"What Can I Say or Do?": Tools to Help Grieving Children

On November 5, 2007, over 135 professionals and family members attended Montgomery Hospice's conference "What Can I Say or Do?": Tools to Help Grieving Children. After a warm welcome from Ann Mitchell (Montgomery Hospice President & CEO), Elaine Tiller (Director of Bereavement Care) provided background information on children and grieving.

Elaine explained: "When someone is very ill in our family or when someone dies, our automatic reaction is to protect our children from the difficult pain and sadness that comes. So we try to be 'strong' for the children's sake. The problem is that children need us to show strength, not through protecting them from the realities of grief, but by allowing them to share their pain and loss. If the adult and/or child keep feelings bottled up, they can't heal. More importantly everyone in the family will lose out on growing closer by sharing their feelings and remembering together."

Dottie Ward-Wimmer, a nationally recognized trainer and educator who has worked extensively with grieving children and their families, expanded on these ideas in her lively and informative talk. She described the "tasks" of grief which include coming to an understanding of what is happening or has happened, experiencing the emotions, adapting to a new and changed world, and finally remembering and moving on. She explained children's stages of development and how they experience grief at those different stages.

Vicki Johnson, a licensed Clinical Social Worker at Montgomery Hospice and a specialist in children and family grief, shared ideas and specific projects that she uses with grieving children and teenagers. She demonstrated the family mobile (which effectively demonstrates the unbalance that a death causes) and the "wack-it-sock" (which provides a way to physically express anger). She shared ideas for children to use to help remember their loved ones, including a Memory Box, writing a poem using the deceased person’s name, and memory bracelets and bookmarks.

Montgomery Hospice Bereavement Care is available to all Montgomery County residents regardless of whether or not their loved one was a hospice patient. Last year, Montgomery Hospice provided bereavement services for nearly 5,000 men, women, and children dealing with serious illness, death, and grief. Bereavement, or grief, counseling is offered through support groups and workshops, visits, phone calls, regular mailings of self-help materials and referrals to other professionals as needed.