Grief and Children: Navigating Their Developmental Stages and What They Need [Grief Series 1]
Experiencing loss can be particularly challenging for children. They may struggle to comprehend and manage their emotions, and since they don’t have the same coping mechanisms as adults, it's crucial to offer them empathy, affection, and assistance.
In this episode, I will guide you in establishing a secure environment where your children can openly express their feelings and patiently process their grief. Together, we will explore practical ways to manage emotions and cope with the pain of loss.
Links and Resources Mentioned:
Free PDF: How to Support Children Grieving Losses
No Bad Parts: Healing Trauma and Restoring Wholeness with the Internal Family Systems Model by Richard Schawrtz
Book List for Children, Grief, and Emotions:
My Many Colored Days by Dr. Seuss
In My Heart: A Book of Feelings by Jo Witek and Christine Roussey
The Feelings Book by Todd Parr
What is Goodbye? by Nikki Grimes
Because of Winn-Dixie by Kate DiCamillo (you may also find the movie here)
The Good-bye Book by Todd Parr
A Kid's Journey of Grief by Susan K. Beeney and Jo Anne Chung (you may also buy this book directly from the H. Norman Wright store)
Still: Making A Whole When Parts Go Missing by Dr. Kimber Del Valle
If interested in receiving my newsletter, A Moment of Pause, you can sign up here.
Please remember that this podcast is not a replacement for treatment by a healthcare or mental health professional. This content is created for education and entertainment purposes only.
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This transcript was created by A.I. — please forgive translation mistakes.
[00:00:00] Welcome to I Thought I Was Over This.
[00:00:05] I'm your host, Dr. Kimber, a licensed clinical psychologist, trauma healer, and fellow life journeyer. Every episode we dive into the science of humaning. And whether you find yourself feeling like you've just hit an iceberg and don't know where help is coming from, or you're ready to trade in your raft for something bigger, you aren't alone.
[00:00:27] Grab what you need. Get comfortable, and let's do this.
[00:00:34] I am so grateful you're here. I cannot believe my book has launched. It's hit. Some very cool highlights for me. I got in the top hundred. Of the pregnancy and childbirth section of Amazon. I also got momentarily in the top 50 of grief and loss, and way more exciting for me is that I got picked up from other book platforms.
[00:01:02] So if you don't feel comfortable ordering on Amazon, I'm on IndieBound. I'm also at Barnes and Noble. And I am super excited. If you have read it, I would love for you to put a review out there for me. It really helps. The algorithm helps get the word out. And if you are in Southern California, get on my newsletter list.
[00:01:30] You will be informed when I do some in-person events later on, and you'll be able to keep up with that because sometimes. I forget to post on social media, but I am a faithful. Email community person. Well, today I wanna talk about grief and children because every family is going to have events to grieve, whether it's a pet, whether it's moving, job losses, illnesses, maybe a friend has moved for the child.
[00:02:07] In our case, as my book talks about, we. My daughter had a sibling, her younger brother die. You know, kids are the emotional sponges of our family. You know, I'm talking kind of globally, but usually they can pick up on something happening, even if they don't know what the story is. And so I am hoping that this episode will really give you maybe some guardrails, I guess, in which to navigate.
[00:02:41] Each age group is would be way too long to kind of go in depth with. So I really would love to give you overviews of things so that you kind of, again, have some guardrails to go on. But I also wanna give the caveat, it is so normal when you're listening to. Any kind of information about what's normal, what's not normal with our children, even up to our teens, we suddenly start putting on the detective hat of, oh my goodness, am I normal?
[00:03:20] Am I not normal? Am I children normal, not normal. And I think what can be so hard about that is that there are lots of variations and obviously I'm not gonna be able to capture all those. So I don't want you to panic. I want you to hold on to my guidelines loosely, and if you're really worried, seek out a child's psychologist.
[00:03:44] They will help you navigate your concern. So let's just jump into the smallest human infants. They really absorb the emotional environment, so when you have something going on, they will show it by maybe fussiness being more clingy, being more agitated. These are all normal, and I wanna say, because I think sometimes, We don't think about this, but if you have a lot of tension going on in your partnership, then that kind of energy, emotional energy, frustration, anger, all of those things are gonna be felt.
[00:04:33] And I'm not saying that that means you need to hide those feelings, but I want you to know that when we come into the world, we are highly non-verbal. And what that means is we have a lot of ser neuroscience inside of us that helps us detect the safety of an environment. And so even though this young, they can't hear what you're saying.
[00:05:01] They hear the tone and the intensity of what you're saying. So I'm just putting that out there. And the thing with grief, And why this is relevant with grief is because grief comes with heavy feelings, lots of dysregulation. It even comes with short fuses because we feel like our emotional bucket is already full and overflowing.
[00:05:26] We can be more stressed. We're gonna forget things more easily when we are really in the throes of grief. So it can be a vicious cycle. Oh, I wanna just put names to that so that you can approach your life with gentleness and compassion, as well as being aware you can't do this alone. Get some good community around you.
[00:05:53] So if you as a parent are grieving. Then in light of just how short our fuse can be and how difficult it can be when our brain isn't functioning at full capacity, really make sure you're doing self-care. Make sure you're getting enough rest if you can. I know that grief will bring up nightmares, and I want you to know that this is just a way that your body is working through the intense.
[00:06:27] So keep getting help and keep focusing on those things that help you navigate deep and intense feelings. As I dive into these age groups, I just wanna give a caveat, which I know is obvious, but sometimes when we are grieving, we forget that our children don't process grief. They especially don't process loss.
[00:06:55] And death in the same way that we do can be very unsettling. They're not able to know that there's ways through it. They don't know what we know as adults, and sometimes we can expect. Them to be contained or to not have anger outbursts or to just get with the program, buckle up a move that we did. We want them to just see the positive about it, and I'm here to say we need to help them where they're at.
[00:07:36] Just know your. Are gonna need help with you coming alongside, and it can be tiring. So again, give yourself lots of compassion so that you can be present for them and not guilting them for the ways that they're putting you through the ringer as you and they navigate the. So here's some possibilities around what your children's needs are around navigating grief.
[00:08:12] And I'm really speaking too, that if you are navigating grief as the parent, they are gonna be impacted, as I've just said. So infants, right? Infants of course, are not gonna be grieving their own loss, but they are able to really pick up on. Your emotional presence, especially if you are the only one as a mom feeding them.
[00:08:42] If you are the dad, you are also an important, very important person to your infant. Here's a thing though, before six months of age, usually infants have an easily flexible personality around who's gonna be able to comfort them. I mean, this isn't a hundred percent true. And there will be preferences, but often younger than six months.
[00:09:10] They're just very adaptive and are able to cuddle and be comforted by many people. Now, sometimes you'll see like preferences. I see it a lot around like facial hair. If an infant hasn't seen facial hair before on a man, then sometimes that can be disconcerting. They're like, what is this? Are you human?
[00:09:33] Are you. So there are of course, little variations or sometimes people with a loud voice if that doesn't match kind of the neurobiology that's going on in your infant. So I'm not saying that there won't be preferences or there won't be times where they cry with someone new. But overall, usually they're pretty adaptive.
[00:09:56] And so if you are going through a really concentrated grief period, In the devastation, you know, the more people that you can have around you that can hold your infant, hold your baby, it's helpful because then you know that gives. Kind of some affective, some emotional variation, and you will still be loved
[00:10:21] You will still be the most important. Even if you need to spend a lot of hours in grief and your infant is away from you or in a different part of the house during this period, there's again, just a lot of flexibility and adaptability. The thing is, we know that your infant at day three could smells, you, knows your smell versus other people.
[00:10:45] So again, you're imprinted on that little bean. And take advantage of the time when there are lots of other possibilities for caregivers, and I'm speaking like especially in your home where people can hold your baby. You can have some points of contact, but then be able to do some more in-depth grieving.
[00:11:10] And sometimes this can happen just depending on the personality of your infant up to 12 months. You know, there can be a lot of flexibility that happens. I really was so grateful I had. So many second moms and my friends, you know, after one, you are going to start seeing more recognition and preferences for those that you have around.
[00:11:34] And again, you know, it kind of varies when this starts taking place, but definitely be looking for the separation anxiety, period. It can happen between 18 months and three and a. Which is a big, long period, but during that time it is a very intense bonding time for babies and toddlers. They can definitely have a preference.
[00:11:58] Some only want mom, even dad can be rejected and put in the dog house and it can really feel like they are communicating terror when away from their mom. If that is the person that they are having separation anxiety with, it's not always the case where it's the mom. You know, sometimes dads can experience this grandmas nannies, but it's an intense period where there is emotional terror around the separation.
[00:12:34] And here's the thing, this is an opportunity for your child. To be able to internalize that whoever the object of this terror of leaving is will return. And so it's the opportunity that you get to have to really show your consistency to your child. We saw this when we put both of our kids in the nurse.
[00:13:05] At church, they definitely had feelings about it. Would've much rather stayed with us and especially my son, he had a trauma around leaving me and so he would just scream and be really upset. But the thing that I knew is that he settled once we left. And I knew that if he didn't settle, which I never got called.
[00:13:32] He always eventually settled, but I let whoever is watching him, Hey, if he doesn't settle down in 10 minutes, I want you to call me. And I had that rule as well when he was in preschool. The 10 minute mark is an important one because we know in some of the hardcore science that if you let them stay in a terrorized, Where they're screaming and upset for longer than 10 minutes, then they learn you're to stop crying, stop screaming, stop protesting, because no one's coming.
[00:14:13] It's not that they adapt like that, it's that they learn how to be more paralyzed and frozen. So the way you can tell the difference is that. Once you leave, once they calm down, within that 10 minute period, they're able to explore, play with the other kids. For my daughter, she sometimes, as she got adjusted different weeks, she might just find one caregiver and sit on the caregiver's lap the whole time, or hold the caregiver's hand the whole time.
[00:14:47] But that again is her adjusting and self soothing. That's all part of this practice. This period is a time where your children are gonna learn how to self sooth. But there is, there's some windows I just wanna say, cuz I know I'm gonna maybe cause some issues, but I'm not a big fan of baby wise. I think baby wise will work with certain personal.
[00:15:13] But you better be sure that that is your child's personality, because otherwise there is no research that backs, absolutely no research that backs baby wise. And in fact, there is counter research in that. Again, no one comes, well, your baby's gonna stop crying. So yes, they are going to sleep longer because you've given them the message.
[00:15:39] No one's coming. So you might as well sleep, but that does not help. Their attachment system in the daytime hours. Maybe feels controversial, but as someone who is an attachment specialist who studies the neuroscience, who studies some of the hardcore science, it is not debatable in my opinion. So you want to make sure that you are sending the message when you cry, when you are upset.
[00:16:06] There may be a period where I am asking you to self-soothe, but once we have gone beyond that period of time, I'm there. I will be there. I hear that you need me. One of the things that we can do, During this baby toddler time when we know that we're gonna go away, I started talking to my kids as if they understood everything I said.
[00:16:33] I started using psychological language within parameters, but we would talk about when we were on the way to the church, Hey, we're gonna go in the nursery, you know, here's some friends that are gonna be here. And I would say that only if I knew. Those friends would be there. And what stuffed animal would you like to take, or what object would you like to take with you so that you can have Uncle Kirby, which was a stuffed pink bear?
[00:17:03] So Uncle Kirby can be there with you when you are upset or when you're waiting for me to come get you. You know, who do you want? There were no surprises. I do not believe in you dropping your child off somewhere and an event, and then you just sneak out of the room. That actually is so terrifying. You as a parent, I wanna encourage you.
[00:17:28] It's okay if they scream. It's okay if someone needs to peel them off of you. That's what happened every day. Literally for a year of my son's life at preschool, he would scream. I could not leave without him clinging to me. But here's the thing. I knew he adjusted every day within five. The report. And I could see he wanted to go back.
[00:17:55] He would always wanna go back. Sometimes he would cry that I was taking him away, but it's so uncomfortable. It's so uncomfortable in those moments of that, no, don't leave me. But it is so much worse and you literally create so much anxiety in this age group. If you don't tell them what's up. There is no such thing as sneaking.
[00:18:21] It just doesn't happen. You are your people. You are your child's person or people, so. Don't sneak out. Don't do that. All right. Uh, let's move on to kind of older toddlers, preschoolers, and in grief, they are going to process things differently, so hold on. I just realized that when I talked about the separation anxiety, I didn't really tie it to grief yet, but all that to say is that likely if you have a significant grief, then the separation anxiety, Period could be prolonged.
[00:18:58] If you have a toddler preschooler who's four, then you might find them back kind of regressed back into the separation anxiety stage. Or even as a toddler when it seemed like they were out. You know, I would expect some regression in this age group if you have significant losses happening and they're picking up, especially on your dysregulation from the.
[00:19:25] And it's all normal. So just expect kind of longer periods of things, expect regression and yeah, they're gonna feel a little more windier. Meltdowns are gonna happen more easily and that's why it's great if you have support, cuz it can be so hard to contain and be patient and loving in those. So, okay.
[00:19:49] Toddlers, preschoolers, they are gonna experience grief in a very, you know, non-logical, non-adult way as they should. So one minute they can be goofy, and then the next breath, literally the next breath, they're on the floor crying, missing their sibling. Just complete meltdown that can take a half hour to regroup from.
[00:20:16] I mean, this is their internal world and they kind of need you to be earthquake proof, which means flexible, just like a building that is made on rollers, can navigate earthquakes much more than a rigid foundation. And so just buckle. Come along with the ride because this is the way, they don't have the prefrontal cortex yet to have a thinking brain around this.
[00:20:49] They're so in their feelings at this age, and I would say kind of talking about the permanence of grief, of course, you don't ever wanna say, oh, they went on a trip, they'll be back. Please don't lie. But I also wanna say you don't want to kind of have a posture of they're forever gone if that's not the words that your preschooler is using.
[00:21:20] When is my baby brother coming home? You can answer. Like he won't be coming home and this is why so sad. He didn't develop properly and so he's not coming home. As I talk about in my book, Still making a hole when parts go missing. I do a lot of explicitly discussing what my daughter thought at three and a half, four.
[00:21:47] You know, she thought the doctors had stolen the baby. Maybe another family had stolen the baby. She had a lot of different ideas. Those ideas that she had really came out when we were doing play. We, I tried, even though it was very painful for me, I tried to do a lot of playing and my husband did too with stuffed animals figurines, just to try to get at, you know, how is she processing this, continuing to set her straight, like no one has stolen the baby.
[00:22:21] He's not coming home. And he, he died and that's really hard to understand in this moment, but he's not coming home. But I didn't really need to get into some of the nuts and bolts of that because the baby brother not coming home is gonna be the way that that is. And so she'll be able to live that, that reality.
[00:22:46] You don't need to hit her over the head, hit your child over the head with. What death really means. Another thing that I think is so great at this age that you can do is people know about it, cousins, neighbors, all of them being able to come alongside, draw pictures, support. If you are, have a child who has a friend that is experiencing loss, teaching empathy, teaching compassion, helping them draw pictures are all great ways to come alongside.
[00:23:24] A toddler and a preschooler who is dealing with grief, and I created a PDF that you can find on my website. I'll put it in the show notes. My son, who's 15, he actually helped put it together. He designed it and we created it off of all of the pictures that my daughter Eden got when our son died. And so it's really a delightful, a delightful support and it, it is visually, I think amazing.
[00:23:55] That's kind of, you know, what you wanna know with these kids. Same, they're gonna regress, maybe, you know, you can have them start out. In their own room sleeping and then expect that they're gonna come into your room. You know, you'll have to kind of play it by ear, but just expect there's gonna be needing more physical containment for sure.
[00:24:19] And then the elementary school children, there's a big age range, of course, right From talking from kindergarten up through fifth grade, and I really want to give you permission to. Have some boundaries around grief. And what I mean is they're gonna have a lot of curious questions and they're gonna talk about it a lot, and that is fantastic.
[00:24:45] And if you are at a place where as the parent, the grieving parent, you are tapped out, then I want to let you know that you can lovingly let your child. Things like, I love your curiosity and I really wanna figure out this together cuz I can see you have so many questions and I have questions too. But for right now, what we're gonna have to do is have one more question and then we're gonna have to put a pin in it and we'll pick it up at dinner.
[00:25:24] Okay? So if you have more questions, If it's appropriate and they can write it down, write 'em down, we'll talk about it at dinner, or I want you to remember them. And we'll talk about it at dinner, or you can, even if you have capacity, you could even say, okay, you can ask me the question and I'll write it down and we'll remember to talk about it at dinner.
[00:25:46] So it's not like you need to close them down. But what happens is if you don't own what your limits are while they're asking you questions, then you're gonna be start getting irritated, agitated. You can even like blow up. How can you not get this? And your child does not know how to make sense of your irritation.
[00:26:11] You don't know how they're internalizing your responses. They only know what they see emotionally, which is you're getting angry or frustrated, or you're shutting down, those kind of things. So give them a roadmap and it's okay to have limits. It's absolutely okay. Just own your limits with your kids so that they know how to navigate the situation.
[00:26:33] I think here, imaginary play is great. Drawing can be helpful. I would expect bad dreams, even, you know, maybe younger kids too. Preschoolers can have bad dreams. Here. Again, progressive behaviors, they might be anxious. They might want to stay home and not go to school. Sometimes that's because they're afraid that you're gonna die.
[00:26:58] You can talk about that and just even normalize it. Oh, it's so normal that when we have had someone important to us die to feel afraid that everyone is gonna die. And that of course, it makes so much sense. But here's the thing. Your body and your. Needs to go to school. We can't just let grief take over, even though we feel like it needs to.
[00:27:27] I'm gonna pick you up at the same time that I do every day. Here's the thing. Is there a special object that you would want to take? So you remember that I'm thinking of you and that you can have with you and you really normalize this, validate your child's experience. And also you can have him or her talk to the teacher and maybe there's a special.
[00:27:54] That they could go if they start feeling really sad. And if that's the case, you know, you can just again, talk to the teacher about it, maybe drawing pictures, doing some artwork while the other kids are doing school academics, like I would expect that there's gonna be a little lapse in that. And them navigate, let them know.
[00:28:17] It's not business as usual and talk about it. It's all really, really good. Also, I didn't mention this before, but there are some great grief books off the top of my head. This is for Younger Kids, a Dr. Seuss book. I will look them up and put them in the show notes, but even. Starting with emotion books, like books that name Emotion, and I'm sure there's so many more since my kids were little, but those are always great.
[00:28:49] And any kind of book where there's a character feeling sad, you don't want your child to be dissolving in a puddle. If you're reading a book, that might be an indication that it's actually too much too soon. But getting books that really identify the emotion, that there's different emotions that you can feel that can be very, very helpful.
[00:29:12] Cuddling, cuddling, cuddling. Like our bodies when we are held. We are held for a long period of time. It connects to the vagus nerve that is our co-regulation nerve that helps us feel safe and settled. We know that we aren't alone. It is so powerful. Can't emphasize enough the importance of physical touch hugs, especially bad night dreams.
[00:29:42] All of those. So good. I even some of my adolescents who have experienced traumas, there's so many layers of grief in their life because things aren't necessarily the same as their peers, and so they can really feel a loss of normalcy. And I, in those situations, really encourage parents from middle school to high school, I'll tell my client, Hey, I want you to ask for.
[00:30:12] I want you to sit on the couch for 10 minutes and get a really strong hug. I can't emphasize enough how that shifts a nervous system and really develops this grounding and this regulation. And so if you are. In this people group as we're moving kind of to the tweens now, really being able to notice, listen, there's a part of you that is so scared and so afraid, and that part of you.
[00:30:44] Needs some loving care and some kindness from your parents. So I know that there's another part of you that's like, Ooh, no. But he gets to live a lot in his independence when he is at school. And so your other part of you needs to be cuddled. Can you do that for me? So that's kind of how I. Talking about the different parts and the thing about it, when you start using language about the different parts of you, you start using language that talks about.
[00:31:16] Your states of mind or your emotion, it really is developing some emotional intelligence inside your kids. Richard Schwartz has a great modality that talks about the parts. He has a book, no Bad Parts. It discusses this idea, but really different therapy modalities been talking about different states of mind, different parts for a long period, and it just allows them to know that.
[00:31:44] The grief or the sadness or the overwhelm is present and it's present with something else, and in this moment it's present with a part that wants to be comforted. And protected, and we can get that in a hug in some cuddling. A helpful book for kids, it's called A Kids' Journey Through Grief, and it's a coloring and activity book.
[00:32:13] It's by Sue Beanie and Joanne Chung. So I know that all different ages right now are coloring. It could be something, even your tweens and teen. Want to look at, you know, even elementary school, tweens, teens, you know, sleepovers. They may not want to do sleepovers after a big loss. For a period. I think they wanna, again, stay more closer to home, but to kind of help them transition back into that place, what I would do is have them go and hang out with their peers and then you offer to get them later and doing that until they're ready to be able to sleep over.
[00:32:58] I always want to give them a roadmap, so I might say something like, Yeah, I totally makes sense why you want to stay home while your nervous system in grief feels really off. And I just wanna pause here and say, yes, I actually do talk like this to my kids, . So we talk about the nervous system. Okay, so back to my dialogue.
[00:33:21] Listen, it's good to get your nervous system uncomfortable after a loss because it's feeling afraid. And it's really important that we let your nervous system. That the world isn't completely unsafe. Here's the thing, I'm gonna come and get you. I can get you at any time. Let's just say, try it for an hour.
[00:33:43] Try it for an hour. Text me, let me know if you wanna stay for the next hour, and how about tonight? I'm gonna get you at 10 o'clock and then the next time, Maybe you wanna stay. You don't even take the sleeping things over, but you just help them know, right? Your nervous system is off. It feels afraid. It feels uncomfortable.
[00:34:09] And I hear even in this age group use transition objects. Hey, what would you like to take? Just so you can remember, you can call me, you can let me know, or what will be of comfort to you? So you can also, Hey, if you start feeling really uncomfortable or unsettled, what could you do? And that's where you can say, okay, I want you to give a hug to your transitional object.
[00:34:37] Would you feel comfortable talking to so-and-so? I wonder if you could ask for a hug from all the people there. I know that's more socially accept. To girls, and so you'll have to see where the comfort zone is, but really start problem solving about what you can do if you start feeling dysregulated or wanna go home.
[00:35:03] Crying is one option. It is one option, but when we have talked through some situations, you really help get your kids able to use their words to ask for their needs, which is an incredible skill and really helps them develop emotional intelligence and also lets them know that big feelings aren't the only thing that get results.
[00:35:31] You can also use your. I think with, when we move into the teens, you know, the most important thing really at all of these ages, but especially with the teens, because they can become distant. So many things are going on as a teenager. In their, in your brain. But the main thing is to let them know they aren't alone, and it is common for them to feel overwhelmed.
[00:35:57] What's the point? Lots of anger. Teens, even though they look like they're grown up and adult, they don't have full access to the part of their brain that provides what I would call the proverbial breaks. So there can be a lot of gas pedal things like impulsivity. Acting out substance use, poor planning decisions like skipping class, not doing homework because they aren't holding all of the consequences of not doing those things right.
[00:36:29] They just want to get rid of, or numb out or express how disappointing it feels. And the other side of this coin is just a complete shutdown. Complete, numbing out, maybe isolating sometimes becoming only performance oriented. And the goal is to really have safe people around if you can, not just, you have conversations.
[00:36:59] And you really as a parent want to be careful about having checking in because I think the antenna of a teen goes up around that. But really in the spirit of being together, you want to be checking in with that spirit, like, how can we be in the grief well together? What's it like for you asking questions like, what's this like?
[00:37:24] What does grief feel like to. Has it been hard to see that I'm grieving, really being curious to help the communication process go on. And the most important thing is for you all to have a roadmap together. And I realize this can be so hard when you're in the throes of grief. That's why community, community, community, Way before tragedy hits, way before loss.
[00:37:50] Hits can be so important. You know, who are your people? How are you finding your people? How is your family hanging out with your people? So it's really, if you can't, you really wanna develop family, community, not just you as an adult people that your kids have no contact. Kind of as a sum, and I just wanna say like I'm hoping that my cat is gonna be able to be erased out of whatever background you can hear.
[00:38:18] But if you hear a cat in the future, in the distance, I mean, she was in my room, princess, if you've been following me, you know, she shows up my daughter's cat. And she ate some plant, then proceeded to throw up on my duvet, and so I've locked her out of the room because she basically waited until I left the room to eat the plant, and so I'm not letting her in right now.
[00:38:44] Okay. Back to the regularly scheduled work on grief. Words to avoid. If you are discussing grief with a child, a teen, even an adult, you'll feel better soon. Time heals. No. Eliminate all of those, at least please don't, at least anyone in grief instead for the older children. What's it like for you to be talking to me about.
[00:39:16] What does this feel like to you? And they could say, I don't know, you can offer them a dropdown menu. Like, does it feel relieving? Is there part of you that feels anxious or awkward? What do you notice asking? How does it feel to you? When I grieve, when you see me sad? What happens in you? And for younger kids, you can really let them know.
[00:39:43] Listen, I know you see mommy's tears and I am sad and I'm still here. I know it can feel scary when you see my tears, but I want you to know. See, I'm right here. I'm here with you right now. I'm not going away. You don't need to be afraid. It's just unfamiliar. You know, you haven't seen mommy cry like this, and unfamiliar things feel so scary.
[00:40:09] But that's what's happening right now. You can talk to me about it any time. Those are some words. You can say nighttime. At any age, you're gonna have dreams. You're gonna have nightmares, you're gonna be woken up. So get those fuzzy, comfy blankets. Get the stuffed animals for some weighted blankets, can feel very grounding.
[00:40:34] Just normalize waking up in the middle of the night to your kids, to yourself, to your teens. Like, Hey, you can use language. Your body is missing your cat right now, and she's not here. And when we are missing important family members like your cat, our body gets confused when it sleeps and it wakes up in a.
[00:40:58] But it's okay here now it's okay, I'm here and let's help your body go back to sleep. So I really like to use language that helps 'em know they're not their whole nervous system. You know, there's differences, but normalize it. Give it names. Definitely there are some rough. At school, and you can use language like listen, you're gonna have a rough day at school sometimes, because you're just gonna feel off when we're grieving and everything is gonna feel like a really big thing.
[00:41:36] You might have some emotional meltdowns, that's normal, but in these moments, what do you think we can do? Let's, let's get a plan for you so it doesn't feel out of your control. That you have something that will feel good. Let's talk to your teacher. What can we do for you? So all of these problem solving things help your child engage their thinking brain.
[00:42:02] You know, grief can really take over, can feel very traumatizing when it's really living in that limbic system, the fight fighter, and what you're doing as you come alongside, as you're helping your child, your teen, be able to put some. Some observations around so it feels less chaotic. And of course, grief has a chaotic feel to it.
[00:42:31] It's not about never going there, but the thing is, is it feels so terrifying if we're stuck there. And so you're helping kind of go in and out in a more regulated way, the grief. So there's no right path. There's no easy path. But my hope is that everyone that is involved feels connected and seen and supported with one another.
[00:43:03] And so thanks for coming along with me. I hope this has been helpful. Thank you for taking me with you. If you haven't already signed up for my newsletter, one reader called it a letter to your soul. It has reflections, questions and suggestions, and each one go to dr kimber.net to sign up. That's d r. K I M B E R. n e t.
[00:43:34] You'll also be the first to know about events of my book still making a hole when parts go missing. Until next time.