaction to loss. When a person dies, those who loved him or her, or who are impacted by the death, experience grief. This is true for infants through adults, although the reaction will vary from person to person. Grief does not feel natural in part because we cannot always control our response or the experience. The sense of being out of control may be overwhelming or frightening, yet grieving is natural, normal and healthy. 2. Each person's experience is unique.

While many theories and models of the grieving process may provide a helpful framework for understanding grief, the path itself is a lonely, solitary and unique one for every individual. No book, article, or grief therapist can predict or prescribe exactly what a child, teen, or an adult will -- or should -- go through or experience. Those who wish to assist people in grief do best by walking with them, in the role of listener and learner, allowing the griever to teach them about about his or her unique grief journey.

3. There are no "right" and "wrong" ways to grieve.

Coping with a death does not follow a set pattern or set of rules. There is no "right" or "wrong" way to grieve. There are, however, "helpful" and "unhelpful" choices and behaviors. Some choices and behaviors are constructive, life-affirming actions, while others are destructive and harmful, causing long-term complications. Because the sheer pain of loss often feels "crazy," it may be challenging to decide which thoughts, feelings and actionsare helpful, and which are not. Usually grieving children get plenty of advice from others about what they should and shouldn't do, feel, think and believe following a death. What they usually need more than advice is a non-judgmental listening ear, helping them to sort through the options and alternatives.

4. Every death is different, and will be experienced in differing ways.

Children commonly react in different ways to the death of a parent, sibling, other relative or friend. It makes sense --each relationship meets different needs and is uniquely personal. Some of the grief literature talks about loss in an almost competitive way as if some losses are worse than others. You may read that the death of a child is "the worst loss." Or that suicide is the hardest to "get over." Comparisons about which death is the worst are not helpful, and may lead to unrealistic expectations or demands. While an individual may speak for himself or herself about what he or she experiences, one cannot categorically say that any loss is worse than, or easier than, another.

Within a family each person may grieve very differently, too. For example, one member may want to talk, another may cry all the time, and another may want to be alone. This can create a great deal of stress and difficulty within an already-stressed family. Each person’s way should be honored as his or her way of coping.

5. The grieving process is influenced by a multitude of issues.

There are many issues impacting how one reacts to a death. Some of these include: the strength of the social support systems available (family, friends, community, colleagues); the nature of the death and how the griever interprets that; whether or not there was "unfinished business" between the griever and the person who has died, and the previous nature of that relationship; and the emotional and developmental age of the griever.

6. Grief never ends. It is something you never get "over."

This is perhaps one of the least understood aspects of grief in our society. It seems most people are anxious for us to put the loss behind us, to go on, to get over it. When a significant person dies, his or her death leaves a vacuum in the lives of those left behind. Life is never the same again. This doesn't mean life can never again be joyful, or that the experience of loss cannot be transformed into something positive. But grief does not have a magical ending time. People report pangs of loss, pain or grief 40, 50 or 60 years after a death.

Product Details

• Paperback: 46 pages
• Publisher: Dougy Center (April 1, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1890534005
• ISBN-13: 978-1890534004
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.3 x 0.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #789,401 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #79 in Books > 4-for-3 Books > Health, Mind & Body > Death & Grief > Grief & Bereavement