What It means to companion

Upon completion of grief support facilitator training with Ele's Place, we received this poem about what it means to companion someone who is grieving. All we really want to do is take the pain away, try to fix it.  Yet purposeful companioning beside the grieving child is what he needs most of all. If you would like to learn more about this, please connect with Dr. Alan Wolfelt through The Center for Loss and Life Transition: http://www.centerforloss.com

                              Companioning the Bereaved
                                     By Alan Wolfelt, Ph.D.

Companioning is about honoring the spirit;
it is not about focusing on the intellect.

Companioning is about curiosity;
it is not about expertise.

Companioning is about learning from others;
it is not about teaching them.

Companioning is about walking alongside;
it is not about leading or being led.

Companioning is about being still;
it is not about frantic movement forward.

Companioning is about discovering the gifts of sacred silence;
it is not about fulling every painful moment with talk.

Companioning is about listening with the heart;
it is not about analyzing with the head.

Companioning is about bearing witness to the struggles of others;
it is not about judging or directing those struggles.

Companioning is about being present to another person's pain;
it is not about taking away or relieving the pain.

Companioning is about respecting disorder and confusion;
it is not about imposing order or logic.

Companioning is about going to the wilderness of the soul
with another human being;
it is not about thinking you are responsible for finding the way out.



Copyright (2014) Suzanne Bayer. All Rights Reserved.

Talking with children about their person who died:

A good friend recently reminded me, "You don't know what you don't know." I'm thinking more deeply about what I don't know as I work through grief facilitator training with Ele's Place, my local child and family bereavement support network. As I invest in this training I regularly witness the healing power of reflective listening for both the speaker and the listener. Practicing the vernacular valued by the bereavement community feels awkward at first, because for decades I've been dancing around the death words, as if not saying them out loud would make things somehow less painful for those I want to comfort. I know children need us to talk openly, to be willing to engage in the topic. They sense our reluctance. It helps a child more to be open, to push away the fear of upsetting them and give the gift of talking about and remembering their person who died. In grief, isolation runs deep.  

Once you've decided to engage in conversation with a child about the death, what exactly do you say? One reassuring message the facilitator training staff at Ele's Place expresses is, "You can't ruin someone else's grief journey by talking about it with them." . The simple act of trying is valuable. When talking with children about death it is best to use concrete language. Wistfully vague or well intentioned phrases meant to offer comfort will likely confuse the child.

This is a portion of some of the vocabulary used by caregivers at Ele’s Place when talking with children about death:

Instead of:                                             Use:

“loved one”                             “person who died” or the person’s name 

“lost”                                       “died”

“get over your grief”                “learn to live with your grief”

       or

“done grieving”

We're encouraged not to say 'loved one' because the person who died may not have been loved. This may be hard to relate to, but it is possible the relationship with the person who died was loaded with complications. If a child had been mistreated or experienced a negative relationship with their person, forcing the 'loved one' label further compounds their grief by adding guilt.

Young children are egocentric, narcissistic and literal. We don’t say 'lost ' or 'in a better place'  because the child may wonder,“Why can't we go find them?”  Or, “Why wasn’t this place good enough? Didn't they want to be with me?”  As you speak, think of communicating in the most concrete way possible. You might explain how the body parts in their person who died stopped working, their lungs no longer took in air, and their heart stopped pumping blood, so they died. As difficult as this may be, you may need to explain it often. Until a child is 8 or 9, he will not fully understand that death is permanent.  

It is incorrect to refer to the grief process as 'getting over grief' or being 'done grieving', because the death is something that will always be part of a child's life. Instead, the grieving child's work is to grow alongside the loss. Our task as teachers and nurturers is to help the child find hope and joy in living while still remembering their person who died. This includes talking about their person through the school year together. Our work as caring educators is to reassure the child she will one day learn to live with her grief, and while she is working at this, you will be there for her.   

Words chosen carefully will help lead to transformative moments for the grieving child. It takes conscious thinking before speaking, but with practice, concrete communication will flow.  

Copyright (2014) Suzanne Bayer. All Rights Reserved.

Supportive student volunteer summer opportunities

College students looking to invest in others this summer- lean forward! This national organization is making a huge difference in the lives of children and families dealing with cancer and loss. 

From the Camp Kesem Website: "Camp Kesem recognizes and embraces the often-overlooked population of children affected by a parent’s cancer.  Camp Kesem empowers college student leaders nationwide to create free, life-changing summer camps for children affected by a parent’s cancer."

If you are living in SE Michigan, these camps are held in collaboration with MSU and U of M: "Camp Kesem is thrilled to announce that we will be hosting two sessions of camp for the summer of 2014 – allowing us to significantly increase our number of campers! The two sessions will take place August 3-8 and August 10-15 at Camp Copneconic in Fenton, MI. Almost 70 volunteer counselors from the University of Michgian will staff the camp and will undergo extensive training prior to camp. The professional staff will include a Nurse, a Psychotherapist, and a Camp Advisor.   Camp Kesem is provided free of charge to all families."

http://campkesem.org/about-us

If you do not live in MI, the Camp Kesem website will assist you in identifying a local camp for your children: 

"Camp Kesem is a growing national movement, transforming more lives each year. Since 2001, Camp Kesem has grown from a single camp, to 54 active chapters in 27 states. Our goal is to serve as many families coping with cancer as possible. We respectfully ask that you only sign your camper(s) up for one Camp Kesem session per summer."

http://campkesem.org/find-a-camp

Plan to go outside, let the sunshine hit your face, nurture children and have fun!

Copyright (2014) Suzanne Bayer. All Rights Reserved.

A shout-out for bereavement support camps!

Camp is the only place where "You're so weird" is considered a compliment! -Anonymous

It may not feel like it, but spring has finally arrived and every teacher will tell you the next few months will fly by as the kids (And teachers!) count down the days to summer vacation. Now is the time summer camp and activity centers begin to advertise and send marketing materials to parents and caregivers. Typically bereavement support camps don't mass advertise, I'm assuming due to budgetary limitations. Yet these camps are a remarkable, and I think an essential, resource for children and grieving families.

An experience at a bereavement support camp will change a child's life. These camps are a holistic place to help a child grow through his grief, to 'move toward the pain of the loss while being nurtured physically, emotionally and spiritually'. (Wolfelt, 2004) Opportunities at bereavement support camps are life changing for both the grieving child and the staff, volunteer and paid, who nurture the children. This gentle bridge toward healing is free of charge. Maybe this is the summer you volunteer a week or weekend at a bereavement support camp?

Teachers, administrators and parents, please locate and widely share contact information about bereavement support camps in your area. Share your local grief camp information with bereaved families and with your entire school community.  There are children and families longing to be touched by this form of compassion. Offer adults in your community a place to be of service to a child. There is a good chance Comfort Zone Camps are held in your community:

http://www.comfortzonecamp.org/about-us

About Comfort Zone Camp:

"Comfort Zone Camp is a nonprofit 501(c)3 bereavement camp that transforms the lives of children who have experienced the death of a parent, sibling, or primary caregiver.  The free camps include confidence building programs and age-based support groups that break the emotional isolation grief often brings. Comfort Zone Camps are offered to children 7-17, and are held year-round across the Country."
-Comfort Zone Camp Website

Copyright (2014) Suzanne Bayer. All Rights Reserved.

A portal of clarity and a gift of validation

I’d like to explore more deeply Dr. Wolfelt’s (2004) Six Reconciliation Needs of Mourning for Children and focus on the first need:

1.Acknowledge the reality of the death.

Why does this matter so much to the grieving child? And by acknowledging the death with the child, how do you help to mitigate risk for that child? I think it has something to do with the problem of isolation, and the relationship isolation has with preventing healthy grief growth. The more isolated the grieving child feels, the less able he is to understand and acknowledge the person has died and they will not be coming back. Death does not feel permanent to a young child if nobody talks about it. 

Isolation is a universal concern I hear called out repeatedly in grief support literature. People want to help but they don’t know what to say, or what to do, and mistakenly believe they will cause the child pain by talking about their loved one who has died. As a default, people sometimes pretend nothing has happened, going about things as though they were normal. If an adult lacks the ability to engage with a grieving child in an open and honest way the results can be very painful, and often highly confusing for children. Without intention, acting as though nothing has happened is to offer a grief averse response. 

How do you talk with a grieving child and help them acknowledge the reality of the death? Sensitively and honestly answer all their questions. Born out of a need to comprehend the permanency of the death, young children will ask over and over again where their loved one is, and ask when they will be coming home. We take a deep breath and repeat the answer for as long as it takes for the child to understand as we work to free her from the spaces of confusion. Often children want the chance to tell their teacher and friends at school that Daddy doesn’t live at their house anymore, and long to hear affirmation from their teacher they are right. The wise adult will offer the child ways to remember that loved one with opportunities in expressions of art, or a story dictated remembering a special time with the loved one. Engaging openly and comfortably with the child when they wish to talk about their loved one will reassure they are not alone. 

You mitigate risk by preventing isolation for that child. You scaffold the child’s need to acknowledge the death of their loved one by providing as many opportunities for that child to talk with you about their loved one as they need. If your principle response to a grieving child is acceptance, openness and honesty, you give them a portal to clarity and a gift of validation. You are a child’s champion when you work to free them from isolation, and that is how you mitigate risk. 

Wolfelt, A. (2004). A child's view of grief; a guide for parents, teachers and counselors. (pp. 21-35). Fort Collins: Companion Press. 

Copyright (2014) Suzanne Bayer. All Rights Reserved.

Understanding theory, practicing compassion: stages vs.tasks of grief

Stages vs. Tasks of Mourning

“In grieving, we try to fill the empty space that was created by the loss.”
         -Fred Rogers

In 1969 Kubler-Ross theorized grief may be experienced in stages, and the grieving person will likely move gradually through sequential steps:

1. Denial
2. Anger
3. Bargaining
4. Depression
5. Acceptance

Kubler-Ross did not intend this list of responses to be a prescribed order of operations for the bereaved. Yet practitioners and the general population adopted these five stages as a widely accepted pattern of how the grief process works. A formula does feel better when searching for answers to help someone through a painful time. But this may have been one way to fill an empty space while searching for those answers. Often I have heard of a person referred to as ‘stuck in’  or ‘moved on from’ one of these stages. 

It is true when bereaved we experience a wide range of emotions including denial, anger, bargaining and depression. Notwithstanding, contemporary grief researchers and practitioners say the process of grief is much broader and symbiotic. Grief involves emotional responses not mutually exclusive of one another. Contemporary professionals in the grief field now endorse an alternative to stages. Worden (1996) and Wolfelt (1996) refer to our synchronized responses to grief as tasks which eventually lead to reconciliation. Grief truly is an accomplishment of non-linear tasks that may occur at the same time and/or independently. 

It is important to understand that grief work involves movement through tasks if you are supporting a child. After all, children are already working through their own personal developmental continuum. And they approach grief growth at the level of comprehension they are in at the time of the death event. Children then revisit the loss as they cognitively develop. We must do our best to meet a grieving child or adult without our own preconceived expectations of stage shifting, and instead honor the grief task they are performing. Meet the bereaved right where they are, listen, and let them lead.

I think we never get over losing the person we loved, and I think it is unfair to ask someone accept it. As a person who experienced early parental loss, I trust what Dr. Alan Wolfelt (Center for Loss and Life Transition) teaches; we can grow to live with the loss and find joy again. I think of reconciliation as recognizing once again how my soul guides. 

Dr. Wolfelt (2004) presents six reconciliation needs of mourning for children:

1. Acknowledge the reality of the death.
2. Move toward the pain of the loss while being nurtured physically, emotionally, and spiritually. 
3. Convert the relationship with the person who has died from one of presence to one of memory.
4. Develop a new self-identity based on a life without the person who died.
5. Relate the experience of the death to a contact of meaning.
6. Experience a continued supportive adult presence in future years.

Dr. Alan Wolfelt is an author, educator and grief counselor.  He is the director of the Center for Loss and Life Transition in Fort Collins, Colorado. Dr. Wolfelt’s companioning philosophy encourages the caregiver to partner alongside the child and encourage his grief growth, scaffolding a movement toward reconciliation.  You can access a deeper understanding of Dr. Wolfelt’s grief companioning philosophy and practice on the website: www.centerforloss.com

Wolfelt, A. (2004). A child's view of grief; a guide for parents, teachers and counselors. (pp. 21-35). Fort Collins: Companion Press. 

Copyright (2014) Suzanne Bayer. All Rights Reserved.