Laura Holmes - Childhood Grief

In this episode we talk about children and grief. November is National Childhood Grief Awareness Month. An estimated 6 million children in the US will experience the death of a parent or sibling by age 18. Laura Holmes, a program manager with Companions on a Journey, will be with us.

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Hello everyone, and welcome to Smashing the Stigma podcast. I'm Amy Frederick and I'm Connie Gaylor. In this episode we're talking about children and grief. November is National Childhood Grief Awareness Month. An estimated 6 million children in the US will experience the death of a parent or sibling by age 18. In this episode, Laura Holmes, a program manager with companions on a journey, will be with us. So let's talk a little bit about companions on a journey and what your organization does. Sure. So, companions on a journey. Um, does grief support? So we have grief groups for adults, um, different types of groups. So we have like widowed groups, um, we have hope and healing after suicide. We have a family group, quite a few different groups. And then we also do grief support groups in schools as well. So we are in, um, almost 70 schools around the Cincinnati area. And then we also will do crisis grief support as well. So if we've had a student or a teacher in a school. Sometimes we do that for a business as well. We will go in and support for a day, sometimes a couple days after that. And then we also do some one on one grief support services as well. Man, that's really awesome. How long have you been with companions on your journey? So I've been with coach for about three and a half years. And what led you? Um, other than your degree, you know. But what led you to. To go down the path of grief support? Sure. So I had been a mental health therapist for a while. Um, and the job popped up, uh, with coach for me to work with them, and I said, that sounds really interesting. So I mostly work in the schools, and so I like the idea of working with kids. Um, doing groups. I love doing groups. I also get to work with social work interns as well. So teaching them. But then I think for grief, specifically when I was in mental health therapist you were really working on, like treating those mental health disorders. But grief is different. You're not trying to treat it. You're just trying to come alongside. People know that they're not alone trying to support them. And I think that really fits with who I am. Yeah, yeah, I agree. I think when it's a passion that you feel really connected to, you also feel rewarded in what you're doing. Absolutely. So today we kind of want to focus on childhood grief specifically. Um, you know, I was doing some reading and some research and just thinking about, you know, all the ages and the differences. Can you kind of tell us why age is really important in the support process with grief? Sure. Yeah. So I think age. Plays a big factor, first of all, developmentally. Right. Um, when you have a really young kid, they may not even understand what death is. So I have a four year old, I've lost three grandparents over the last couple of years. So we've talked kind of a lot about death. Um, also because of what I do. So we'll like pass this a cemetery and I'll say, you know, that's where people are buried after they die. And we'll talk about that. Um, and I'll try to be pretty. I'll try to be pretty explicit in that I say like or concrete, I guess would be the word. When someone dies, that means their body no longer works. They can't talk, they can't walk, they don't breathe. So trying to explain that. And for a while she would just kind of take it in. And then all of a sudden, one day we're passing a cemetery. She goes, ha! Am I gonna die? I don't want to die. Just are you gonna die? I don't want you to die. So it's really interesting to see how it was, like starting to click with her. But then I also had a friend passed away recently, too, and I was telling her, you know, this friend died, her body no longer works. And she said, can can I meet her? I said, well, no, she died. And she said, but I want to meet her. So it was really interesting how she doesn't, you know, she didn't fully get it. Um, so with those really, really young ones, you have to be really clear on what dead means, because they may think that, you know, oh, mom died. She's just on a trip. She's going to come back. So obviously that really changes how you're going to work with that age. Um, and really get abstract thinking comes around 11. And so that changes how those individuals would think of grief. Um, but yeah, so really playing to that developmental piece and what, um, what's going on in their lives at the time, it really makes a big difference. So if you do have a death in your family and you have a young child, um, they, like you said, they don't always understand it, but what are some specific behaviors that they might be doing differently or that you can spot that? That's grief. Because I know if you have a young child, they don't. They don't know how to label it. They don't know what to call it, but their behavior is definitely different. What's some things that maybe a parent could look for? Something like that? Sure. So I would say with the really young kids, you're gonna see a lot of like, clinginess, um, fussing. Um, so if they're not really able to talk it out, you're going to look for kind of more behavioral and emotional. Um, the younger the children, like, let's say elementary, they may be able to start to identify it. Um, with a lot of them, we start to see. And this would be with teens too. Um, anxiety is pretty common. So starting to worry that somebody else might die as they start to understand that and process that. Um, there's a lot of physical complaints that we'll see in grief. So stomach aches, headaches, difficulty sleeping is a common one. Um, Separation anxiety can happen with grief. And then I would say with those teenagers, what's challenging with them is that they are starting because of their age. They're starting to rely more on peer support now. Right. And so, um, trying to find adults that they want to talk to because a lot of their peers aren't really going to understand what what they're going through. So we want them to have some adults that they can turn to as well. But you might see some of, you know, some angry behaviors, reckless behaviors from teenagers. Definitely anxiety. Guilt can be common in kids and teens. Sometimes a, um, see those early elementary age. They may think that they cause the death even if they really weren't related. Um, you know, what they did wasn't really even related to the death. But if they had certain thoughts in their head, they might have thought that that kind of magically caused the death. So I think clearing that up is really important. It's tough because you don't. You know, sometimes children don't always tell you what they're thinking. Mhm. So and then I thought another interesting point that you we all when we think of grief we always think of a death you know of a loved one, a grandparent, a parent, a sibling. But there are other types of grief that kids can experience. Mhm. Why don't you tell us about that. It's not. Sometimes it does deal with death like a pet. But other changes in a kid's life that might also be a cause for grief. Yeah. So one thing I think is, um, so powerful in working with grief is that we were. We will all experience grief. We all have experienced grief. So, um, not all of us have necessarily experienced a death that was close to it, but. But we've all had changes in our life, right? So if you've ever had a big move, um, a divorce, anything like that. Um, so that is grief too. And and sometimes that grief is not recognized in the same way that a death is recognized. Right? Like if a kid has a parent die, people around them are going to know that this is very challenging for them and let's support them. But if they move to a different school, that can be grief too. But that may not be as acknowledged in the same way. So helping kids to process through that and work through that, obviously with that, there's probably going to be, you know, positives and negatives that come with it versus the death of a parent is going to be very, very challenging for them. Moving to a new school is probably going to have good and bad things that come with it. Mhm mhm. How how would you advise parents, you know, to handle those, those different kind of conversations. You know I mean you know we kind of talked about the loss of an actual loved one in their life. But um you know what we don't want to do is, is, you know, demean their, their grief. We don't want it to sound like, oh, you just moved to a different school. You know? But to them it's huge, you know? It's the loss of what they knew into something that they don't. And the anxiety. So how how would you handle. How would you, you know, tell Amy and I how to handle that with kids. Yeah. So I would say the the first would be giving them opportunities to talk about what they're going through. Obviously it depends on the age. You know, some kids are and the kids some kids are going to readily come to you and tell tell you all about their day. Other kids are not. So just giving those opportunities, making sure you're spending a lot of one on one quality time with them as much as you can, giving the space for them to talk and process it. I would say that would be first. And if you know if they are a kid who then wants to share, hopefully they will. I think otherwise prompts are really important. So I think with the younger kids I love to use books. So getting books out from the library on moving to a new school and then reading that and asking questions as we go along. Like, oh, I see Jimmy from the book. You know, he's really sad. Have you felt sad, too, as you've moved to a new school? So giving those prompts, you can also say like, hey, when I was a kid, if this is true for you when I was a kid or when so-and-so was a kid, and they may have moved to a new school, they were really sad and it was really hard for them to make new friends. Have you experienced that same thing? So getting them to be able to talk about it? Kids also express how they're feeling in play, so paying attention to what their play looks like. You can also encourage them to use artwork. So can you draw a picture of what school looks like for you, what your friends look like? And they may be able to better express it through play or through art. I can only think of like like when you say I think books and stuff. I actually think that's a really great idea. How? But how do you. And maybe it's just me. I have a teenager, but how do you start a conversation? Because I think as parents, sometimes you just want to jump in and help. What are like some key words just to start. Yeah. So I would say, um, like I said, making that space. I feel like I hear teenagers a lot will want to talk in the car, um, or talk at the most inopportune times. Like right before bed. Right. My daughter. Said yes. Um, so I think allowing that sometimes, even though it's like, oh no, they're getting less sleep. I don't want them to, but I think if they are willing to, to talk then then, you know, take advantage of that opportunity. Um, I would say some specific words. Mm. It really does depend on the kid. Um, but I think if you can kind of relate it to peers, um, or will relate it to your own experience or someone else's experience, I think that's what I would probably start with. Do you feel like, um, how would you approach the situation if this, you know, you were working with a child who was had special needs, who, um, you know, had had a bad experience in the past, such as, you know, maybe this is a child that's a foster child or or who were adopted, had already lost a family, was in a totally different situation. Um, do you meet those types of challenges when you're in the schools and, you know, how do you how do you handle that? Yeah, we we absolutely do. And so if that, you know, if they've come from a traumatic situation that is absolutely going to impact their grief. I do a grief training for some of our volunteers and interns, and we have it's like it's 2 or 3 whole sides on, um, the, the what the impact of grief looks like on an individual. So grief is different for every individual. And here's why. And it lists like, I don't know, 15 different reasons. And we could probably list more. And one of those is trauma. So when we're talking about these traumatic situations, um, it's interesting what we've seen with some individuals. If we go for crisis support, we always ask, you know, is there anyone else who has had a significant loss or anyone who's had a significant trauma? Um, we want to look out for those individuals and kind of check on them, because they may not have even been close to the person who's died yet. They might be the one who is most impacted just because of their past. And so really paying attention to that, looking out for that, I think is really important. No, I agree, I feel like, you know, um, you know, say you're you're dealing with a child who's maybe who's been separated from a parent because the parent is incarcerated, and then that parent passes, even though they weren't in their day to day life. I feel like they're grieving. Two things the parent that was never around and then losing them and that being a permanent thing in their mind, you know. So you, you know, they're grieving what they wish they would have had and then they're grieving that it never can be. And I feel like that is just compounds it and makes the the trauma of it even more, you know. So, you know, at some point what you're doing in the schools is going to require more for that child outside of the school. And I don't know if parents or foster parents or even the school, you know, when did they step in and say, okay, now we're going to take the next step. We're going to have to to get more professional help for this young kid who is needing more than an in-school program, you know? Um, because it it's leading into a lot more trauma and death in their situation then maybe somebody who's dealing with a loss because they've moved schools or they've lost a friend who moved schools, or maybe they lost a pet, which is all traumatic in itself. But it's it's to me, it just doesn't seem quite as, um, as deep of an issue that has to be treated as the child who's, who's had, like, you know, compounded grief. Does that make sense? Yeah. Yeah. Um, yeah. And we have a lot of kids who will see, you know, we do is not therapy. It's grief support. And so we have kids who will say that they see a therapist, whether that's for grief, I'm not sure. I think sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't, but. Absolutely. Um, you know what comes to mind when you talk about a kid who's had a parent who's incarcerated, and then that parent passes away? Um, what we I think sometimes that that doesn't click with them right away. So what's interesting with kids and grief too, is kids tend to grieve in bursts, so they might seem fine for a while and then all of a sudden they're upset. Um, and especially if they hadn't seen that parent. Um, you know, let's say, in months. It might not really sink in because our brain is actually like, doesn't always a death doesn't fully click with our brain right away. There's a really interesting book. It's called the The Grieving Brain. And I'm the name of the author is escaping me. But I really love the book. And she talks about, um, our brain is used to forming attachments and it's used to, you know, if I ask you where where are your loved ones right now? You probably have a pretty good idea, right? Because we're used to we leave them for the day and then we come back together. Well, when someone dies, they're not coming back to us. But our brain doesn't usually get that right away. It takes some time. And so I think it's similar for a kid, especially a kid who's young developmentally, who may not even fully understand what death means. If they had a parent they hadn't seen in months. It might not click with them. So that kid might seem totally fine for a long time. And then they go to, you know, I don't know, they win a math competition. And this was a big deal. And then all of a sudden their grief hits them because they're like, oh, dad should have been here. So we really see that grief develop. Um, it can come out in milestones. We have kids in our group who may have had a parent pass away when they were three years old, and now they're 16, but they're still deeply grieving because, um, as you said before, they start to realize, oh, you know, my sister's not going to be there for all these Things later on in life, and they're just kind of just now piecing that together. Yeah, I think that's tough. Um. Me too. Is there a way to prepare your child? Like, if, you know, you're say their grandparent has cancer and it's going to be terminal. Is there a way to start talking to your child early to sort of prepare them? So unfortunately, so we call it anticipatory grief is the grief that you feel before the person dies. And unfortunately anticipatory grief like can I just pre grieve. And it's kind of showing that you really can't. Not to say that wouldn't be helpful for anyone, but in general, you know, you're going to have that anticipatory grief and then you're going to have a different grief once they actually do pass away. I would say what you can do. I think it is helpful, though, to start talking to the kid about it, especially because you want them to be able to say what they want to say. You know. Spend time with the grandparent. Ask the grandparent any questions. Make special memories together. I think having, um, tangible objects can be really helpful. So maybe the grandparent and the kid could make something together, and then that is something that that kid is going to be able to, you know, hold close to them throughout their life. Since I think that's. A great idea. When do you think it's do you think you've talked to your child about grief? But when do you think it's time to call professional help? I would, so I would say we always want to involve from a mental health perspective. We want to involve professionals, um, when it's causing significant distress in one or more areas of life. Right. So if it's significantly impacting home life or school or life out in the community, that's one sign. And then also, um, if they're harming themselves or others, you know, we want to have that assessed. Um, we say basically all grief reactions are normal, except if you're hurting yourself or others. You know, I was thinking, you know, we're we're right on the edge of the holiday season, which is hard for anybody when when you're missing somebody. But sometimes I think adults have problems knowing how to move forward through the holidays. So how do we do that with kids? And, um, you know, when is it good to carry on the same traditions, make new traditions. How how have you seen that affect kids that you've dealt with? Yeah, we pay, you know, really special attention to the holidays. We do the same activity in November and the same activity in December every year in our schools, because we really love those activities. And I think it really has to be a, you know, a family by family basis and a child by child basis. So asking the kid what they want and they may not know. So we're all just doing the best we can, you know, because the the parent is probably grieving too. And so we want to honor that. But I think asking talking about that as a family, you know, what would feel best for us as a family. But I think if you're able to have some way to honor that family member that you've lost, that's helpful. So whether it's, you know, we're going to make, uh, grandma's special cookies this year and we're going to enjoy those together. Um, I will say to what is really, really common for individuals is, is year two is often harder than year one. So when you've gone through a significant loss, um, a lot of people feel kind of in a fog in year one. And then year two is kind of when reality hits. So that first holiday may or may not be super tough, right? Um, Often it's that second one when everything's kind of slowed down and that death has really sunk in, that that can be harder, but it really varies, you know, individual to individual. So really falling back to things that you've already kind of suggested, it's just having those conversations with them. How are you feeling? What would you like to do? Um, I guess noticing if if they seem more down, you know, at that time of year, which you would expect, but I guess just keeping an eye on on each other. Yeah. I mean. And being. Yeah, being flexible, being willing to change that plan with kids in grief. We want to have good structure for them. Right. Having a plan kids are going to feel more secure with structure. Um, but then also being willing to be flexible at for yourself and for your kid. Because if you're grieving too, you got to take care of yourself, right? Yeah. So true. Um, so you you're in 70 different schools. Is that what you said? Almost 70. And is that all ages? Is that elementary? It is all ages, yes. I'll clarify. Not me specifically, but my team is in almost 70 schools yet we are in, um, kindergarten through senior year. We're in public. We're in private schools, so we really see everybody. That's phenomenal. That's. I don't remember having that when I was in school, which was many moons ago. But the support that is out there now, you know, that's so valuable. That makes a big difference for the parents, too, because if the kids are getting support at school when they get home, you know, maybe the grief that mom and dad are feeling is a little bit balanced because they're, you know, they're they feel like the kids are getting, you know, the help that they need to. So that's awesome. And one thing that's unique about us too is our groups are open. So that means any, you know, any kid can join at any time and they can stay in sing group as long as they want. So it's our goal to continue to. As long as the schools want us back, we continue to go to the same schools year after year. So we have some kids who will stay in it for years because grief doesn't end, it just changes. And so to be able to support them, you know, we come in monthly, um, support them year after year. That's so important because like you said, though, they could kind of be on a roller coaster of grief where they're they're feeling good and maybe they don't come as much. And then a milestone hits where they really miss having that mom or dad or whoever, you know, in their life, and then hopefully they'll come back to you. Yeah. That's the hope, right? So. So is there anything. You want to share with us about companions on a journey? How people can get Ahold of you if you have a website, a telephone number, Facebook page. Yeah. So we have all the above. Um, so yeah. So our website is companions on a journey. Org um, Facebook, I think if you just search for computers on journey, I want to say it's one of the first ones, but I've never I mean, I've looked at our Facebook page, but I'm not sure exactly how to find it, but I think you could just search in there. Um, and then off the top of my head, our phone number is (513) 870-9108. And, um, yeah, we have people call in and just say, hey, I'm looking for a support group and we're happy to help you find the one that's the right fit for you. That's good to know that. And we also want to recognize that November 21st is National Childhood Grief Day. Kids are kind of forgotten in their grief. But, you know, if we always say if a kid is is old enough to love, they're old enough to grieve. And so no matter what age they are, we want to support them in their grief as best as we can. I think that's a good note to end on. We want to thank you, Laura, for joining us today. And thank you for listening. Thank you for having me.