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Key points
- It's important that you feel centered when helping a child through difficult moments.
- Children learn from you how to think about what is happening to them.
- Children feel grounded and supported when you offer them space to feel all they feel as you listen calmly.
“April showers bring May flowers." Most of us have probably heard that before. There are other versions of it: “It is always darkest before the dawn,” for example. Martin Luther King, Jr. put it in eloquent form, saying, "The arc of the moral universe is long but it bends towards justice.” With the onset of April, we have been thinking about how this perspective offers children a potential approach to life’s struggles. As we sit with people in our practice who are trying to navigate taking care of children through such challenges as illness, loss, divorce or mistreatment, this view of life creates opportunities for hope.
Glenda is the parent of 10-year-old Alicia, who was often sad, withdrawn, and teary in the aftermath of Glenda’s divorce from her dad. She articulated feeling that she couldn't see how she would ever feel good again. Glenda came to talk about how to help her child adapt to their new reality.
While many considerations go into supporting your child through a difficult time such as Glenda and her family face, we want to focus on one in particular: It is common to have our minds immediately turn to a child’s upset and the feared potential for long-term harm to their well-being. We believe it is of the utmost importance to give your child time and space to grieve for the loss of "life as they knew it." This should include ongoing open conversations about what your child is experiencing and answering the questions they may have. It also entails you doing your best to be aware of your own evolving emotional reactions.
What we want to hone in on is how to find a sense of forward movement and good things ahead as your family grapples with unwanted changes. This is a moment for “and also." Your child needs the support to grieve and also needs to have a sense that, with that help, their pain will ease over time. How do you provide this? This brings us to the quotes we introduced above. What is compelling about those statements is that they acknowledge the difficulty of today and also point toward better days. They also suggest that it is in having to face obstacles that we learn to overcome them. This is a wonderful perspective to offer a child. It validates their concerns and also aids in their seeing past this present moment of turmoil to a better time. The idea that this better time exists provides one of the bases for hope. You may find that offering concrete examples from your child’s past when they have traversed hard times to experience better ones often helps them absorb this message.
We recommend engendering conversation with your child beginning in early years, making it natural to identify and express feelings. When big changes occur in your child’s small world, as they have for Alicia, you would set up a time when you will be with your child for a while—not before bedtime or school drop off and when all electronics are off.
It could go something like this:
Parent (Glenda): I wanted us to have some time to be together to talk about what is going on. I see how sad you are and you have said you think nothing good will happen ever again. A lot of children feel that way when something happens that they don’t want. We can be in that together. And also I know good things are ahead for you and let’s try to think of those too. Are you glad about the circus this weekend? And this summer, you get to go back to the day camp you love, where Naomi goes too. As we get through these hard times, and feel all the feelings of sadness, we can also hold onto knowing it won’t always be that way.
Child (Alicia): But how do you know? It all feels so bad now.
Parent: I know you will feel better and have good times ahead because I know you and you have been through hard things before and then been happier—like when your friend Nonni stopped talking to you and you were so hurt and sad and you thought you might never have another friend again but now you are such good friends with Naomi and RoseAnn and Marcus and you don’t miss talking with Nonni very much at all.
As you can see in this example, a child can learn that how they feel today will not last forever. Never having come through this exact same experience before, "forever" is their reality. By being attentive and listening to their perspective, and then sharing how you see it, you can help your child become aware of this other possibility. Through repetition, now and as other events come up, this more optimistic outlook can become a consideration for them.
This perspective on inevitably challenging times in life helps them face future difficulties with respect for their own feelings and an inner sense of the capacity to manage changing realities. And out of this grows resilience. And so, in the sometimes trite-seeming saying that “April showers bring May flowers” is a key to hope and moving forward through life with fortitude.
