


When Children Grieve
For Adults to Help Children Deal with Death, Divorce,
Pet Loss, Moving, and Other Losses
Children process things differently from us, because their life experience limits that.
Still, in this 'information age' - young people are exposed to a lot more in more public ways (more on this later).
So likely we are teaching the children around us what we learned (that is also not helpful - but well-intentioned).
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"She passed away"
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"He's gone to his eternal rest"
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"Dad's gone"
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"He expired"
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"We've lost Mother"
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"Grandpa's gone to sleep"
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"God has called him home"
Instead, why not tell the truth (without metaphors). Why? Because they may be terrified that someone else is going to go to sleep, die and leave them.
(That's what happened to me as a kid - when a person or pet died - I was afraid my Mom was going to die. Terrified in fact). I only wish I would have had these tools then.