Leading Your Kids Through Difficult EmotionsSýnishorn

Grief and Loss

How do we lead our children through grief?

How do we help them grieve in a way that moves them toward healing while we are suffering our own traumatic loss?

It starts with our foundation. We, as adults and parents, have to answer these key questions for ourselves before we can help our children through them:

1. What do we believe about loss?
2. What do we believe about death?
3. What do we believe about suffering and the emotional pain of grief?
4. What do we believe about God in relation to loss, death, and grief?

Having these foundations to draw on when we, and our children, experience loss provides us with a process to explain what has happened. Words that we have already chosen before the time of loss, when they are so much more difficult to access, can remind both us and our kiddos that loss is not a new event and we have lots of company in our grief. Psalms 34:18 and 56:8, and John 16:33 are good verses for kiddos about how Jesus joins us in our grief, never abandoning us, and giving us comfort and hope.

Now, when the loss happens, we first make space for ourselves (the parents) to give expression to our grief, connect with God and connect with others before we have the conversation with our children. This isn’t always possible, but if it is you will find it goes a long way to help you lead your children. 2 Corinthians 1:3-4 (NIV) says that our God is, “the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God.” God gives us the comfort we need to comfort and lead our children through their grief.

Use your foundation to explain the loss to your child. Model expressing how you are feeling, why, and what you need just like we learned to do with anger and disappointment. Let them cry, if they do cry, and tell them it is normal to feel strong sadness when there is loss and grief. Use the words “loss” and “grief” to give language to their emotions. Let them know the feelings won’t be this strong forever, and they don’t need to be afraid of hurting all the time. Comfort them how they want to be comforted. They might want a hug; they also might not want to be touched, which is ok.

Communicate plans for funeral services in advance to your child. Explain what will happen, and let them know you will be with them the whole time. If your child cannot attend, help them make arrangements for their own physical expression of grief such as: releasing balloons, visiting and decorating the gravesite, writing a few kind words of remembrance, or drawing a picture of a good memory with the loved one and placing it in a special place.