Helping Young People Through Grief–

Jan Schubert, MA, Mental Health Center of Dane County, Child/Adol/Family Program-October 1996

How do we begin to help young people through the process of grief and loss? There are things we can and should do as adult caregivers to assist adolescents as they move through grief.

We need to begin with some basic assumptions about the grief process in general:

1. Acknowledgement of the death/loss is the beginning of the grief process. You can’t truly grieve until you accept the fact of the loss. Fortunately, society provides us with a form to assist us in this. The funeral is the ritualized acknowledgement of death and loss…nothing more…nothing less. Teenagers should be encouraged to attend a funeral of a person significant to them. Their presence at this ritual can be important later on. They can ask a friend to go with them, wear whatever they want, sit in the corner and eat cake. If worst comes to worst they can stand in the parking lot plugged into their Walkman.

There is no wrong way to attend a funeral. Funerals are a ritual for the living. Don’t ignore your own grief. If you want to attend the furneral of your child’s friend… attend. You are modeling that people can experience greif without being overwhelmed. If your teenager absolutely refuses to attend don’t force them, but encourage them to create their own ritual.

Funerals can mistakenly be seen as the end of the formal grief process. After the funeral the assumption is things return to normal and people move on.

The community moves on…the mourners do not. Funerals do not mark the end of the grieving process, they more often mark the beginning of it. We must understand this as adults before we can help our children understand this.

2. Once loss is acknowledged, the person is grieving. Everyone goes through grief differently. Anger, numbness, tears, depression…all these feelings, in whatever order or duration they occur, are part of the journey through grief. There is no one right road to travel.

3. Reassurances that they will still; be loved, cared for, and belong somewhere despite their loss assists people through grief. For adolescents the landscape is trickier, but the issue is the same. Adolescents need and use family closeness and involvement just as much as anyone else…it just plays out differently. Never underestimate your parental influence and importance to your adolescent. Studies that look at protective factors in helping adolescents cope with a variety of stresses cite a strong sense of family belonging and parental acceptance as being the most important factors for teens. Your teenage needs to know they still have their own important place in the family. They are not expected to replace the person who is gone. If they were the oldest child…they are still the oldest child, not the “man or woman of the house”, even if some 3. Reassurances that they will still; be loved, cared for, and belong somewhere despite their loss assists people through grief. For adolescents the landscape is trickier, but the issue is the same. Adolescents need and use family closeness and involvement just as much as anyone else…it just plays out differently. Never underestimate your parental influence and importance to your adolescent. Studies that look at protective factors in helping adolescents cope with a variety of stresses cite a strong sense of family belonging and parental acceptance as being the most important factors for teens. Your teenage needs to know they still have their own important place in the family. They are not expected to replace the person who is gone. If they were the oldest child…they are still the oldest child, not the “man or woman of the house”, even if some of the expectations of the oldest child may have to change by necessity. Let them know in as many ways as possible that they can have both their separate identity and remain an accepted and appreciated family member.

4. Someone who is working with feelings and information through art, movement, or physical/verbal expression is moving through grief. This is where communication is important. Most teens hate sit-down conversations. Those feel like the lectures of childhood. Sprawled on the couch stuffed with pizza however, an adolescent may share their thoughts for a few minutes. Lose the batteries to their Walkman and then offer to drive them to the store for new ones. Many teenagers talk better while they are doing something else. Check in, but don’t push. People move through grief…some more slowly than others. The important thing is not to get “stuck.”

You may need professional counseling to assist an adolescent if, after six months or more, they haven’t begun to show some ability to resume their lives. If depression is severely debilitating even medication may need to be considered. The goal of therapy is to start the process of working with feelings and information moving again. Often group therapy run by professionals familiar with adolescents can use art or movement to reach even teens who are less verbally skilled.

5. Grief is a normal, even essential part of the process of emotional healing after loss. It’s a natural temptation for parents to want to spare their children the suffering inherent in grief. The goal mistakenly becomes to “feel better fast” when time to “feel bad” is necessary before other feelings may be possible. We most both teach and allow adolescents that reality. The purpose of grief is to get to the other side. The point is not to get there quickly… but to get there whole.

SOS Newsletter Article, Mental Health Center of Dane County, Inc.