Grieving kids

[Anonymous]

We have a very tight-knit neighborhood and one of our neighbors just passed away very suddenly. She and her husband are older with grown kids, but they both are very active with all of our children and are like family to us. We now have a group of kids that are dealing with a loss that some have never experienced. Any advice on things we can do for the kids, or kid-friendly ideas on how to memorialize our friend?

Also, any advice on how to talk to kids about death that was a sudden medical event? She had a very unexpected stroke with no warning signs or sickness, so my 6YO in particular has been terrified something could happen to someone else or even to him.

[Anonymous]

I took an entire class series on the somatics of dealing with grief, so there's a ton of body positions that help process things as you talk to them that you can look up online.

One thing that I shared with my similarly-aged child was "a part of me is sad about Larla dying and a part of me is... (ex., curious about what happens when we die, confused about why, worried this could happen to mom, etc) Just validating that these feelings can all be present at once and that we do not become consumed by our grief, it coexist within us.

You don't move on from grief. You move forward with it.

[Anonymous]

Oh this is hard, I've BTDT with my children's grandfather and the first time a child really goes through the grieving process is an impactful life event. When you say a "group of kids," do you mean the neighborhood kids or your own kids? I'd tread lightly with other people's children, since differences in beliefs and approaches to discussing death can be a very touchy subject. What all kids appreciate is genuine expressions of sadness and emotions from the adults around it, openness to talk about it at unexpected times (bedtime, randomly during the day, etc.), and an honest acknowledgment that death IS scary and the fear that someone else could die is real and reasonable. It will take time, more time than you think. Expect it to come back up when you least expect it. Expect that some kids may feel comforted by talking about her, some may find it too sad and want to avoid reminiscing. Also don't be surprised if they project their sadness over her death onto other things that cause sadness. Sometimes they feel sad and will tell you they're sad over her when it's just the first sad thing that came into their mind. All is normal, and all will get better with time.

[Anonymous]

Thank you both. The group includes my 2 kids and another 8 kids that were very close with her, all under the age of 12. The other parents and I (who are all friends and on a text chain) have all been chatting through this mostly so we all know what the kids are saying to one another as some of the older kids can understand a bit more. But thank you for the reminder to tread lightly with other kids and family beliefs.

I will definitely check out the somatics of dealing with grief, my younger son is a very sensory kid that I think this may really help him.

[Anonymous]

To add to what others have said- I would explain what a stroke is. As a kid when my grandpa died of cancer I was seriously afraid of cancer but had no idea what it even was! Knowledge helps you process things and make sense of it all. When my grandma died of old age in her sleep, my kids were very afraid. We had to explain that she was approaching 100 and the body starts to shut down. Kids don't die in their sleep (which was their fear) and that it's rare and mom and dad are healthy.

Something that might be nice is to plant a rose bush or a tree in memory of her.

[Anonymous]

We had our elderly next door neighbor pass away after a brief sudden illness. We are close to the family (widow still lives there, grandkids play with my kids when they visit, etc). It was sad but also a good opportunity to discuss and get the questions out in the open for my five year old. I let him lead with the questions. We ended up talking about:

-Generally older people die after they have lived a long time (one of our neighbors is actually 100 years old-kids are very excited about this). Kids very rarely die. Most people get to live a long life.

We don’t know for sure what happens after people die. Our mind/spirit leaves the body because it stops pumping blood. Some people believe the spirit goes to heaven and others believe the spirit becomes another person (Disney movie helped here) but we don’t know for sure because we can’t talk to people after they’ve died.

Dying is part of what makes life very precious to us.

[Anonymous]

In our neighborhood we put up a bench in memory of the elderly neighbor. I would emphasize to my own kid that the person died if something that kids don’t get (generally) and that if the kid wants to talk about it, you will listen, and then they should put it on the shelf in their mind and not worry about it.

[Anonymous]

For the younger ones there are great episodes of Mr. Rodgers and Sesame Street that you can find online. You can watch yourself and pay attention to the language Mr. Rodgers uses.

[Anonymous]

Hi op. A great book on death for kids is Lifetimes https://www.amazon.com/Lifetimes-Beautiful-Explain-Death-Children/dp/0553344021

The best advice is to be honest, clear (no saying she is sleeping, or vague things this just scares kids). It is also ok and normal for your kids to feel anxiety and fear that this could happen, what I use to try to help my children through anxieties like that is think through yes, it could happen, but is it likely? No.. it's pretty rare. It is a helpful tool for all things that give us anxiety. To do a check-in with yourself on how likely it is to happen. I use this a lot so that they have it as a tool generally.

So for example, when they hear something about a fire in a house and then later are saying they are worried that could happen to us. I might say - oh yeah.. I understand. Hearing about that fire it makes a lot of sense to me you might be wondering if that could happen to us. It could, fires do happen, but it's not likely. It's rare. To make it concrete when they were little I would give an example - for example how long has great grandpa been alive? (kid: 93 years!) do you know if he has ever been in a fire? I can tell you - he hasn't. Not in his whole life! 93 years! What about great grandma? She hasn't either! and neither have daddy or I. So it really is pretty rare. So it could happen, and sometimes i worry about that too but it helps me to think about how rare it is. Now, when something comes up I can say yeah that makes me nervous too, how likely do you think it is that iwll happen to us though? and he will think about it and say hm yeah not likely... These are techniques we give adults in CBT when they have anxiety so I figure why not teach kids to ask those same questions to themselves.

[Anonymous]

I will add that I agree some type of ritual might be very good for the kids in healing. Raising money to have a bench built in her honor, then putting that bench up and having a little remembrance where you tell stories about her. Things like that.