Children and Grief Strategies for Counselors and Parents By: Tamara Connell

Introduction The goal of this presentation is to give counselors in a school or community setting the tools to create a program for students dealing with grief. Children grieve in different ways. Children need to know that the way they are grieving is okay. This presentation will give you websites that will tell you the stages of grieving, myths about grieving, and interventions counselors and parents can use to deal with their grief.

Detailed Findings Teens Health-Answers and Advice SchoolCounselor.com Coping.org: Tools for Coping with Life’s Stressors Coping.org: Tools for Coping with Life’s Stressors SafeYouth.org- Violence Prevention Topics- Bullying SafeYouth.org- Violence Prevention Topics- Bullying Lorrie’s Links

Teens Health Links on how to cope with grief, what to expect, how to care for yourself, getting help for intense grief, and if you will ever get over it are found at this website. This site is also written geared towards a child, but it is still thought to be useful for a counselor and or parent.

Important Information Taken From Teens Health Grief can be due to many things. Grief is a natural reaction. The site explains to a child that even if you think you are ready to lose someone, because they have been sick for a long time, it still can be just as traumatic as if you unexpectedly lost someone. Tips such as: participating in rituals, being with others, talking about it, expressing themselves, exercising, eating right, and joining a support group are suggested. It is also explained that everyone grieves for different amounts of time.

SchoolCounselor.com -sites.asp -sites.asp At this website you will find lesson plans sorted by title for school counselors. All you have to do is type in the query “death” and a link to “Death and the Grief Reaction Process” will come up for you to click on. This site is mostly useful to counselors and parents because it explains the grieving process in stages such as the denial stage, fear stage, anger stage, depression stage, and reorganization stage.

Important Information Taken from SchoolCounselor.com Each stage does not always happen in this exact order, and some stages last longer than others. In order to help deal with the behavioral, emotional problems, difficulty in academics, and social skills that a child is having due to a loss experienced in his or her life a counselor needs to understand the five stage process. Interventions used by counselors and that could be used by parents are given.

At this web site you want to click on Tools for handling loss by James J. Messina, Ph.D. This will bring you to a link that lists the table of contents for Messina’s manual. This includes information that is probably more geared to counselors because it may give them some ideas of how to work with children who are dealing with loss and a misunderstanding of what death truly means. Coping.org

Important Information Taken from Coping.org The table of contents you will find has all of these areas covered. This can be very helpful for counselors. Tools for Handling Loss Introduction & Prologue Tools for Handling Loss Loss Events in Dysfunctional Families Stages of the Loss Process Dealing with Denial Handling Bargaining Behavior Anger Workout Handling Despair Accepting Change Letting Go Death: The Last Act of Life

SafeYouth.org. This site brings you to a link called “Working with Grieving Children after a Violent Death. A Guidebook for Crime Victim Assistance Professionals”. The areas of this guidebook that would be helpful to a parent and or counselor are the “The Grieving Child” and “The Interventions for the Grieving Child”.

Important Information Taken from SafeYouth.org. Worksheets can be found at this site. “The Grieving Child” area of the guidebook gives the developmental stages of a child. This is a great tool for counselors and or parents because it explains what an infant, toddler, pre-schooled, school-age, early adolescent, and adolescent child might be going through due to a loss. Methods of intervention for use by counselors and parents are given such as: oral storytelling, guided free play, stimulating conversation, creative writing, creative art, dramatic enactments, and lastly music.

Lorrie’s Links This web site has many different links. The one found useful by the researcher was “Healthy Place”. The link found to be very interesting and helpful to a counselor and or parent would be the nine common myths and realities about grief. When a counselor or parent is aware of these myths it makes it easy to sympathize with a client because you understand what they may be thinking.

Important Information Taken from Lorrie’s Links Some of the myths a child may be dealing with when it comes to grief is: Not talk about the loss so the person does not feel uncomfortable. (Talking about the loss is very important, avoiding it is not healthy) It has been twelve months now the person should be over it by now. (Everyone grieves for different amounts of time) (there is no time limit) You need to be more active and get out more to feel better. (Activities that the person has been in should be maintained, but people should not be told to join things or do things just to forget about their loss.

Conclusion It is hoped that the information provided gave counselors and parents many ways of gaining information technologically about the grieving process. It is hoped that counselor’s and parents gained some ideas for interventions to deal with a grieving child. Lastly it is hoped that these websites will bring a counselor and or parent to another link that will be of some help to them for dealing with a grieving child.

Closing Remarks

Additional Resources The links below are to the original research paper completed, sample OCR Scan, and my Internet Address Book. ConnellTamaraA3bIAB.xls..\Tamara Connell Sample Ocr scan.doc ConnellTamaraA4ResPap.doc my web site: