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Fatherless
child not grieving child not
grieving child not grieving
grieving Depression child
Depression Depression due to
death children and death death
is tough death and kids
depressed child not grieving
Depression, Support Child
Depression, fatherless
motherless Bereavment child not
grieving
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When
there’s a death in the family you often
see a "balancing act". Feelings of
intense grief can disorient and immobilize a
person. Because of this, it is not
emotionally safe for everyone in the family
to feel intense grief at the same time. Kids
will often hold back on their grief, trying
to keep the family functioning, until the
surviving parent and/or other siblings have
made it through this period of grieving.
When this is happening it is in the
child’s best interest that their parent
work on their own grieving. To urge the
child to grieve at this point is setting
him/her up for an emotionally unsafe
situation and could complicate the grieving
process. Sometimes
the child is afraid to grieve. On one hand,
you can feel out of control when you’re
grieving, and that can be scary. On the
other hand grieving brings about a sense of
finality to a death. There is an irrational
belief that if you can hold off the feelings
of grief, the deceased isn't 100% dead. |
| With
these issues in mind, here are a few
suggestions for the surviving parent: 1)
Tend to your own grieving process, 2) try to
re-establish the security of routines as
soon as possible, 3) acknowledge the death
by mentioning it matter-of factly whenever
appropriate, and 4) help the child re-define
the relationship with the deceased parent,
i.e., "This parent used to be a part of
my everyday life. Now this parent can be
acknowledged for the role he/she played in
my younger days and can remain a fond memory
and inspiration." This can be done by
reminiscing, putting together a photo album,
celebrating the parent’s birthday, etc. |
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