Don't be shocked when you meet a grieving child
Nara Schoenberg
There I'd be, a teenager more
or less minding her own business at a school event or a social
gathering, when a well-meaning adult would start quizzing me about where
I was born, how many brothers and sisters I had, and what my father
did.
"My dad was a doctor," I'd say. "He died."
"Oh, I'm so sorry. That's horrible," the adult would say, and then proceed to stare at me as the conversation ground to a halt.
I'd be thinking: "I'm 15. You're the adult here, you brought this up, and now I'm supposed to say something to make you feel better?"
The answer, of course, was yes, and I got pretty good at it, but I never stopped hating the way that conversation made me feel. When I finally found a close friend who had been through the same thing, we bonded instantly over the weirdness of an adult being shocked, just shocked, that some people actually die before old age. (It's awful, yes, but it happens quite a bit, and making bereaved kids feel like freaks of nature doesn't do anyone a whole lot of good.)
My friend and I joked that we should just burst into tears the next time someone pulled the awkward silence stunt. Or maybe we could circulate together at a social event. When someone was beating themselves up for reminding one of us that he or she had lost a parent, the other one could pipe up with, "My father's dead too!" (Cue the uncontrollable sobs, in stereo.)
OK, we were 19 and stupid, but our basic logic, I think, was sound. "You want awkward? We'll give you awkward!"
A lot has changed for the better since the 1970s and '80s, when I was dealing with these issues, including the rise of bereavement centers and age-appropriate support groups, a great step forward for grieving kids. But a new New York Life Foundation/National Alliance for Grieving Children survey of kids at bereavement programs across the U.S., billed as the first study of its kind, suggests that young people are still struggling with less-than-helpful reactions.
Among the study's findings: While kids identified strongly with key statements such as "The death of my loved one is the worst thing that ever happened to me" and "You never stop missing your loved one," when they were asked to choose just one statement that applied to them the most, the largest group of kids (32 percent), chose "People don't have to give me special treatment; I just want to be treated like everyone else."
That's the way I felt, and while the survey doesn't address the awkward silence issue directly, experts say it persists.
"I think it's the norm," said Joe Primo, associate executive director of Good Grief, a children's bereavement center in Morristown, N.J.
"As a society, we really struggle with talking about death. For most Americans, it's hard enough to have that conversation with an adult, and all of a sudden, you throw a kid into the mix, and I don't think adults have a clue where to begin."
Jill Hamilton, 49, of Palm Springs, Calif., noticed the awkward silence problem after her husband, Kelly, died last year. She's raising their children, Lauren, 11, and Brad, 14.
"It would be nice for the person to say, 'What kind of person was he?' or ask something about him, not just (lapse into) dead silence," Jill Hamilton says.
"Awkward silence!" Lauren interjects.
Experts have plenty of advice for what friends and family can do to help a bereaved child (listen, ask what he or she needs, don't tell the child to stop crying), but when it comes to the specific question of the awkward silence, they say there are no easy answers.
Each grieving person is different, says Andy McNiel, executive director of the National Alliance for Grieving Children, and some people complain about silences while others complain about intrusive questions.
"It's almost damned if you do, damned if you don't," McNiel says. "What do you say? I've been working with families for 20 years now and I still will go to funerals and sound like a bumbling idiot. The truth is, there's not always a really good thing to say."
Still, I do think it would help if people educated themselves a little about the topic, starting with the basics: You have every right to be unnerved when you learn a child has lost a parent, but you don't have the right to be shocked. According to a 2009 survey by New York Life with Comfort Zone Camp, 1 in 9 Americans have lost a parent before age 20; 1 in 7 have lost a parent or sibling.
If you can simply go into an introductory conversation with a child knowing that the death of a parent is a real possibility, you can probably spare yourself and others significant discomfort. You can avoid the question of parental occupation entirely, or if you choose to broach it and find out the parent in question is deceased, try a suggestion from Lauren's mother, Jill: Ask a question along the lines of, "What was (the deceased parent) like?"
"As a kid, you're proud of your parent and you love your parent and that gives you a way to talk about them that isn't tied to their death," Jill Hamilton says.
Lauren brightens immediately when she's asked what her dad was like: "He was a jolly man, like Santa Claus. He had a big tummy and a big beard, and he looked like Santa Claus." He even dressed up as Santa Claus one year, she says, and gave out presents to the kids at their church.
I was a cynical teen when I was mourning my dad, and Lauren is a gung-ho fifth-grader. But listening to her, I'm reminded that I, too, could prattle on merrily about my father at times, even with an adult I didn't know well.
I didn't have much to say about death or loss or a specific illness, and awkward silences were pretty much guaranteed when strangers veered off in that direction. But my dad? My funny, thoughtful, crazy-smart dad was my hero, and I could have talked about him all day long.
nschoenberg@tribune.com
"My dad was a doctor," I'd say. "He died."
"Oh, I'm so sorry. That's horrible," the adult would say, and then proceed to stare at me as the conversation ground to a halt.
I'd be thinking: "I'm 15. You're the adult here, you brought this up, and now I'm supposed to say something to make you feel better?"
The answer, of course, was yes, and I got pretty good at it, but I never stopped hating the way that conversation made me feel. When I finally found a close friend who had been through the same thing, we bonded instantly over the weirdness of an adult being shocked, just shocked, that some people actually die before old age. (It's awful, yes, but it happens quite a bit, and making bereaved kids feel like freaks of nature doesn't do anyone a whole lot of good.)
My friend and I joked that we should just burst into tears the next time someone pulled the awkward silence stunt. Or maybe we could circulate together at a social event. When someone was beating themselves up for reminding one of us that he or she had lost a parent, the other one could pipe up with, "My father's dead too!" (Cue the uncontrollable sobs, in stereo.)
OK, we were 19 and stupid, but our basic logic, I think, was sound. "You want awkward? We'll give you awkward!"
A lot has changed for the better since the 1970s and '80s, when I was dealing with these issues, including the rise of bereavement centers and age-appropriate support groups, a great step forward for grieving kids. But a new New York Life Foundation/National Alliance for Grieving Children survey of kids at bereavement programs across the U.S., billed as the first study of its kind, suggests that young people are still struggling with less-than-helpful reactions.
Among the study's findings: While kids identified strongly with key statements such as "The death of my loved one is the worst thing that ever happened to me" and "You never stop missing your loved one," when they were asked to choose just one statement that applied to them the most, the largest group of kids (32 percent), chose "People don't have to give me special treatment; I just want to be treated like everyone else."
That's the way I felt, and while the survey doesn't address the awkward silence issue directly, experts say it persists.
"I think it's the norm," said Joe Primo, associate executive director of Good Grief, a children's bereavement center in Morristown, N.J.
"As a society, we really struggle with talking about death. For most Americans, it's hard enough to have that conversation with an adult, and all of a sudden, you throw a kid into the mix, and I don't think adults have a clue where to begin."
Jill Hamilton, 49, of Palm Springs, Calif., noticed the awkward silence problem after her husband, Kelly, died last year. She's raising their children, Lauren, 11, and Brad, 14.
"It would be nice for the person to say, 'What kind of person was he?' or ask something about him, not just (lapse into) dead silence," Jill Hamilton says.
"Awkward silence!" Lauren interjects.
Experts have plenty of advice for what friends and family can do to help a bereaved child (listen, ask what he or she needs, don't tell the child to stop crying), but when it comes to the specific question of the awkward silence, they say there are no easy answers.
Each grieving person is different, says Andy McNiel, executive director of the National Alliance for Grieving Children, and some people complain about silences while others complain about intrusive questions.
"It's almost damned if you do, damned if you don't," McNiel says. "What do you say? I've been working with families for 20 years now and I still will go to funerals and sound like a bumbling idiot. The truth is, there's not always a really good thing to say."
Still, I do think it would help if people educated themselves a little about the topic, starting with the basics: You have every right to be unnerved when you learn a child has lost a parent, but you don't have the right to be shocked. According to a 2009 survey by New York Life with Comfort Zone Camp, 1 in 9 Americans have lost a parent before age 20; 1 in 7 have lost a parent or sibling.
If you can simply go into an introductory conversation with a child knowing that the death of a parent is a real possibility, you can probably spare yourself and others significant discomfort. You can avoid the question of parental occupation entirely, or if you choose to broach it and find out the parent in question is deceased, try a suggestion from Lauren's mother, Jill: Ask a question along the lines of, "What was (the deceased parent) like?"
"As a kid, you're proud of your parent and you love your parent and that gives you a way to talk about them that isn't tied to their death," Jill Hamilton says.
Lauren brightens immediately when she's asked what her dad was like: "He was a jolly man, like Santa Claus. He had a big tummy and a big beard, and he looked like Santa Claus." He even dressed up as Santa Claus one year, she says, and gave out presents to the kids at their church.
I was a cynical teen when I was mourning my dad, and Lauren is a gung-ho fifth-grader. But listening to her, I'm reminded that I, too, could prattle on merrily about my father at times, even with an adult I didn't know well.
I didn't have much to say about death or loss or a specific illness, and awkward silences were pretty much guaranteed when strangers veered off in that direction. But my dad? My funny, thoughtful, crazy-smart dad was my hero, and I could have talked about him all day long.
nschoenberg@tribune.com
Copyright © 2012, Chicago Tribune
