Why on earth am I writing an article on children and bereavement? I am not specially qualified to do so. It was suggested a few years ago that the agency for which I work should offer group work to children who had been bereaved. This has not really happened and I have found more questions than answers in a changing climate around this taboo subject. Since FLAME is a network, sharing the questions may spark some answers.
When an adult is bereaved, they can seek support from the church, CRUSE, counsellors, family friends and so on. When children are bereaved they may have support from their bereaved relatives, friends, school? And that really is the question: where do they get support from? Do they need help, or do we still not recognise their grief until unacceptable behaviour brings them to the notice of the authorities or CAMHS.
My impression is that nationally, services for bereaved children are very patchy. The hospice movement and the health service are likely to be involved in after care where there has been illness before death of a child or adult, but what of children in many other circumstances?
One sixteen year old whom I know came home to find her mother dead after suffering a heart attack. It took the co-operation of statutory and voluntary agencies and family friends to prevent the family falling apart.
However, it seems that things are beginning to change. In 1998 the Childhood Bereavement Project was a set up to improve the quality and range of support for bereaved children, their families and caregivers in the United Kingdom. The project is funded by the Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Fund, and since April 2000 has been managed by the National Children’s Bureau. A research project is in progress and regional meetings are held periodically to bring together people working in the field of bereavement with a particular interest in children.
The Mothers’ Union has recently published some really helpful leaflets called Children and Bereavement, Children and Spirituality, and Taking Children Seriously.
It is perhaps when we start to take children seriously that possible reasons for the lack of services becomes clearer.
St Paul says, “When I was a child I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways.” (I Cor: 13v 11). This well known verse from the Bible suggests that childhood is not just a 21st century invention, though there have been many changes in society and attitudes through the centuries. Paul goes on to talk about our understanding of live and love being partial, even as adults. If our understanding of life changes as adults and is partial, is it any wonder that we find it difficult to explain to children what ahs happened to their beloved grandparent, parent, sibling, or pet?
When I was eleven, my grandmother died. At school in RE we were doing the Beatitudes, and that particular morning we came to Blessed are they that mourn for they shall be comforted. Well, that was it! I was in floods of tears and unable to explain to anyone why. I half knew what ‘mourn’ meant, but comforted….. not at that moment. I had seen my mother upset before I left for school partial understanding indeed! I’m sure the adults must have spoken about this incident later as that teacher, a very strong Christian, became a family friend.
I am fortunate that, in that bereavement, and others I have learned to use the comfort offered by faith, family and friends. However, my experience as a social worker tells me that not all children have sufficient personal or family resources to draw upon. One of the issues which makes setting up a service so difficult is that each family situation is different and whilst psychological theories can provide a framework to describe patterns of grief, it Is not helpful to prescribe how people should express their grief.
A hopeful sign in terms of theoretical input is that attitudes towards loss and children are changing. With many children experiencing family break-up it is more widely recognised that children are affected by loss and that though children are resilient the number and nature of the losses in their lives is a challenge to that resilience.
One of the most encouraging books which I have come across in recent years is Never too Young to Know (Phyllis Rolfe Silveman, OUP 2000) Silverman reviews the history of society’s attitudes to death and writes about the current situations and ways of helping, but the very title of the book is a challenge to adult attitudes toward children.
Perhaps the biggest change in thinking about grief is that it des not go away, and is something to be ‘got over’. The challenge is to build a relationship with the deceased within the reality that they are not coming back. (Silveman page 165).
So the questions which remain for me are:
What services for the support of bereaved children are there in your area?
What is the best type of service? - a centre, a group, individual work, or a combination if these?
Who should e involved? Volunteers, professionals, the church?
And to finish, just one more piece of partial understanding which I happened to catch on Radio 4 recently in a programme remembering the skill of the late Harold Williamson in interviewing children:
One young child talked about the death of his cat, and had some understanding that it had gone to heaven.
Do all cats go to Heaven? Asked the interviewer.
No, some get stuffed..
© 2005 Newsline