What Do The Kids Want?

In my last post, I shared some of the ways that we differ in our grieving process. Men do things to try to make everyone feel better. Women talk and talk to try to feel better but what do children want after the death of a sibling or parent? I am convinced that children want just two things, to feel loved and to feel normal.

This is where support groups are so important. As parents talk with each other, sharing stories and coping mechanisms, they are better able to give their surviving children the love that is so deeply needed. Before every holiday or milestone event, we were able to discuss with other parents their experiences, the pitfalls they encountered and what they suggested to help us deal with the issues. This is help you simply cannot get from a book. It is hard earned experience and honest sharing.

Children receive the same support from other children. More than once, someone will relate to me a nugget of wisdom that one child shares with another in grief support groups. If you think that parents can give child all the skills needed for coping with a death, then you must think that grieving parents are perfect. So kids share their experiences and work through the process together. The other great gift from a support group is the feeling of normalcy.

Until Warren died, I really didn' t know how often children experience the death of a significant person in their lives. But if you were to take a classroom of 20 first graders, by the time they reach high school, at least three children will experience the death of a parent, brother or sister. Many years ago, this was a normal part of life as so many children died of disease, but somehow I think we believe, we have wiped out childhood death along with smallpox. The kids who do experience this feel alone because no one wants to talk about it. For several months after Warren died, other parents who had lost a child would talk to us quietly about their experience, but the children remained silent.

In the support groups, everyone talks openly about their loved one's death. Normalcy does begin with the sense that you are not the only one in the room who is experiencing grief. Normalcy is when your parents stop being zombies and start to actively love you again in familiar
ways.

We were very lucky that concerned friends told us about Journey of Hope Grief Support Center almost immediately
after Warren died. He died in June. We started to attend the support groups before school started in August. It was still a rocky year at times but I shudder to think how miserable we could have made each other without the support.

For more information about Journey of Hope Grief Support or other topics, go to www.johgriefsupport.org. If you have a comment or suggestion, please feel free to post to this blog or e-mail me at kricester@gmail.com
Journey of Hope also has a Facebook page and you can follow their events and activities there.