Children and Grief: Helping Your Child Understand Death

life.

Introduction

A hundred years from now, it will not matter what my bank account was, the sort of house I lived in, or the kind of car I drove. But the world may be different because I was important in the life of a child.

Author unknown

When I wrote the first edition of this book, titled Heaven’s Not a Crying Place: Teaching Your Child about Funerals, Death, and the Life Beyond, in 1997, the world was a much different place. In our post–9/11 world, the realities of death, loss, and grief are daily broadcasted in our living rooms, homes, and schools. You and your children are asking a whole new set of questions, but at the same time, you still have to deal with the accidents, illnesses, and others losses that arrive at your doorstep.

In the pages that follow, you will learn how to talk to your children about the facts of death and loss. You will find helpful information that will deepen your understanding of the emotional components of grief and how to navigate your way through it. And you will receive plenty of practical ideas and tools for answering your children’s questions about God and heaven. Though it may feel a bit overwhelming, it’s not an impossible task to talk to children about the physical reality of death, the emotional components of grief, and their faith development. After working with parents and families for the past eight years, I know that you will find help, hope, encouragement, and perspective to do this very thing in the first few pages of chapter 1. Though the world is a different place today, what’s most important to me is what’s happening in your world. Right now.

My goal in 1997, as it is now, was to help you as a parent, grandparent, aunt or uncle, family friend, or significant adult who works with children deal with one of the most difficult topics known to humankind: How do we talk to our children about grief and death, loss and life, hope and heaven? There are dozens of helpful resources that have been written about child and adolescent bereavement, but in researching this book (both then and now), I am amazed at how few take seriously the integration of faith, spirituality, and the hope in God available to all people during these most difficult times. Faith is a core component in many families’ lives, but much of the grief literature available today pays little attention to just how powerful that component is.

That said, whether your family practices a specific faith tradition or not, your children are going to ask about death, heaven, and what happens to us when we die. All kids ask this question, because the core of who they are and the core of who we are is spiritual and not physical. If we were made to live forever on this earth, we wouldn’t be having this discussion.

In fact, this book flowed out of an awkward discussion I had with my three-year-old daughter, Janae (who is now fourteen), following the death of a young college student named Joel Watt, a family friend who died in a boating accident. In addition, the home I grew up in was a wee bit different than the home you grew up in. My family has been in the funeral business for over a hundred years, and as you’ll soon discover, even though my family has a history dating back to horse-drawn hearses on the streets of Los Angeles and even though I’m in the ministry and work with grieving families, I’ve personally wrestled with how to talk to my four children about the difficult issues surrounding death, grief, and loss. When it comes to grief and loss, I’m convinced there are no experts, only learners. Following Joel’s death and the difficult time I had answering all of Janae’s perplexing questions, I asked myself, If I work at a church and my family’s been in the funeral business for over a hundred years and I’m struggling to answer my three-year-old’s questions about life and death and heaven, how are other parents doing?

When I first wrote this book, my wife and I had one child. Now we have four. A whole lot of life and loss has happened between then and now, and the book you’re reading now is written from a fellow parent. A regular dad in the messy trenches of everyday life. A dad who has stumbled over his words while talking to his kids and helping them deal with the grief that comes with goldfish floating at the top of the bowl. And the grief that comes with a beloved uncle dying after a four-year battle with cancer. And the death of a favorite rabbit. The divorce of friends. Grandma’s stroke. The fear of swimming lessons and shots at the dentist. Burning twin towers, global terrorism, and war in Iraq. Even the trauma of an unexpected moment in our own neighborhood, when my family drove by an accident scene down the street from our home. A fifteen-year-old boy named Tim Jackes had been hit by a passing car. After hours in the hospital with Tim’s family, I arrived home to deliver the terrible news that Tim had died of his injuries. Though we had never met Tim, in the days and weeks that followed, his life story became intricately woven into the fabric of our life story.

And so the book you’re reading now isn’t written from an aloof clinical perspective. As a husband, dad, pastor, and one who specializes in grief recovery, I believe your story and my story will, in some ways, cross paths as we explore how to help children deal with their questions about loss and death. As parents, my wife, Krista, and I have wrestled through many conversations similar to what you may be experiencing right now. And in my eleven years of working in the church, I have seen the panicked look on many parents’ faces who, before or following the death of a loved one, wonder, What am I going to say to my kids? So rest assured, you’re not alone. In the pages that follow, you will receive comfort, direction, and encouragement on how to best help your children through this difficult period.

What also makes this revised edition unique is my relationship during the past six years with the Grief Recovery Institute in Sherman Oaks, California. Soon after writing the first edition of this book, I began to lead seminars for parents on how to talk to their children about death, grief, and heaven without confusing them with myths, euphemisms, and confusing religious terminology. As many parents asked how they could best speak to their children about a relative with terminal cancer or a recent death in their family or whether cats go to heaven, I realized that many of these parents were struggling with the conflicting emotions of their own grief. After a year or so of speaking on this subject, I thought to myself, The best people to help children are their own parents. If I want to help children, I first need to be better equipped to help parents deal with their own grief.

What began with me wondering how to talk to my three-year-old about death and heaven led me on a journey that put me at the doorstep of the Grief Recovery Institute. John W. James and Russell Friedman, the directors of the institute, are the authors of The Grief Recovery Handbook, the official text I use in leading the Orange County Grief Recovery Outreach. After attending their five-day certification workshop, I emerged with a wealth of new information on grief and, more important, practical tools to help parents and individuals complete their relationship to the pain caused by a significant emotional loss of any kind.

I believe I wrote a strong first edition, but my experience learning from John and Russell has made this revised edition that much better. Russell has since become a mentor and friend as we both seek to help people emerge from their grief with a newfound sense of completion and hope for the days to come. In reading John and Russell’s book for the first time, I saw a number of overlapping themes addressed in both of our books. But where John and Russell’s work offers individuals a specific process and practical tools for grief recovery, this revised edition of Children and Grief focuses on helping you as a parent develop a lifelong dialogue with your children about the facts regarding death and loss, the feelings we experience as grief, and how faith in God offers comfort in the present and gives hope for the future.

You will find me quoting John and Russell’s work not only because I lead a weekly grief recovery program using their material but also because I’ve seen firsthand how it changes people’s lives for the better. Their work has broadened my understanding of grief and the steps to working through the pain, loneliness, and isolation caused by major emotional losses. I simply haven’t discovered a better process for helping people, and I am gratefully indebted for their encouragement and coaching along the way. (See the resources section for contacting the Grief Recovery Institute.)

So be encouraged. You are not alone in wondering what to say to your kids and how to say it. I’ve discovered that when parents receive solid information and practical tools for discussing one of life’s most difficult subjects, a sense of relief and confidence soon emerges.

The premise of this book is simple: If we are going to speak to our children about matters of life and faith, then we must talk to them about the reality of grief, loss, and death. While most of us would probably agree that it’s important to prepare our children for every aspect of life, the thought of talking to our children about grief, accidents, terminal illness, death, funerals, and the like doesn’t sit well with us. Most of our parents didn’t know how to talk about this stuff very well, and neither do we. But at the same time, I’ve met many grandparents who are eager to help their adult children help their grandchildren when faced with a family crisis. And so, up and down the family tree, parents and grandparents can and are learning new ways to help one another.

And so I offer you this book. It’s a start.

It is a book about being honest. Honest with ourselves and honest with our children. It is a book that asks more questions than it answers. It is a book that does not present the final word but initiates the beginning of a lifelong conversation on a difficult subject most people prefer to avoid.

Most of all, this is a book about hope. It is about people like you and me who are struggling to figure out what we really believe when the unbelievable has happened. And then wondering, What in the world am I going to say to my kids? How am I going to explain what just happened in our family and what I believe about the God who saw this whole thing happen?

The foundation of this book is faith. In examining the deepest questions of life and death, we either choose to live by faith or, when we look at the other limited options around us, are ultimately left with despair. If your children are to pass on their faith in God to their children in a very real and relevant way, it must be a faith grounded in hope. Nowhere is a stronger hope to be found than in the secure knowledge and love of God. Who then can lead us to this understanding of God?

A curious snapshot of the life beyond—God’s eternal kingdom—depicts children leading wild animals in a world conspicuously absent of adults.

The wolf will live with the lamb,

the leopard will lie down with the goat,

the calf and the lion and the yearling together;

and a little child will lead them.

The cow will feed the bear,

their young will lie down together,

and the lion will eat straw like the ox.

The infant will play near the hole of the cobra,

and the young child put his hand into the viper’s nest.

They will neither harm nor destroy

on all my holy mountain,

for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the LORD

as the waters cover the sea.

Isaiah 11:6–9

Hmmm…makes you wonder, doesn’t it? Children, God’s finger painting of innocence and trust, stand near the summit of God, a safe place free of harm or destruction. It is, perhaps, from this perspective that we can begin to tackle this dangerous animal of death and dying while still here on earth. Here you will meet a number of my friends and family who have walked the road you are now on. I hope they become your friends. I hope their stories give you the hope you need to make it through to tomorrow. And maybe you just might feel the tug of a little hand leading you along the way.

1

Can You Help Me Help My Son?

Looking at Grief and Loss from a New Perspective

I’m not afraid to die…I just don’t want to be there when it happens.

Woody Allen

Twelve-year-old Taylor walked into my office with his mom. Shoulders slumped, he shook my hand with all the firmness of soggy bread. He plopped in a chair, his head hanging low. Words weren’t necessary. His body language was already screaming at me and his mother. I could tell he really wanted to meet with me.

A couple weeks earlier, Karen, his mother, asked if I could help her son, who was having difficulty following the death of her brother, Taylor’s uncle, who happened to be the key father figure in Taylor’s life. Karen was currently a member of my grief recovery class, and I told her I usually don’t work with children because my main focus is helping parents help their children. But by the look in her eyes and from the fact that I had met Taylor a couple months earlier, I said I’d be willing to listen and talk if he was willing to meet with me.

Once Taylor settled into his chair and I had a chance to hear his story, a whole new perspective emerged that I believe will help you develop a larger perspective of grief and loss. Most people commonly associate grief with death as well as other death-related terms like mourning, sorrow, and bereavement. But grief encompasses a much larger scope than death alone. Throughout the course of our lives, we encounter losses of many kinds, all of which can and do produce the conflicting emotions known as grief. Let’s look at Taylor’s story in more detail.

Before Taylor came into my office that day, I asked Karen if there had been any other recent changes in Taylor’s life. Why yes, she replied. The past couple years of Taylor’s life have been filled with changes. Keep in mind, the most powerful change had been the recent death of his beloved uncle. Now add in these changes: Two years ealier, Taylor’s mom had remarried, and as with most stepfamilies, there had been some difficult adjustments. Taylor and his family had also recently moved. And as a sixth grader, Taylor was attending a new school. The death of a favorite uncle. A new stepfamily. A move. And a new school. All in a relatively short period of time.

With that many changes, if you and I were Taylor, wouldn’t we be struggling with a few conflicting emotions too?

Fortunately, Taylor had a mother who took the courageous step to help herself in her own grief over her brother’s death and then to seek help for her son. Seen from Taylor’s perspective, the conflicting emotions of grief encompass much more than death alone. Children and adults alike experience conflicting emotions with the death of family members, divorce, moves, job loss, addictions, pet deaths, chronic health problems, financial hardship, and the host of other losses and disappointments experienced in this life.

And so, my guess is that right now you are asking a very similar question to Karen’s: Can you help me help my son, my daughter, my children? Or perhaps you’re a grandparent, an aunt or uncle, an elementary or Sunday school teacher asking the same question. Maybe you’re a neighbor or friend who wants to help someone else who’s experienced a recent loss or who is expecting an impending loss.

In the next few pages, I’m going to present a few concepts that will help orient you in the wilderness landscape of death, grief, and loss. This, I believe, will help you develop a valuable new perspective on helping grieving children. Along the way, you’ll also discover useful information to help you help yourself and your own emotions of grief.

Perhaps you’re reading this book when there is no immediate crisis at hand, but you have a strong desire to help your children grow to become emotionally healthy adults by helping them with the inevitable losses they will experience throughout the course of growing up. Then this book is for you too, because one of the greatest challenges of parenthood is providing an emotionally safe home where children can flourish and grow into healthy adults.

Your Child’s Developmental Understanding of Death

Before we explore the subject of grief, let’s look at a very important factor that will determine how you speak to your children about death and loss. What you say to your children and how you help them with their grief depend on their age as well as your commitment to communicating truthfully. Common sense tells us that what you say to a three-year-old is different from what you say to a fifteen-year-old. Your child’s developmental understanding of death depends on their age, cognitive development, life experience, and the amount of truthful information they have received. As they go from being infants to toddlers to young children and on into adolescence, they grow in their understanding of life and death.

At a very young age, children are aware of death. They see dead plants, dead animals, and countless cartoon characters dying on television. They go from seeing death as something temporary and reversible to comprehending that all people will eventually die. They move from viewing death as an insidious villain like the Grim Reaper to personalizing the truth that they will someday die too. Research indicates that children and teenagers grow in their developmental understanding of death in the following ways.

Infancy

An infant has no cognitive understanding of death. When a parent dies, the infant experiences the loss of the bonding relationship with the parent. An infant is dependent on others for its survival, comfort, nurture, and growth. Since infants and very small children do not have a concept of time, death is experienced as the void or absence of someone who was previously close to the child.

Preschoolers and Toddlers

Children between the ages of two and four understand death to be a temporary, reversible, and impersonal event. Think about the cartoon characters they watch on TV. Wile E. Coyote has been blown up, smashed, poisoned, launched, impaled, and squished into an accordion a zillion times over, yet he still lives. That little poof of dust at the bottom of the gaping, thousand-foot cliff must be the exhale of the air bag he lands on every time.

Cartoon characters who come back to life again and again reinforce the notion that death is something temporary, almost funny, to young children. Since death is not understood as something permanent, when a family member or a pet dies, preschoolers may continue to talk about them as if they hadn’t died. A toddler may constantly