Helping kids cope with loss
Losing a close family member can be devastating – and when Supernanny visited the Addis family she found they had been deeply affected by the death of their children’s grandfather. In cases like this, children can easily get left out of the grieving process. If your child is very young you might assume that he won’t miss the relative you’ve lost, but in fact kids of all ages grieve even though their developmental level might mean their sense of loss isn’t immediately obvious.
Should you shield your child from loss?
If they’ve lost a grandparent it might be tempting to try to shield them from that loss – but this can be difficult and can result in behavioral problems, as it did with the Addis children. In their case, their Pappy had been on-hand to help care for them and he’d also helped out quite a bit when it came to discipline. While Supernanny had to address the behavioral problems that had arisen out of Pappy no longer being here, she also had to try to help the whole family learn to live with that loss. And Jo Frost took their grief very seriously, describing the loss of her own mom as the most devastating thing that had ever happened to her in her entire life.
Finding the right words
Be careful about how you refer to your loss when talking to your children. Preschoolers tend to view loss as temporary so you need to avoid saying that the person has ‘gone away’ because they will just think that your loved one is coming back. Although it can be difficult to explain death in terns young children can comprehend, never attempt to simplify it by using euphemisms – such as saying that the person who died ‘fell asleep and never woke up’. This can be an incredibly traumatic concept for young children who might start to think that they themselves – or you – could fall asleep and never wake up.
Explain the death in simple, concrete terms that will help your child understand that it is permanent and satisfy any curiosity: that the person’s heart stopped beating, that his eyes don’t see any more, that his arms and legs don’t move any more. Be prepared where younger children are concerned to have to repeat yourself and even though you are grieving yourself try not to lose patience with your child if he does keep asking questions. He may also play games about dying, revert to early childhood comfort habits such as thumbsucking, or start wetting the bed, but this phase will pass.
Bad behavior after loss
One positive thing to focus on is that while children feel loss deeply, they’re not usually permanently scarred by it. They’re usually resilient enough to cope if they get the support they need to help them through. But it is true that with older children behavior often takes a turn for the worse, especially if you’re so wrapped up in your own grief that you take your eye off the ball when it comes to discipline. They may do poorly at school, start to act up and use backchat and withdraw from their friends.
Even if your children are mourning loss it’s vital that you still stay in charge as their parent. Discipline isn’t only a tool for getting kids to behave – it gives them a sense of security, which is especially important at difficult times. Don’t be tempted to ease up because you know your child is upset and you think that going easier on him will help him cope. He still needs those limits you’ve worked so hard to set, so be consistent when it comes to house rules and chores. They give him a sense of continuity: that life still goes on and that his day-to-day routine will remain the same.
Expressing feelings
Bad behavior after loss is often linked with an inability to express how they feel about that loss. Your child might not want to talk to you because he is afraid you will get upset but it is important that you help him work through his feelings. If he has difficulty finding he words to express how he feels, there are other ways to open up a dialogue. There are many books that can help and you can use the characters in the story as stand-ins for you all, and encourage him to project his feelings onto them. Visualizing his feelings can also help – get him to paint a picture that represents his grief or use modeling clay to mold a shape that expresses how he feels. Ask him what his hurt would say if it could talk: if he can see his hurt as a separate entity it might help him to say what he feels. You might also want to offer him a choice about how he creates a personal memorial for his loved one.
If your child was particularly close to the person who died he can feel as if he has lost a crucial element of his support system. Looking through photographs of all of you together as well as photos of extended family members can help him see that even though that one important person is gone, he still has lots of aunts, uncles and cousins forming a wider support network than your immediate family. With an older child you can draw up a family tree that will help him see that there are still lots of people in his support network.