child and adolescent grief

Grief and Play Therapy with Children

Posted on by Mark Moran

Grief is a universal and unbiased in who it afflicts.  Unfortunately, children suffer in this fallen world of pain and loss.  Throughout the world, children are plagued with horrible images that adults in many nations would never imagine.  Children are victims of war, bombings, loss of family and many traumatic incidents.  Children are abused in every corner of the world and face horrible trauma.  Beyond the most traumatic events, children experience loss at early ages.  The loss of a grandparent, or family member, or even a beloved pet.  No loss is too small for a child.

Licensed counselors who specialize in children psychology and have training in Play Therapy can help children face trauma, grief and loss.  In addition, many licensed professionals and human service professionals earn additional certifications to help children.  Some may even specialize in Child and Adolescent Grief Counseling and have a greater understanding of children and the nature of loss.  Licensed professionals with specialties and additional training certificates can help children process emotional pain because they are trained to identify and communicate to children.  Play Therapy is one type of advanced counseling technique that counselors can utilize to help children.

Children express themselves in play. Please also review AIHCP’s Child and Adolescent Grief Counseling Certification

Children grieve differently from adults due to their brain development.   Many children are so young that many communicate skills have yet to develop.  Children sometimes do not know how to say what emotionally hurts or what is bothering them because they do not know how to articulate it.  Children are more right brain developed and many of the feelings, traumas and losses associated with them are experienced in the lower areas of the brain.  The Amygdala, Hippocampus, and Thalamus are non-verbal areas of the brain and with children, one must engage in non-verbal ways.  In addition, while children have billions of brain cells still forming and becoming more complex within their first five years, these neural pathways are still not complex enough to effectively communicate.  The Pre-Frontal Cortex of the adult brain possesses the ability to better communicate, while the child’s less developed area to communicate still needs time. Hence counselors who deal with children, utilize a variety of non-verbal ways to help the child express.  Understanding that communication and judgement are operations of the higher parts of the brain, counselors look for signs from the lower areas of the brain that are more primal in expression.

It is because children have less verbal communicate abilities that counselors must look for visible manifestations of emotion within children which can be displayed during play.  Among the most common types of physical signs of emotional distress in children, Melinda points out tension, fidgeting, repetitive movements, aggression, self harm, low energy, increased heart rate, hyperactivity, somatic pains, and rapid breathing as things to watch for with children as a way they express emotional distress (2018).  These types of physical signs can manifest in counseling, play therapy, or at school or home in children experiencing emotional issues.  Many children brought to therapy are already manifesting various social outbursts or behavioral issues that are merely ways of attempting to express difficult emotions due to loss, trauma, or grief.

Play Therapy and Grief

Alan Wolfelt points out that helping children grieve is not just about therapy but is a companioning experience that involves actively participating in the child’s healing (p.1, 2012).  Play Therapy involves actively entering into the child’s world, earning the child’s trust, creating a safe place for the child to express in his/her own way and being able to translate those expressions and help the child heal.

Play Therapy owes its origin to Hermine Hug-Helmuth who in 1921, first introduced ideas of allowing children to express themselves in play with toys and other games.  Melanie Klein, as well, was a pioneer in the field who discovered that play was a doorway into the child’s subconscious mind.  Later in 1938, David Levy would utilize toys and other objects chosen by the child as a way to identify past trauma and relive the traumatic event via play.  This became known as Release Therapy.    Joseph Solomon employed Active Play as a way to allow children to express emotions such as a fear and anger in a controlled way to help them become more able to interact later socially

Counselors utilize Play Therapy as a way to be build relationship with the child to earn a way into their inner mind according to Anna Freud.  Carl Rogers also saw Play Therapy as a way to center the therapy around the needs of the child and build genuine and trustful relationships.  These are all critical elements in helping the child express.  It is time consuming but necessary to help the child trust and be able to learn the language of the child during play.

Play Therapy helps the counselor understand the language of the child

During Play Therapy, the counselor wants to give the child controlled freedom.  The child is allowed to choose the toys in the room or games.  The counselor does not look to push serious questions but instead observes and plays with the child.  Usually sitting at eye level with the child, the counselor will ask the child about the toys or games the child likes and enjoys.  Many times, the counselor will reflect and repeat what the child says and encourage the child to name the toys and express how the toys make them feel.  To the foreign eye, it may seem as nothing is occurring but the counselor is attempting to not only gain trust, but is also engaging the child at symbolic and non-verbal way looking for cues of the child’s behavior.  In other ways, the counselor is attempting to help the child better express verbally by granting the child freedom of labeling and naming toys.  Some counselors may approach with a more directly with more interaction, while others may be less direct.

The room itself is a play room with numerous options for the child to choose from.  This includes miniature figures, dolls, doll houses, stuffed animals, puppets,  legos, building materials, and other sporting equipment.  The toys are a doorway to the child’s symbolic mind and help facilitate healthy expression.  Counselors may utilize other ways to express and open creative mindsets through songs and music, story telling or through uses of art, drawing, clay and painting.  The key is to help the child tell his/her story, find healing, and discover other ways to find outlets and creative ways to express and rediscover oneself.

Some children who may be grieving, may use dolls or action figures as a way to reflect the life of family members around them.  This symbolic expression correlates with their inability to express verbally but through play and expression instead.  A child who may be experiencing grief over the loss of a family member, may play out death with a doll or action figure.  In addition, certain toys or games or songs may trigger within the child physical symptoms of discomfort that the counselor may identify and notate.  During certain activities, children may share information that otherwise would never emerge in an adult conversation.

Conclusion

All people grieve and children are no exception.  When children are emotionally hurting, they sometimes do not act logically.  To help children grieve and express emotion, counselors need to understand the language of the child.  Due to brain development that is not as verbal  in children, Child Grief Counselors need to understand the symptoms of emotional distress in children via Play Therapy.  Play Therapy helps the child find safety and trust in expressing issues in the child’s own special way during play.  Child Grief Counselors who specialize in Play Therapy can help children heal during play by allowing them to express in conducive and healthy ways.

Please also review AIHCP’s Grief Counseling and Child and Adolescent Grief Counseling Certifications and see if it matches your academic and professional goals

AIHCP offers a specialty certification in Child and Adolescent Grief Counseling for the American Academy of Grief Counseling’s certified Grief Counselors.  This certification trains and educates Grief Counselors in the knowledge of grief in children.  While pastoral and non licensed counselors can help individuals with grief, only licensed counselors with grief background, child psychology and training in Play Therapy are permitted to treat children suffering from emotional damage.  Pastoral counselors trained in Grief Counseling and Child Grief Counseling, if not licensed, should refer children to clinical professionals with Play Therapy training.

AIHCP’s Child and Adolescent Grief Counseling Certification is online and independent study and open to qualified pastoral and clinical human service professionals, as well as those in the healthcare fields.

 

 

 

References and Additional Resources

Wolfelt, A. (2012). “Companioning the Grieving Child”. Companion Press

Good Therapy. “Play Therapy”.  Access here

Melinda, S. et al. (2018). “Why Is Engaging a Child’s Brain and Body in Therapy Important?”.   Good Therapy. Access here

Sutton, J. (2017). “Play Therapy: What Is It and How Does It Work?” Positive Psychology. Access here

Cohen, J. (2023). “How to Help Children Cope With Death and Grief”. Psychology Today.  Access here

 

 

 

Parenting While Grieving

Posted on by Dominick Flarey

Parenting is not an easy vocation to start but when extra issues in life pile up, then parenting can become even more difficult.  When stressors, losses, illness, or problems arise, parents still need to be able to fulfill their duties to their children. There are no days off when it comes to helping the kids with school, taking them places, cooking, caring and spending time with them but sometimes parents can feel the weight of life, especially during loss and grief.  When grieving and mourning enter into a parent’s life, mother or father do not have the luxury to call off work, or not the children to school, or skip dinner or not wash clothes.  Parents are called to march forward.  This is critical but it can also be bad for grieving and mental health.

Parenting is challenging but when a parent is grieving it is even more difficult. Please also review AIHCP’s Grief Counseling Certification

 

The mental health for a parent is extremely important.  Like in an airplane, when the steward or stewardess explains that in an emergency, adults should place the oxygen mask on first before applying to a child, it is for a reason.  If a parent falls, the child or children will also fall.  So while duty is critical, it is also critical for parents to find the space and time needed to grieve or mourn.  In this blog, we will look closer at the difficult times, when parents have to grieve and still perform at high levels for the welfare of their children.

Mental Health and Support

In times of loss, mental health care and support are so important.  While to many of us, our parents appeared as super powered beings, the reality is they suffered the same emotions we suffer as adults.  They had good and bad days.  They did not always choose the right decision and had to learn the hard way and they also dealt with loss.  As younger children, we may not have noticed this, or maybe even very rarely, but our childhood image of our parents is due to their excellent ability to care.  Unfortunately, some individuals may have negative experiences with parents.  Their parents may have fallen victim to drinking and abuse, or vanished when loss occurred.  They may have spoken nothing of loss or pain and hid it to their own detriment.

For some, family support is available, for others it is lacking. However, the importance of a family that can grieve together and communicate cannot be over emphasized

 

Our experiences with our parents can easily shape our own when parenting-for good and bad.  It is important when grieving to find a balance.  It is OK to show vulnerability to a child but also to ensure that the child still feels secure.   So when dealing with grief and loss, parents need to be able to balance their own feelings and the need to maintain the security and welfare of their children.  This involves allowing oneself time to mourn.  The grief needs to be processed and experienced. If the grief persists and intensifies, then one should seek help from a grief counselor, and if it becomes pathological, one should seek the aid of a licensed professional counselor,

Some parents have better support than others.  Some have a spouse to help lean on, while others have a bigger family to share the grief.  Some parents though may be single parents, or have little or no family support.  They may be over worked and have a full schedule that prohibits time.  These over bearing responsibilities may compound the grief.  So while some may be able to find the help they need or take time off, others live in a colder reality.  Whether blessed, supported or alone and over worked, one can still find basic help services and as well as find time.  Time may need carved out of the day, but one needs to find the time to process the loss, mourn, and be able to express it outwardly.  If one does not find time to re-generate, whether through a walk, meditation, spiritual journey, exercise, or a discussion with a good friend, then the grief will only become stronger and parental burnout may occur.

Sharing Emotion within the Family Unit

Families may tend to be overtly open with emotion or introvert in regards to expressing it.  Grief myths that dictate time schedules, or expression of grief, or sharing grief with children, can only fracture the family unit more.  Instead, express grief with a spouse, or the children.  Communicate that daddy or mommy are very sad.  Reassure to the children that this will not affect their security but share with them the reality that you are going through grief and loss.  This is an excellent way for children to learn to express empathy.  Children will hug and listen and in their own way express grief too.  The grief may very well be affecting not just you but the children as well.  Hence it is important to discuss the loss and include the children in discussion of the loss with real and concrete words about the nature of death.  Let the children partake in rituals and ceremonies and allow them to comfort you.

Communicating feelings and grief not only helps the parent but also teaches the child empathy and proper grieving and coping

 

For most parents, the loss in all probability is of a parent, or tragically a sibling.  These types of losses are extremely painful and children will also experience a shared loss.  While it may be your parent you lost, it still their grandparent.  Hence, it is important to share grief with the child or children and both mutually heal from each other.  This not only helps heal but it also passes on good mourning skills.  Many children inherit bad mourning skills.  They learn to hide emotion, or turn to improper coping methods to curb grief through imitation of mom or dad.

Families can also grow together closer through grief.  While also expressing, they can also memorialize loss and remember together the person over time.  In addition, they can build relationships that are stronger through this shared experience of loss.  Parents can be good grieving examples to their children and children can be good and empathetic listeners when they are permitted into a circle.  Excluding them can have negative effects on yourself but also their development.

The Loss of a Child

If a mother miscarries, or the couple lose a child already born, this has life long ramifications.  It is in itself, its own blog, but this is when parents need to not only grieve for the loss but also help the child grieve the loss of his/her sibling.  It is so important to involve the child in the rituals and to let the child speak verbally or through play.  Monitoring the child and ensuring they are exhibiting no magical thinking is important.  If the child has guilt for the death, then it needs dismissed.  So while the parent grieves, the parent also is ensuring that the surviving child still heals properly from the loss.  Again this is why it is so critical that the family grieves together and proper grieving styles are passed on to the next generation.

Conclusion

Parenting not easy but when grief and loss are thrown into the middle, it becomes far more difficult.  Parents need to not only care for their own mental health but they also need to express loss and grief to their children to ensure security for the child but also an understanding of what grief is and how to share it and be empathetic.

Please also review AIHCP’s Grief Counseling Certification as well as its specialty program in Child and Adolescent Grief Counseling

 

Please also review AIHCP’s Grief Counseling Certification, as well as its Child and Adolescent Grief Counseling Certification and see if the programs meet your academic and professional goals.  The program is online and independent study and open to qualified professionals seeking a four year certification.  The Child and Adolescent Grief Program is a specialty program that is only available for already those certified in Grief Counseling.

Additional Resources

“Can Parenting While Grieving Force You to Heal?”. Cytrynbaum, P. (2013).  Psychology Today.  Access here

“Parenting While Grieving”. Haley, E. (2015). Whats Your Grief.  Access here

“Grieving While Parenting”. Eiseman, J. (2019). Mental Health Match.  Access here

“Parenting while grieving”. Hetter, K. (2011). CNN.  Access here

Child and Adolescent Grief Counseling Program Article on Children and Questions of Death

Posted on by Dominick Flarey

Children can become fascinated with the concept of death at a young age.  Many children are influenced by magical thinking and cannot conceptualize the permanence of death.   Other children come into contact with death usually with the loss of a small pet such as a fish or hamster.

Children at a young age can become very interested in the topic of death. Please also review our Child and Adolescent Grief Counseling Program
Children at a young age can become very interested in the topic of death. Please also review our Child and Adolescent Grief Counseling Program

The article, “Why Do 4-Year-Olds Love Talking About Death?” by Jessica Grose looks at this curious interest.  The article states, 

“When our older daughter was 4, it seemed like she was asking us about death constantly. These questions were apropos of nothing; we hadn’t had a death in the family or lost a pet. What was jarring was her matter-of-fact tone.”

To read the entire article, please click here

Please also review our Child and Adolescent Grief Counseling Program

 

Child and Adolescent Grief: Advice from the Companioning the Grieving Child

Posted on by Dominick Flarey

Grief Rights for Kids

The improper handling of children grief leads to many future problems for the child.  Well intentioned adults many times offer the wrong advice or entirely ignore the issue at hand.  Alan Wolfelt offers these grief rights to children in their grieving.
1.  The right to have my own unique feeling about death.
2. The right to talk about the death when I feel comfortable to do so
3. The right to express grief how I feel
4. The right to ask and receive help during grief from adults
5. During grief, the right to get upset about normal and everyday problems
6. The right to have grief outbursts
7. The right to use my beliefs about God to help me through my grief
8. The right to examine why my loved one died
9. The right to think about and discuss the memories of the loved one lost
10. The right to move forward and feel my grief over and over until I heal
These rights above help adults understand the proper care for a grieving child.  A child deserves not to be forgotten during grief.  They deserve a certain respect that correlates with their age in their understanding of grief and how it affects them.
If you are interested in child and adolescent grief, please review the program.
(Information for this article is from “Companioning the Grieving Child” by Alan Wolfelt, PhD)
Mark Moran, MA, GC-C, SCC-C