Customer Reviews

When Children Grieve: For Adults to Help Children Deal with Death, Divorce, Pet Loss, Moving, and Other Losses

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I am a conservative, grumpy, old, Lutheran pastor, vehemently opposed to all things "New Age." I despise the fads of pop-psychology. "Touchy-Feely" advice from so-called experts, who demand exorbitant fees, often makes me want to wretch. So, I approached this book filled with trepidation.

There was no need for my concerned.

Writing with extraordinary gentleness and common sense Mr. James, Mr. Friedman and Dr. Matthews have provided adults with an invaluable outline on how to shepherd the children in their lives through loss, grief and recovery. Every parent, grandparent, teacher, pastor, priest, rabbi, nurse or physician who expects the children in their lives to suffer the death of a pet, suffer the death of a relative, move or endure a divorce will benefit from reading this book.

Do yourself a favor. Read this book for the sake of the children whom you love. It is well worth the investment of your time.

Then, do yourself a second favor, and place a copy of this book in your church, synagogue or public library for the others who will grow by reading it.

This book should be required for all parents. If you want to understand the basics of human and/or child behavior, this book is a must read. The book succinctly and lovingly explains the concept of "loss" and the emotional and physical responses to it-what we would normally call grief.

The beauty of this book is that grief is placed in a larger context. In other words, according to the authors, grief is the response when experiencing a "massive change or end from everything familiar." Therefore, children, and adults, can grieve a variety of situations: loss of a pet, moving to another neighborhood, or changing schools.

Therein rests the beauty of this book. This book explains how to help children. More importantly, the adults who are required to provide the assistance will learn more about their children and themselves.

So highly recommended, there are not enough stars to express this book's importance.

As a Mental Health Professional and specialist in the field of grief, I was asked to review the final manuscript of 'When Children Grieve.' In all honesty I could not put it down. It is easy to read, warm, truthful,and above all practical. Finally a book that tells you exactly what to do and why. I had the opportunity to use the information in 'When Children Grieve' with a group of boys ages 12-16 who were labeled 'behavioral/emotional' problems within the public school system. The results were incredible. It certainly reinforced the 'truths' of this book. If we taught our children these principles we would not have all the 'Columbine's' and 'Post Office' traumas that are frequently on the evening news. As a mother, I only wish I had this book when my children were young. I believe 'When Children Grieve' should be in the hands of EVERY person who encounters children both professionally and socially.

After reading this book my eyes have been open to the conversations I have had with the children I teach and those that I come in contact with. I felt that this book is one that anyone in any profession could relate to. The book's focus is on how to help our child deal with grief or loss but I feel that it even teachs us, as adults, how to communicate with children in an every day conversation.

During the first 7 chapters the authors focus on the myths that we as adults communicate to our children, and inturn see the myths that were communicated to us as children. Everyone at some point in their life will deal with loss/grief of some sort and also helping someone they love deal with loss/grief. We all must be equipted with the knowledge of how to do this effectivly. This book is an easy reading book that at anytime can be pulled off your home library shelf and put to good use.

Everyone deals with grief at some point. "When Children Grieve" by John James and Russell Friedman is an amazingly helpful book. After the recent death of a dear friend, I needed help in understanding grief from a child's perspective. This easy to read book explains that it's healthy to grieve, and that adults need to allow children time to heal. "Children need to feel bad when their hearts are broken. Adults should never try to fix a child's loss."
Also, the book explains that grief doesn't just come from death, but instead can be motivated by divorce, pet loss, moving and even a parent's job loss. Grief stems from sudden change in ritualistic behavior. As adults, it is our role to facilitate the child's emotions by helping them discover "undelivered communications." This book teaches adults how to reach out to children and guide them through difficult times. It's a must read for all parents who want to encourage emotional growth and mental wellbeing in their children.

I read parts of this book outloud at the dinner table. It intrigued my nine year old daughter so much SHE started reading it. She came into my bedroom shocked one day and said, "Mom get this...did you know some parents don't use the word dead or died around their children? Instead, they spell the word. Isn't that crazy?" "Yes it is crazy", I replied.

This book is a god send. As a family we were all there when our dog of 13 years died. We cried, shared memories,laughed and said good bye. It was a perfect experience for our family and my nine year old and six year old were a part of it. Loss is an opportunity for growth...this book helps us with that.

This is a great book for anyone who has been through a move, divorce, pet loss, or loss of a loved one. It gives great solutions for resolve. Even if it has been years since your loss. Even though the title implies it is to help your children you can learn alot about yourself as well.

As the authors of this book, we are thrilled with the fact that over time, millions of young people's lives will be positively affected by the ideas presented here. Although we wrote the book in about a year, it was really a cumulative 45 years in the making - combining the time that the three of us have spent helping parents and others help children deal with loss.

We want to share with our potential readers this quote which will appear on the cover of the second printing of WHEN CHILDREN GRIEVE:

"There isn't anyone in life who hasn't experienced some kind of loss. It's comforting to know that we are not alone in our sadness and that practical, easy-to-read, thoughtful help is available by way of Russell Friedman, John James, and Leslie Landon Matthews' gentle insights on the pages of WHEN CHILDREN GRIEVE. Thank you, Neighbors, for your obvious care." FRED ROGERS, PRODUCER/HOST, MISTER ROGERS' NEIGHBORHOOD and Honorary Chairman of The Caring Place, a center for grieving children, adolescents, and their families.

We thank Fred Rogers for his vote of confidence that the contents of our book are safe and helpful for you and your children.

From our hearts to you and your children, with love,

Russell Friedman, John W. James, and Dr. Leslie Landon Matthews

I purchased this book knowing that we'd be moving soon, and knowing it would be my young daughter's first significant loss. I found that the book was very helpful in many ways, but since it advertised dealing with moving as well as death and divorce, I expected more than 8 pages dedicated to it out of ~250. I also felt that, while there was plenty of practical advice for helping children grieve after a death, there was very little in regards to moving. The authors preferred to fall back on "the child will know what's appropriate" rather than giving some age-range guidelines helping parents think about potential difficult issues. (I felt much the same way in their discussion about divorce - having been a child of divorce and seeing how that transpired.) All-in-all, I would recommend this book for general grief information and specifically to help a child deal with death, but I'm still looking for a better book about how to help a small child deal with moving.

Friedman, Russell and Matthews (aka Michael Landon's daughter) have written a beautiful, gentle healing and completion book for adults in a position to help children complete their grief after a loss.

As a Dating and Relationship Coach, naturally, I sought out training for Divorce and Grief Recovery from the world-renowned Grief Recovery Institute (www.Grief.net) based in Sherman Oaks. Reading "When Children Grieve" of course is a must read for anyone with children facing any kind of loss, be it death of a relative, moving, death of a pet, divorce.

However, about half way through, I started to see an additional usefulness to this seminal work.

The short lists for what to be sure to cover when doing a relationship review both for the death of a pet as well as death of a relative were so gentle, loving, and helpful that I realized this would be a wonderful work for any adult who grew up in any kind of a dysfunctional family. I hate to overly use the nearly hackneyed lingo of healing our inner child. However, truly indeed, the loving, caring tone with clear boundaries was one which would be ALSO be SO beneficial for anyone who grew up in a dysfunctional family that I had to cite that in an Amazon review so adults would think to purchase this IN ADDITION to the classic "The Grief Recovery Handbook."

In case you are not already familiar with The Grief Recovery Institute, they are the ones CNN brought in after 911 to help a nation grieve as well as be featured with Matt Lauer on Divorce and Children.

This book is a must have for any adult, any parent. So short, easy to read and easy to implement. You will be such a help to others as well as to yourself.