Death: Helping Children Cope With Grief and Loss
2008 March 27 by: ScottWhat is Grief?
Grief is an emotional experience. While loss is an event, grief is a feeling. Grief often makes us feel uncomfortable and sad. Like all feelings, grief has a range of weakest to strongest in terms of how we may feel. Grief is associated with other
feelings that may include:
Loneliness, Confusion, Anger, Guilt, Fatigue, Helplessness, Worry, Resentment… and yes, Laughter!
Grief may include many different feelings at the same time. It can also come and go. One minute a person can be feeling a real harsh pain; the next feeling may be one of calm. There are no rules governing the feeling of grief. The best way to end our grief is to begin to understand what we are going through as we manage all the feelings that come with grief. This process is called “coping.”
Coping With Grief
The word “coping” means to” handle” or “work through.” People who are “coping” through a situation are learning ways to manage their feelings so they do not take over their life in a negative manner. People who understand the grieving process and how to search their feelings before a loss occurs in their life often do better when a real loss comes their way. It’s important for parents to talk to their children as they are growing up about grief specifics ideas and talking point will be shared with parents to help their child through the grieving process brought on by a loss.
The first step in learning to cope through grief is beginning to understand the stages of grief.
Denial Of Loss: It’s common for many people who are facing a loss to go into denial.
“This is not happening to me,” or “I am fine. Nothing bothers me,” or “This is not going to bother me,” are all common denial thoughts or statements. Often people, consciously or unconsciously begin to entrench themselves in work or activities to keep from dealing with the potential hard feelings that go with loss. Denial of these feelings often only prolong the loss process and for some makes the process harder to go through at a later date in their life.
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Comment by Elaine Williams—March 28, 2008 @ 8:39 am