Thoughts on Children in Bereavement

Bad things inevitably happen to many children, including divorce, illness, homelessness, parental drug addiction, political upheaval, and foster care. David Hicks’s new children’s book, The Magic Ticket, lusciously illustrated by Kateri Kramer, is about a boy whose little sister dies. This book will generate useful discussions with grieving children, regardless of why they are mourning. Children are likely to find it easier to talk about the boy in the book than about themselves: about his feelings, what he is good at, what his parents are doing, and what parallels they can draw between their own and the boy’s story.

Navigating Major Childhood Setbacks

Parents are at their worst just when children need them the most. This is because the parents are themselves in grief, or their own lives are disrupted, or they are wrestling with their own demons. Parents need to cut themselves some slack.

Parents need not try to hide their own sadness, but they can try to finish making the sandwich even though they’re crying. Churchill’s advice is on point: “If you’re going through hell, keep going.”

Parents know their kids need time, but often time is in short supply. They can delegate parenting tasks to friends, relatives, librarians (Hicks’s “magic ticket” is a library card), and therapists, but they should try to pick people who do not blame parents for needing their help. Especially toxic are therapists who blame parents.

Adults ask, “Are you okay?” and then they leave. But they could stick around, if possible. “I want to get a sense of what it’s like in here” is a good overture, but then they have to sit in the kid’s room for as long as it takes to gain the authority to say, “It’s sad in here.”

Focus on Stories, Not Labels

Don’t ask children what they’re feeling; that feels like a quiz. Ask them to tell you a story. Better yet, ask them to tell you a story about a doll or a toy they have. Try to understand the story rather than fix the child.

We are the stories we tell. Nobody (except a rare scientist) likes having their logic pulled apart; but people will switch to a better story if offered one.

We define ourselves by our worst moments, by the hurricane, not the sunshine. We assume others don’t want to hear about our private reactions because, well, they don’t. They are susceptible to sadness themselves, or they are managing their own reactions, or they have other things to do. But some people are interested.

We summarize with labels rather than tell our story in detail. Labels, such as the names of emotions, cannot be empathized with. Empathy needs the story, how the events unfolded, and the situation they unfolded in. Details allow us to empathize with ourselves. This is why good therapists don’t ask patients how they feel but where they were when they felt it, what transpired, and what other narratives the moment reminds them of.

A good story is true and hygienic: good for the person. True, in this context, means it accounts for the most compelling events. For a story to be hygienic—educative, uplifting, or redemptive—it helps if it is told with affectionate curiosity about all of its characters. Often, children, lacking reason or perspective, tell themselves stories of self-blame. A good story communicates reasonable responsibility for the future without blame for the past.

People, including children, engage in a lot of superstitious and judgmental thinking. They think that because they used to wish the person would die or go away, they caused the death. They think it’s terrible that they enjoy not having to share anymore. Adults can model how to manage these kinds of thoughts: Take them in stride (without applauding or booing them).

Grief Essential Reads

The Truth About Getting Closure

The Pain of Loss Becomes Part of Life

Kids are selfish; everyone is selfish when devastated. Adults can tell them that they will be all right. This is easier to believe if the adults look like they’ll be all right, which again means taking things in stride, not painting a smiley face on them.

Parents, themselves in grief, might be able to accept their own strange moments of levity or normalcy that punctuate even profound mourning. It’s harder to accept such moments in others. Many marriages founder on the bitterness evoked by a cheerful parent whose miserable partner resents the unexpected cheerfulness. Grieving parents can also resent a child’s play, a child’s needs, in short a child’s childishness, when it is out of sync with the parent’s sadness.

It’s natural to be annoyed by one’s children, an annoyance that’s balanced by a broader perspective. A deceased child is recalled with only the broader perspective; a deceased child no longer annoys. It’s easy to slip into preferring the angelic (deceased) child.

Help Grieving Children Find Positive Strengths

Everyone is happier doing things they’re good at. Help the child find competency islands (Brooks, 1994), places of refuge in an ocean of vulnerability and uncertainty. In The Magic Ticket, the boy is good at reading, and he musters his resilience by reading, first alone and then to his parents. Every child is good at something. Every child can, with guidance, find ways to deploy old skills in new circumstances.

It is unfortunately natural for grieving children to become skilled at a couple of things that aren’t good for them. One is grief itself. Children can specialize in morbidity, and adults need to help them find competency islands that will develop into useful roles.

The other thing children become skilled in is not making demands. All systems capitalize on kids’ self-sufficiency, but most systems are not taxed to the point of relying on this. This is another area in which parents can outsource children’s needs, as long as it’s not to people who feel superior to the parents.