Being Honest With Children

When a parent dies leaving young children there is often an outpouring of advice about how to help these children. I am not comfortable with some of the advice offered albeit well meaning. I think this can an opportunity to call attention to how we define grief; and in this definition we may be able to finds ways to educate, not only the grieving family but those who want to help, as well. I got one response to my last blog. The writer reminded the reader that death is part of life and we need to think of grief as something we all experience. I absolutely agree. Our impulse is to protect children, to shield them from the pain and perhaps from the facts of death. However, perhaps the best way to protect children is to involve them, in ways that respect their age.

We come to it with certain preconceived notions about what grief is. In today's world we think of how to help mourners get through it as quickly as possible, to find closure, to get over it. We have many "shoulds" about what the bereaved should be feeling and doing. But as the bereaved will tell you there are no shoulds! In some of the language used we hear talk about recovering, as if being bereaved is an illness and with the proper treatment we will be cured. In this view the primary focus is on feelings. As I see it these are unrealistic goals, and only explain part of what is going on. This is not an illness and there is much more to this experience than difficult feelings. If I have a definition for grief, I would begin with noting that this is a universal experience that we all go through. I have thought of it as a life cycle transition in which we deal with difficult and painful feelings, with new realities, and with real change in our lives. We have to look at it in a family context.

We need to ask what is lost, when for example, a parent dies. A child losses a caring relationship that gives her a sense of place and safety in the world. Life is changed forever, and he has to learn to deal not only with strange new feelings but with a different world from which this parent is absent but yet very present. While there is an emptiness as we face the silence from the grave, we don't close out the deceased, in some way they are still a part of our life. We can focus on how children deal with the presence of the deceased in their lives, but in fact if we are not seeking closure then all of us find the deceased very much a part of our life.. We talk to the deceased, we dream of the deceased, we do things to honor their memory and their lives and that help us remember. If we talk about children then we have to recognize that how understanding of the impact of the loss on their lives will change as they grow and mature and understand more about who died. They will recognize how they have dealt with all the changes associated with the death and how this has changed as well. Religion can play a role here as well but I leave that for another time.

From my research I have come to recognize that there are at least three things that children need to help them cope. They need care, they need connection and they need continuity. They need to feel that they are taken care of, that they are loved and the simple needs of living are there for them. They need to feel connected to those around them, to be involved and respected as mourners in the family drama; they also need to find ways of being connected to the deceased while not living in the past the past is part of who they are and has a place in their future. They also need a sense in spite of this critical loss in their lives, there will be a connection between the past and the present. There will be a tomorrow.

We cannot protect children from the realities of the human condition. Perhaps the best protection is to accompany them through this difficult new reality