Knowing how to help our kids process grief or even knowing how much to expose them to the whole experience can be really difficult to discern. As a parent myself, I share that desire to want to be helpful to my kids and not harm them in an already difficult time.

With the help of our role model, Jesus, and through some wonderful wisdom of grief-experts, there are tips and tools for us to grab onto and help us navigate this difficult time.

1. Be Honest. Kids need to know the truth in an age-appropriate way. Scripture tells us, “the truth shall set you free” (John 8:32), because truth has a way of dissipating our fears. When we keep secrets, we attempt to shield one another from the whole picture, clouding reality, which creates anxiety. But when we walk and talk in truth, it is relieving for us individually and creates trust relationally.
2. Use Clear Words: Using words like “passed away” or “went to sleep” are too ambiguous of terms for little kids to understand. Even the disciples of Jesus (adults) even struggled to fully understand Jesus the first time He was telling them about Lazarus’ death. To give them more clarity he delivered the message a second time: “So then he told them plainly, ‘Lazarus is dead’”(John 11:14). Instead, of those more ambiguous statements, as harsh as it may sound to you, use clearer words such as death and died.
3. Appropriately Grieve In Front of Your Kids: Internalizing our feelings, both as kids and adults, further complicates our grief and often prolongs and intensifies the experience. Sadness is a very strong emotion, but it has potential to bonds us further together. Jesus himself displayed his grief amongst his friends, as Scripture tells us in the moment he saw Lazarus’ body and the surrounding grief of his friends, “Jesus wept” and was “deeply moved”  (John 11:35, 36, 38). This recorded moment gives us permission to experience those emotions like sadness and know that God Himself experienced feelings and expressed them in community. Healthy grief is free to express a feeling without an emotional demand for someone to fix it or take it away and provides space for others to have their own experience to share as well. Statements such as: “Mommy misses Granddaddy right now. She is remembering the time when….” By doing this, you model to your children, in an age-appropriate way, how to process those complex emotions of grief and safely voice those feelings.
4. Allow Life: Give your grief time and space in your family, but don’t let it take up the whole show. Kids need to be kids, and there are good things going on today, even if it is found in the smallest and simplest of things. “Rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep” (Romans 12:15) is not just a seasonal concept of time, but rather a moment-to-moment calling. Playing, having fun, and having moments of reprieve from the grief conversation is not only helpful but really necessary to balance the emotional world of your home. While you give your kids that space to allow life, take that opportunity to create some space for yourself to process and share more of your personal, adult-level thoughts with a peer or spouse.
5. Allow Your Kids Space to Grieve. Check in with your kids and ask them how they are feeling. When you notice behaviors or experiences that are abnormal for them, get curious and wonder if this is an manifestation of grief for them. As parents we can’t take away their grief or sadness, but we can do something wonderful: comfort. And we can draw our own comfort from God: “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort” (2 Corinthians 1:3). Have you ever thought that we cannot experience the feeling of comfort without the experience of sadness or grief? By allowing your kids to weep and grieve, you are setting up a beautiful space of connection with them. See our other blogs about how to help your children discover and work through your feelings. 
   
   
6. Involve them in the rituals and celebrations of the dead. The more contact children have with the dead and the rituals/celebrations, the more they are able to process the loss for themselves. If you are writing letters to the deceased, invite your children to write one on their own or one with you. The key word here is Allow your child to be invited but not mandated to participate. You know your children better than anyone else, and sometimes they need some time before they are ready to step forward or they may have their own way of grieving that isn’t as clear to you.
   
   
7. Continue Your Routine: This is one of the highest recommendations for grieving kids, but during this unusual time where our routine has also been displaced, it might be a bit difficult to figure out a routine. For you and your family together, you can work to s=deepen your spiritual walk with the practice of having a quiet time. Psalm 1:1-3 says, “How blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked… But his delight is in the law of the Lord, And in His law he meditates day and night.” Continuing your routine of meeting with God, and modeling this to your children, is a routine that can tap you into God’s resources that He has given you.
   
   
8. Get them Extra Help: Providing someone else other than you for your child to process their grief is really helpful. Children are very emotionally connected to their parents, and sometimes they can get too distracted by our emotions to find the tools to search for their own. If you notice your child acting differently than usual or struggling at all to engage in grief, then it might be a good idea to seek out some counseling for them. Here’s a link to our support groups here at Hill Country Bible Church.

Ehmke, Rachel (2020) Helping children deal with grief: you can't protect your kids from the pain of loss, but you can help build healthy coping skills. Retrieved from https://childmind.org/article/helping-children-deal-grief/

My wife shared a great Facebook post with me the other day, and I can't stop thinking about it. The post compared our common experience of stay-at-home to riding out a storm. The fascinating point is this: we're all experiencing a storm, but we're not all experiencing the same storm.

partly cloudy

For some of us, this is a period of rejuvenation. Life's pace is slowing down a little bit, priorities are becoming clearer, and we're using technology to connect with friends and family. This seems less like a storm, and more like those times when the rain clouds kind of lighten up, and the sun's rays shine through.

heavy rain

For others, we're waiting for a break in the weather; the rain is present, but maybe not constant. We're ready for the rain to stop and, sometimes, grateful for the refreshment. We're enjoying having dinner as a family every night. Watching movies and playing games. Taking walks. Riding bikes. We're thankful for the opportunity to spend time together, and, if we're honest, kind of ready to have some of our old routine back.

thunderstorm

Then there's the thunderstorm: some of us are haunted by loud, ominous clouds of anxiety or anger. The people we live with are driving us batty and we're fairly certain that we can't stand another day with them. And, of course, we can't focus on anything other than the news. Or our aging parents. Or our children. Or our grandchildren. Or groceries. Or...

hurricane

Still others of us are feeling helpless and hopeless, watching as the hurricane tears apart the life we've built. The roof is coming off, the foundation is washing away, and we can't find any way to stop the damage. Our marriage is crumbling, our kids are floundering, and our incomes and savings are disappearing.

a spectrum of experience

This storm is a wide spectrum of experience - and you may find yourself at many points on that spectrum throughout the day. One minute, you're delighted to be connecting with a friend on FaceTime, and the next you're screaming at your kids and beating yourself up over it. (I know because I'm having that experience, too.)

But here's something we should all remember: all of these experiences are normal, as is everything in between. Feeling these things makes sense in our current climate - but that doesn't mean we're out of options.

Consider what your storm looks like; review these resources and ideas, and, even though it might seem silly, give some a try. You might be surprised.

With all the time that we have been spending with our kids lately, it’s likely that you have noticed them having some feelings…and with that observation, you may be getting some feelings of your own! Understanding and knowing our feelings can seem rather difficult to do at times, and sometimes we may not be sure how to decipher them. Sometimes we may even wonder if it’s even Biblical to give our emotions attention.

Before we go into some practical steps on how to help our children process and understand their feelings, I want to encourage you that God has wired all of us as emotional beings, and He doesn’t ask us to hide from them! He actually created and designed us with feelings and emotions IN ORDER TO connect us further together. In fact, the Psalmist David, known as a man after God’s own heart (Acts 13:22), is a wonderful example of someone who expressed a lot of emotions! But he was evidently so in tune with God’s heart and felt freedom to be himself with God as God shapes and directs him. This is who I want to be as a parent—safe for my kids to share, in tune with what’s on their hearts, and have an open communication in which they desire to learn and grow.

From a psychological standpoint, feelings are a part of our senses that help us understand the world around us and learn more about what is going on for us in our own minds and hearts. These feelings are like energy that move in and through us, ebbing and flowing, and changing as we experience our day. Our brain even shifts gears from being in protection (having a flight/flight response in the amygdala) to being thoughtful (having a calm response in the prefrontal cortex) based off our perception and our feelings (Siegel, 2012).

Often times feelings are a challenge to understand, much less manage, and I’d like to provide you some tips to helping your kids, and perhaps yourself, really tap into this powerful resource.

1. BREATHE! This may be the best tool in our tool boxes, but perhaps one of our most under-utilized resources. Job describes the power of breath this way: “The Spirit of God has made me; the breathof the Almighty gives me life” (Job 33:4). So no matter where you are or what is going on around you, God has given us this resource that is a quiet, constant frequency of calm. This is a vital energy source of calm and allows our body to push PAUSE before we react. Pausing can help shift the gears in our brain from protection to a thoughtful, calm place. When feelings feel big and out of control, invite yourself and your child to start the discovery of their feelings with a full breath of fresh calm.
   
   
2. Help Name The Feelings: When we are able to identify what is going on inside of us, it removes the scary mystery of the experience, and allows us to shift gears with full eyes of curiosity verses narrow eyes of fear and judgement. “There is no fear in love. But perfectlove drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment” (1 John 4:18) When our hearts are scared of something bad happening, we close off in fear. And some feelings feel…bad. They feel uncomfortable, confusing, overwhelming, and who wants to feel that way? But when we invite God’s loving gaze in our introspection, it transforms our feelings from being hidden and confused inside us to a new perspective that is surrounded by the light of God’s love and compassion. To start, go online, grab a feelings chart of your choice, and print it out to use to help your kids start to identify and voice these emotions.
   
   
3. Discover the Feeling’s Voice: Once we figure out which type of feeling we are experiencing, get even more curious and figure out what that feeling is trying to say. David asks God to help him do this very thing when he says, “Searchme, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts” (Psalm 139:23). It’s incredible the kinds of unhelpful, untruthful things we can be thinking about, and those thoughts can produce some pretty powerful and even crippling feelings along with it. But God invites us to think of “whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy, think of such things” (Ephesians 4:8).

I read a brilliant kids article that labeled this fear the “Worry Monster” (252 Team, 2019). You just simply ask the child what the worry monster is saying to them, and through this externalization of the feelings, we start to have real, deep, and meaningful conversations with our kids about what’s going on in their hearts. And here we have an incredible opportunity as parents to provide comfort, encouragement, or to help reshape our child’s perspective. We’ve now transformed a scary feelings moment into a powerful moment of connection and learning. 

4. Hunt for Feeling Clues: Children are slowly developing the fine skills needed to verbalize their feelings into words (Cherry, 2020), and this is a skill many of us still are working through into our adulthood. To help them, and us, along, we can teach them context cues of our non-verbals, which is our tone, facial expression, body language, posture. These are all clues to what is going on inside of us, in our hearts and minds. If you feel you can remain calm, try asking your children in the middle of their emotional response questions like, “I am noticing your tone is loud right now. Do you feel that?” “I am noticing that you are jumping up and down.”
   
5. Remember this is all practice. When our emotional world is out of control, it is very difficult for us to learn or grow new skills in the moment. David trusted God to teach him with patience and kindness, and God promised David, “I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel you with my loving eye on you” (Psalm 23:8). Often times their inner world and our inner world is so full of anxiety that it is difficult for us to calm down enough in this moment to have a productive learning time. So take a break…pray…and calm down! Then when things are calm get back to practicing, trying to find playful ways to help them  discover their feelings and stretch their breathing skills through exercises. See resources below for more ideas!  

References:

252 Team (2019, Nov 19) OKP 022: Helping kids navigate anxiety – naming the worry monster. Retrieved from https://orangeblogs.org/252basics/okp-022-helping-kids-navigate-anxiety-naming-the-worry-monster/?fbclid=IwAR0qH4CbfmyU_JqQ4Xzg3_y2W9HkAQW1K5sf02j4FKK1kClRn3OCvXxHvw8

Cherry, K. (2020). The 4 stages of cognitive development: Background and key concepts of Piaget's theory. Retrieved from https://www.verywellmind.com/piagets-stages-of-cognitive-development-2795457

Seigel, D., PhD. (2012). Dr Daniel Siegel presenting a Hand Model of the Brain. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gm9CIJ74Oxw

More Resources:

• For breathing skills, apps, and self-regulation tips, check out https://www.cbc.ca/parents/learning/view/seven-self-regulating-apps-for-kids-that-teach-mindfulness
• For feelings charts and practices, check out fhttps://www.funwithmama.com/feelings-and-emotions-for-kids/
• Another great resource to help parents, kids and teens work through feelings and identify challenge areas is Kids Helpline. https://kidshelpline.com
• For more on Child Development: https://www.verywellmind.com/piagets-stages-of-cognitive-development-2795457

The outbreak of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) may be stressful for people. Fear and anxiety about a disease can be overwhelming and cause strong emotions in adults and children. Coping with stress will make you, the people you care about, and your community stronger.

Identifying Stress

• Everyone reacts differently to stressful situations. How you respond to the outbreak can depend on your background, the things that make you different from other people, and  the community you live in.
• People who may respond more strongly to the stress of a crisis include:
  • Older people and people with chronic diseases who are at higher risk for COVID-19
  • Children and teens
  • People who are helping with the response to COVID-19, like doctors and other health care providers, or first responders
  • People who have mental health conditions including problems with substance use
• Stress during an infectious disease outbreak can include:
  • Fear and worry about your own health and the health of your loved ones
  • Changes in sleep or eating patterns
  • Difficulty sleeping or concentrating
  • Worsening of chronic health problems
  • Increased use of alcohol, tobacco, or other drugs

Reducing Stress in Yourself and Others

• Take breaks from watching, reading, or listening to news stories, including social media. Hearing about the pandemic repeatedly can be upsetting.
• Take care of your body. Take deep breaths, stretch, or meditate. Try to eat healthy, well-balanced meals, exercise regularly, get plenty of sleep, and avoid alcohol and drugs.
• Make time to unwind. Try to do some other activities you enjoy.
• Connect with others. Talk with people you trust about your concerns and how you are feeling.
• Call your healthcare provider if stress gets in the way of your daily activities several days in a row.
• Being Properly Informed
• Sharing the facts about COVID-19 and understanding the actual risk to yourself and people you care about can make an outbreak less stressful.
• When you share accurate information about COVID-19 you can help make people feel less stressed and allow you to connect with them.
• Learn more about taking care of your emotional health.

For Parents

Children and teens react, in part, on what they see from the adults around them. When parents and caregivers deal with the COVID-19 calmly and confidently, they can provide the best support for their children. Parents can be more reassuring to others around them, especially children, if they are better prepared.

• Not all children and teens respond to stress in the same way. Some common changes to watch for include:
  • Excessive crying or irritation in younger children
  • Returning to behaviors they have outgrown (for example, toileting accidents or bedwetting)
  • Excessive worry or sadness
  • Unhealthy eating or sleeping habits
  • Irritability and “acting out” behaviors in teens
  • Poor school performance or avoiding school
  • Difficulty with attention and concentration
  • Avoidance of activities enjoyed in the past
  • Unexplained headaches or body pain
  • Use of alcohol, tobacco, or other drugs
• There are many things you can do to support your child
  • Take time to talk with your child or teen about the COVID-19 outbreak. Answer questions and share factsabout COVID-19 in a way that your child or teen can understand.
  • Reassure your child or teen that they are safe. Let them know it is ok if they feel upset. Share with them how you deal with your own stress so that they can learn how to cope from you.
  • Limit your family’s exposure to news coverage of the event, including social media. Children may misinterpret what they hear and can be frightened about something they do not understand.
  • Try to keep up with regular routines. If schools are closed, create a schedule for learning activities and relaxing or fun activities.
  • Be a role model.  Take breaks, get plenty of sleep, exercise, and eat well. Connect with your friends and family members.
  • Learn more about helping children cope.

For Responders

Responding to COVID-19 can take an emotional toll on you. There are things you can do to reduce secondary traumatic stress (STS) reactions:

• Acknowledge that STS can impact anyone helping families after a traumatic event.
• Learn the symptoms including physical (fatigue, illness) and mental (fear, withdrawal, guilt).
• Allow time for you and your family to recover from responding to the pandemic.
• Create a menu of personal self-care activities that you enjoy, such as spending time with friends and family, exercising, or reading a book.
• Take a break from media coverage of COVID-19.
• Ask for help if you feel overwhelmed or concerned that COVID-19 is affecting your ability to care for your family and patients as you did before the outbreak.
• Learn more tips for taking care of yourselfduring emergency response.

For Those Released From Quarantine

Being separated from others if a healthcare provider thinks you may have been exposed to COVID-19 can be stressful, even if you do not get sick. Everyone feels differently after coming out of quarantine. Some feelings include:

• Mixed emotions, including relief after quarantine
• Fear and worry about your own health and the health of your loved ones
• Stress from the experience of monitoring yourself or being monitored by others for signs and symptoms of COVID-19
• Sadness, anger, or frustration because friends or loved ones have unfounded fears of contracting the disease from contact with you, even though you have been determined not to be contagious
• Guilt about not being able to perform normal work or parenting duties during quarantine
• Other emotional or mental health changes
• Children may also feel upset or have other strong emotions if they, or someone they know, has been released from quarantine. You can help your child cope

Resources

For Everyone

• If you, or someone you care about, are feeling overwhelmed with emotions like sadness, depression, or anxiety, or feel like you want to harm yourself or others call 911
• Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration’s (SAMHSA’s) Disaster Distress Helpline: 1-800-985-5990 or text TalkWithUs to 66746. (TTY 1-800-846-8517)
• Coping with a Disaster or Traumatic Event

For Communities

• Coping with stress during an infectious disease outbreakpdf iconexternal icon
• Taking Care of Your Behavioral Health during an Infectious Disease Outbreakexternal icon

For Families and Children

• Helping Children Cope with Emergencies
• Coping After a Disasterpdf icon– A Ready Wrigley activity book for children age 3-10

For First Responders

• Emergency Responders: Tips for taking care of yourself
• Disaster Technical Assistance Centerexternal icon(SAMHSA)

This information can be found at the CDC website:
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/prepare/managing-stress-anxiety.html

I sat in my car, toddler whining in the backseat, downing the last sip of coffee in my cup, and dreading the moment to come: walking in the grocery store to see empty shelves and panicked people. Tears welled up in my eyes. I wanted to avoid the fear. Avoid the anxiety of seeing no food on the shelves. Avoid looking people in the eyes to see their panic too. Protect my toddler from all the chaos of the Coronavirus pandemic.

In this moment I realized I had a choice to make. The voices in my head could go down one of two paths:

Path #1- Self-Criticism: “Why is all of this happening? And why am I so afraid? I’m being such a sissy… Just pull it together. No one cares about your little complaints; there are a lot bigger problems out there. Put on a strong smile and fake it.”

Path #2- Self-Compassion: “Man, this really is tough. My feelings are valid, and I was not prepared for this situation. It’s even okay to cry a little bit; I’m sure other people can relate to how I’m feeling.  Just breathe for a moment; you don’t have to have it all together.”

The differences in these two examples of self-talk are drastic. Self-criticism leads to inner turmoil, increased anxiety, and thus greater relational tension; while self-compassion allows for a sense of inner wholeness and peace which can lead to healthier and more genuine connection with others.

Think for a moment about these 3 questions: 

1) How would you treat a close friend who is struggling? What words come to mind, what tone of voice do you use, and what body language would you portray?

2) How do you treat yourself when you are struggling? What words do you typically say to yourself and what is your inner tone of voice/body language?

3) Is there a difference?

For most of us, there is a stark difference. With a friend, we are quick to show understanding, empathize, and validate whatever challenges are present. We feel open to hearing whatever is going on, and show that we are willing to help. With ourselves, we are quick to cast judgment, brush struggles aside, and deal harshly with our weaknesses. We make little space for acknowledging our own pain, and even think something is wrong with us when we become aware of our frailties.

Think how different we would feel in times of hardship, if we treated ourselves with the same compassion that we show others?

Moreover, many people of faith feel shameful for having feelings such as fear, anger, or sadness. We tell ourselves things like- “If my faith is real, I wouldn’t be having this emotion right now. I should hide how I’m feeling so that other people don’t know how weak I am. I’m sure God wouldn’t want to hear about this feeling, either.”

Think how different we would feel if instead of hating and hiding away our frailties because we viewed them as wrong or sinful, we actually could embrace them because there is a loving God who cares for us when we are in pain? What if, rather than viewing our pain through the eyes of shame or criticism, we could remember that God’s compassionate character stands true even when I am weak? This is the idea of 2 Corinthians 1:3-4: “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of all compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God.” [emphasis added]

This is the powerful idea that counselors call self-compassion, or as I also like to say, channeling God’s compassion toward myself.

Dr. Kristin Neff, researcher and pioneer in the study of self-compassion, has given some helpful definitions of self-compassion, and outlined 3 elements of self-compassion and their antidotes. Here are some brief descriptions of each. Which category do you typically fall under when facing something challenging?

Definitions of Self-Compassion:

-Treating ourselves with the same kindness as we would a close friend

-Treating ourselves with the same quality of warmth, care, and concern as we would a close friend

- To “feel” compassionate towards ourselves as we do for others

Self-Compassion vs. Self-Criticism

What would it look like to begin softening your inner dialogue to sound more like compassion, rather than criticism? Perhaps this question raises some concern or anxiety within you, as it does for many. That little feeling of concern is welcome, too! What might your concern be?

Here are five common concerns regarding practicing self-compassion, and some research by Dr. Neff and Scriptures that may help ease your concerns:

Common concern: Self-compassion is weak; I’ll be a sissy if I talk “compassionately” to myself
Research: Self-compassion is actually one of the most powerful coping skills we have to increase our resilience in life

Common concern: Self-compassion will lead to laziness
Research: Self-compassion is actually correlated to increased levels of motivation because there is less fear of failure
Research: Self-compassion is actually linked to greater well-being because if you like yourself, you’ll take care of yourself

Common concern: Self-compassion will lead to decreased self-responsibility or I won’t learn from my mistakes
Research: Self-compassion is actually linked to increased self-responsibility because it is safe to admit mistakes and make genuine repairs

Common concern: Self-compassion is selfish
Research: Self-compassion is a key piece in sustaining compassionate relationships to others by helping reduce feelings of burn out
Research: Self-compassion is actually in itself an act of compassion for others, because our peaceful, loving state of mind is contagious!

Common concern: Self-compassion isn’t biblical
Scriptures: Part of Gods character is compassionate (Psalm 103:13, Psalm 116:5, Psalm 51:1, Psalm 145: 8-9)
Scriptures: Our Savior lived compassionately (Hebrews 4:15, Matthew 14:13-14, Matthew 20:30-34, Mark 6:34)
Scriptures: We are called to live compassionately (Colossians 3:12, Ephesians 4:32)
Scriptures: Self-condemnation is not biblical (Romans 8:1)

Though we will likely continue to face unknowns and anxiety during this pandemic, we do not have to do so without the power of compassion. We are invited to see ourselves as God sees us. We are invited to look at our weaknesses and unwanted feelings through the eyes of compassion. And I believe that as we do so, it will create an inner sense of peace and calm that will be as contagious as any virus could ever be.