Heartstrings

Yesterday was a bit emotionally draining. I went with two of my co-workers up to the Bronx for an all day conference on grieving children. Pretty heavy topic! They even had tissues on each of our tables.

The conference itself was really interesting and they had wonderful speakers for us. Our keynote speaker was Dr. Kenneth Doka. His main focus was on conceptualizing death for children and how to really discuss death with children. All these euphamisms adults use are very confusing and unhelpful for kids. Dr. Doka shared that when we mean dead, say dead. When talking about death, say death. They will understand. Sometimes the euphamisms are just easier on the adults. Death is a hard topic - but don't shy away from it. He also talked about how children may re-grieve early losses. Dr. Doka said that children can mourn at any age, just differently from adults. As they grow, these early losses are understoof differently and we need to work with that. One main take away in communicating about death with children: know what the child can understand, what the child wants to know (what they are asking) and what the child needs to know. Dr. Doka concluded by speaking about how theraputic play and theraputic rituals can really help grieving children.

The second speaker was Dr. Robin Goodman and her topic was traumatic grief. Childhood traumatic grief occurs when the child PERCEIVES the death as traumatic - the death can be unexpected or anticipated. We learned that the best way to treat traumatic grief is separately: the trauma needs to be treated before one can treat the grief. Dr. Goodman (who worked with many children who lost parents in the September 11th attacks) said she often will conduct the trauma work with the child individually and then the child enters a grief group for children when they are ready.

Our next presentation was on tools and techniques for working with grieving children. One of the first things the two presenters shared was that the dictionary definition of bereaved is to be robbed. That really makes sense when you think about it. When someone dies, you feel robbed of everything they were to you in life. We learned lots of great art projects that work well, and in my opinion could actually be used at any age: grief masks, tear jars, worry beads, memory boxes, feeling cubes and so much more. It was really fascinating and the presenters brought some of their clients projects for us to see. When they would explain about the child's story and why they made the project the way they did, it was hard not to get teary eyed. So much emotion comes out in those projects! Another thing they touched on is a "volcano room." It's a theraputic room that has things like bubble wrap, clay, punching bags, drums... things that you can utilize to make you feel better when you're angry. I thought that idea was really cool.

The last portion of the day was really moving. It was a discussion panel with about seven kids who had all lost a parent or sibling within the past few years. The kids were between the ages of 9-17 and getting to hear what they had to say was priceless. They shared things like what therapists (and others) say that is completely unhelpful, what they found worked best for them, what the hardest part of the grief was and any other anecdotes they wanted to share. Some of the kids showed so much insight - fighting through grief sometimes feels like a grain of sand fghting against the waves, one young girl said. The oldest boy, at 17, shared that he would get so angry at people every time someone would ask how he was doing but then realized he was putting his anger in the wrong place and he needed to deal with it. One girl, who had lost two sisters to cancer, shared how the deaths really caused her to question her spirituality and whether or not she believed in God anymore. She also shared how she would write poems to her sisters and read them outloud in her room, like she was talking to them and it would make her feel better. The youngest girl, a 9 year old whose brother died, said the hardest part for her was after school. Her brother always used to pick her up from school and they'd walk together talking about their days. She didn't have that anymore. She also said she had trouble looking at his Xbox, knowing they would never play together anymore. There were several times while they were sharing their stories that I got pretty choked up. They all showed so much maturity and bravery! I know it had to be hard for them to talk about this difficult subject in front of a room full of adults but they were all so wonderful. I made sure to thank them after it was over.

I'm so glad I got the chance to go to this conference! Regardless if I end up working with grieving children on a regular basis, I know I'll encounter it at some point - professionally and/or personally. This conference gave some great tips on how to effectively help. There was a great organization a lot of the people attending the conference were either affiliated with or had adopted methods from: The Dougy Center. If you're interested in this topic at all, I definitely recommend checking out that site!