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Thanks for sharing your story. In the last comment it seems to support what I learned during the training I got to help the Children's Grief Center where I will volunteer. They told us that very often the parents are the problem more than the children. The children very often take it better than the parent and the parents makes well intentioned decisions based on how they feel thinking the children will hurt as they do and won't handle it. I was told often they work on the parents in order to be able to best serve the children. Take care.
Thanks.
This is drifting off-thread a bit but I thought I'd give you a little heads up on something concerning the grief center (and chances are you've been given some training on this): If the center you are volunteering at also includes children who lost parents to suicide, do brace yourself for some anger you won't believe.
For a couple of years I took my daughter to a support group center that is just for children in these circumstances. The parents had to meet in a separate room. The children enjoyed those visits; however, it was chilling to listen to what some of the parents had to deal with from their angry children. Some of the kids blamed the surviving parents and lashed out horribly. Just FYI.
Kudos to you. These support groups will thank you.
This is drifting off-thread a bit but I thought I'd give you a little heads up on something concerning the grief center (and chances are you've been given some training on this): If the center you are volunteering at also includes children who lost parents to suicide, do brace yourself for some anger you won't believe.
For a couple of years I took my daughter to a support group center that is just for children in these circumstances. The parents had to meet in a separate room. The children enjoyed those visits; however, it was chilling to listen to what some of the parents had to deal with from their angry children. Some of the kids blamed the surviving parents and lashed out horribly. Just FYI.
Kudos to you. These support groups will thank you.
I do thank you for the heads up. We did cover this point and the coordinator did mention that kids can be very nasty. Some never recover and others do. She said to expect that we need to keep our patience with them. In time some do turn around. Some do it faster than others. In my opinion you did not drift at all. I started this thread to hear from other people. The more I hear from others, the better I can be in helping kids and their families when we have sessions with them. Take care.
I joined a an organization that is focused on helping children dealing with the death of a loved one.
I had to take a class on how to help them in group sessions by facilitating. One of the cornerstones of the program is that the children need to be told the loved one died and why however cruel that may sound.
The concept is that it is better to let them know and help them deal with their grief right away instead of slowing the grieving process.
Some parents do not tell the kids right away with the intent of avoiding pain.
Others may not take the kids to the funeral.
Also, the program guidelines are that instead of telling them a loved one is with God now is better to say the loved one died, plain and simple. If the child ask how the loved one died to say because he/she took his life if that was the case.
What do you think?
What are your opinions on how to handle a situation like this?
I think kids need to be told a loved one died bluntly (and tactfully). Euphemisms like passed away should be avoided unless the kid knows that that means. The kids should be told right away and should be allowed at the funeral. They need closure.
When they notified me that my first husband had been killed, my children were spared nothing. His friend came to tell me, and before he could open his mouth, I called him a liar and beat him while he tried to calm me. Then I turned and saw my precious 5- and 2-year-old watching on the couch, screaming, their little legs kicking against nothing. I apologized to his friend and dismissed him so i could tend to my children.
The oldest understood. The youngest, barely 2, didn't. He ran to the door with every sound of a van or a motor cycle, calling, "Daddy?" I tried to explain, but nothing worked.
They both went to the funeral. My mind was filled with the death of my first boyfriend and how I had not been allowed to go to the funeral. I was not going to do that to them. But it was closed-casket. I am not sure it did any good, but I didn't know what to do to make it better.
Now, they are both years older than their father upon his death. They still miss the times they could have had. They have, in the past, tried to derive something of their father from their uncles, but that never worked; their father was unique.
What do you do? The loss of a great person will remain a great loss.
My mother died this past Christmas eve morning, my ex husband stayed close to her especially the last few years.
I had already asked him to drive our daughter and grandson down when the time came.
I did not want her driving 6 hours in grief over her grandmother, they were very close and my grandson adored my mother.
We were all concerned how Jordan would be, he was 9 years old.
As a tribute to her, my nephew who is a firefighter, wore his dress uniform with the black strip across his badge, my great-nephew wore his Navy dress blues and little Jordan wore his Cub Scouts uniform as my mother was so proud of him. He did well and took kleenex around and then when he cried, his mom and I held him, he was quite to caregiver, but he was that way with my mother, he always helped her out of her chair and gave her her cane.
I gave him a special Christmas snowman that belonged to my mother and he loves it.
We are Christians and we did tell him that she is in heaven.
He knew she suffered, because he saw it, now she is no longer in pain.
skahar, bless you for the beautiful share about your husband
I joined a an organization that is focused on helping children dealing with the death of a loved one.
I had to take a class on how to help them in group sessions by facilitating. One of the cornerstones of the program is that the children need to be told the loved one died and why however cruel that may sound.
The concept is that it is better to let them know and help them deal with their grief right away instead of slowing the grieving process.
Some parents do not tell the kids right away with the intent of avoiding pain.
Others may not take the kids to the funeral.
Also, the program guidelines are that instead of telling them a loved one is with God now is better to say the loved one died, plain and simple. If the child ask how the loved one died to say because he/she took his life if that was the case.
What do you think?
What are your opinions on how to handle a situation like this?
I clearly remember going to my grandma's funeral at age 6. My memory is looking up at the smoke from the crematorium and saying, "Bye Grandma". I know I didn't cry, nor was I even that upset even thought I was extremely close to her.
My own children lost their much-loved grandpa a few years ago, when they were about 5 and 9. He had a long illness and all the grandkids went to the hospital to say goodbye. They all knew his smoking was killing him, and not one of the 11 of them smoke to this day.
They didn't appear upset, either at his illness, nor his subsequent death or funeral. They matter of factly tell me they went and saw Pop (meaning his grave) and laugh when they remember him or talk about him.
I believe that children have a natural understanding of death. I know I did. It is like you know you are not going to see that person again, which is a bummer, but you also know they are still around somehow...you just assume they are not totally "gone"...and indeed they are not, because we all have memories.
To this day my grandma is in my head and heart and I don't think I have ever shed one tear over her loss. I just accepted it...mind you, nothing was "hidden" from me. I knew how she died, I went to the funeral. So did my kids.
Re the suicide thing - I have a reasonably unusual view of suicide which is that everyone's entitled to do with their life as they choose. If they choose to end it, we should respect and accept that. Suicide should stop being a "dirty little secret". It is a valid human response to some life circumstances and we need to stop demonising it.
I believe that children have a natural understanding of death. I know I did. It is like you know you are not going to see that person again, which is a bummer, but you also know they are still around somehow...you just assume they are not totally "gone"...and indeed they are not, because we all have memories.
By any chance, do you think that this is true for some because of the way they were reared and/or because of their circumstances? This just hasn't been my experience. I struggle, I pull, I even defy death with anger.
By any chance, do you think that this is true for some because of the way they were reared and/or because of their circumstances? This just hasn't been my experience. I struggle, I pull, I even defy death with anger.
You are talking as an adult.
I am talking through the eyes of a child.
It sounds as though you are talking about your own death?
It sounds as though you are talking about your own death?
Not my own death, except in my final statement: "I struggle, I pull, I even defy death with anger."
You seem to have a more healthy (?) attitude toward death -- one that accepted it as an expected part of life.
I lost my first boyfriend to a drunk driver and grieved him until letting go after my first husband's passing. In my family, we were taught not to grieve death.
1. I was not allowed to go to my first boyfriend's funeral, while everyone else in the family went.
2. I was taught from childhood not to grieve as others do -- the misuse of a biblical verse.
3. Then when my first husband was killed, I had several struggles with Mother's inappropriate behavior toward my daughter's grieving her father's death as well as toward his parents' at the graveside.
I saw death through a child's eyes as a child and through my children's eyes when their father died. None of us were able to accept it as well as you did.
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