Understanding Trauma & Healing
Grief Counseling
Grief Counseling for Children and Elementary Students
The National Center for Grieving Children & Families offers these tips to help you guide a child through the grieving process:
Answer any questions they ask, even the hard ones about death. Give them honest answers that are appropriate for their age and development. Use concrete words like “died” or “killed” instead of “lost” or “passed away.”
Give the child choices whenever possible. Let them decide how they want to say goodbye to the person, allow them to join in the funeral preparations and the service, and encourage them to work through their grief in whatever way works best for them.
Talk about and remember the person who died. Don’t avoid talking about the deceased; bringing up the person they lost may help them to open up about their feelings. Remembering their loved one will help them see grief as a normal part of life and encourage them to focus on the good memories they have of the deceased. Teach them what you know from your culture about grief.
Respect differences in grieving styles; children within the same family may have wildly different methods of coping, and that’s okay. Let them work through it, however is best for them.
Listen without judgment. Reflect what they say back to them and ask them about their experience. Avoid telling them how they should or shouldn’t think, feel, or behave in their grieving process.
Hold a memorial service and allow them to say goodbye. It will help them see how valued and important the deceased was to others and to know that it is okay to grieve. If they don’t want to participate in the service, help them engage in their own service or ritual to say goodbye.
Take a break from grieving and allow the child to take a break from grieving. Children may need more time than adults to smile, laugh, and have fun, and may even require it to heal (The Dougy Center, n.d.).
Healing Journey Take a Break
Take some time to clear your mind and colour the image below. Simply click a colour swatch and then click on the area you want to colour. You can print your finished artwork or choose to reset at any time if you’d like to start over.
