Dr. Alan Wolfelt says: Adults grieve, so do children. Grief means to feel, not just to understand. Anyone old enough to love is old enough to grieve. Even before children are able to talk, they grieve when someone they love dies. These feelings about the death become a part of their lives forever. He adds 15 things bereaved children want adults to know about grief, compiled with a young friend named Roger.
1. Allow children to be your teacher about their experience of grief.
If you assume you know all about my grief, it’s like you don’t respect me. All I need is for you to help me find ways to tell you how I feel and for you to really listen to me.
2. Don’t assume every child in a certain age group understands death the same way or has the same feelings.
Please give us the freedom to be different. Some adults decide that kids are too young to be affected without bothering to think about how we feel. Even little babies can have feelings when someone dies.
3. Healing in grief is a process, not an event.
I really need you to understand it will take me a long time to grieve and I may get tired.
4. Don’t lie or tell half-truths to kids!
If you fib to us, we fill in the empty spaces with our own imaginations. Besides, hiding things make us feel like we’ve been bad or that we’ve done something wrong. It also teaches us that it’s okay not to be honest all the time.
5. Don’t wait for one big “tell all” to begin helping children understand death.
Death is part of life and I’m curious. Teach me all through my growing up years.
6. Encourage us to ask questions about death.
Don’t worry if you don’t have all the answers. Our questions may seem strange; but they are honest.
7. Don’t assume that kids always grieve in an orderly, predictable way.
How we feel and talk about our grief can change from day to day. I guess we need to remind you that no two of us are alike.
8. Let us know you really want to understand us.
We need to share our grief with you. A lot of what we feel from you comes from things other than words. Your tone of voice and eye contact are really important and so is knowing you’ll be patient with us.
9. Don’t misunderstand what may seem to be a lack of feelings when someone we love dies.
Usually we are just trying to play so it doesn’t hurt so much. There is a difference in what we know in our heads and what we know in our hearts.
10. Allow us to participate in the funeral.
We may be young and we may not understand everything; but we need to be included. This is an important family time, and we will always remember that we were included.
11. Don’t forget about “magical thinking”.
We may blame ourselves for all sorts of stuff we had nothing to do with. Some of us feel totally responsible for the death, but we can’t say anything to anybody about how we feel.
12. Remember that feeling relief doesn’t mean a lack of love.
If the person was sick for a long time, and hurt a lot, we may feel relieved. Is it okay to feel this way?
13. Realize that our bodies react when we experience grief.
When our heads and hearts don’t feel good, our bodies don’t feel good either. We’ve got to have some way to getting the grief outside of ourselves.
14. Don’t feel bad when you can’t give us a total understanding about religion.
Share what you truly believe. Just do the best you can.
15. Keep in mind that grief is complicated.
We know it’s hard work! With your love, compassion and understanding, we can all learn from each other.
