grief

Joseph Skorupa

University of Florida

This closed group is composed of four to seven elementary school students who have lost someone in their immediate family within the last year. The group will meet once a week for six weeks, with the sessions lasting about 30 minutes each. It would be optimal to have students of the same grade level as participants in the group experience.

This unit consists of the following sessions:

Session 1: Getting to Know Each Other
Session 2: Understanding
Session 3: Grieving
Session 4: Commemorating
Session 5: Going On
Session 6: Closing the Group Session

Key Points

-Group work with children allows them to share with peers, fostering a sense of mutual
identity and increasing self-esteem.
-It is helpful to explore the stages of grief, but not to expect children to resolve them all
within the lifetime of the group.
-Some children may need to be referred on for more specialist help.
(Smith 1999)

"Children do not follow a single path to a successful bereavement...Some children will come to terms with the situation very readily but not demonstrate their acceptance in the sort of ways that counselors expect" (Leaman 1995). Others may seem to be controlling their emotions, but are a wreck on the inside.

The following Stages of Development are useful to keep in mind*:

Age 2-7
Piagets Stage of Development: Prepoperational

Childs Concept of Death: Magical, egocentric , and causal.
-Child thinks death is temporary and partial.
-Preschoolers see death as irreversible.
-A child conceives the possibility of reviving the dead person by giving hot food or keeping the body warm.
-The child thinks his or her own thoughts or actions could cause death.
-The child thinks death is like sleep.
-The child gives inaccurate estimates of an average life span. The child thinks that people live for 150 years.

Age 7-12
Piagets Stage of Development: Concrete Operations
Childs concept of death: Curious and Realistic
-Children are curious and inquisitive about birth, death, and sex differences. They are very interested in details of death.
-Children begin to internalize the universality and permanence of death. They can conceptualize that all body functions stop.
-Dead people can't breathe, move, hear, or see. Children are aware of a death vocabulary. They can express logical thoughts and fears about death.
-Children can comprehend thoughts of a belief in an afterlife.
-Children can estimate accurately how long people live.
-Children think of deaths occurrence in specific observable concrete terms. They may ask, What are the reasons people die?
-Children basically still believe that the very old, the severely handicapped, and the extremely awkward people are the ones who die.

*(Piaget, 1970)

Session 1: Getting to Know Each Other

Objectives:

(1) Have each student introduce themselves.

(2) Explain the purpose of the group and the duration of the group. In order for children to work through grief, they should understand the four psychological tasks of Understanding, Grieving, Commemorating, and Going On (Goldman 1994).

Materials Needed: kushy ball

General Procedures: Starting with the student on your left, continue clockwise around the group and have each student introduce themselves. Have each student first say their name and identify their favorite thing to do. Have students be aware of the group rules.Next, an ice breaker will involve a kushy ball.Have the students stand in a circle and pass the ball to each other.The student will say “Here you go, _______” and throw the ball.The person catching the ball will say, “Thank you, _______” and will repeat the process by passing the ballto a different student.Finally, the session should be wrapped up by explaining the goals for the group sessions and expectations of the group.
(adapted from Myrick, class Handout)

Processing Hints: It is a good idea to have each student speak for only a few minutes as an introduction. It helps to use hand gestures and simple acknowledgement when letting a student know that they have spoken for too long.

Session 2: Understanding

It is important to know that children’s understanding of death changes as they develop (Goldman 1994).
Children need to have the information as soon as possible after the death has occured because there is too much opportunity for children to create fears and fantasies about what happened and howit happened (Smith 1999).

Objectives:

(1) Telling children the truth will create an atmosphere of trust and confidence (Goldman 1994). Part of understanding is knowing , so it is important to be accurate.

(2) Increase the child's "sense of reality of the loss" (Smith 1999).

Materials Needed: none.

General Procedures: Give each student the opportunity to identify their loss.This is a good time for students to be able to understand their loss.

Processing Hints: When working with children it may important to understand the differences in children’s concept of death at different stages. Take a look under Key Points to understand differences in age as presented by Piaget.

Session 3: Grieving

Objectives:

(1) Understanding that grieving is an ongoing and ever-changing process.

(2) Provide an opportunity for each student to voice concerns and fears.

Materials Needed: paper, pencils.

General Procedures: In this session, the students will identify their behaviors, feelings, and physical symptoms on paper. Next, process their feelings and lead a discussion about how feelings are felt, and the appropriate way to deal with those feelings. (i.e. if a student is angry, talk about positive ways to channel the anger)

Processing Hints: Common feelings, thoughts, and behaviors of the grieving child*:

-Child retells events of the deceased’s death and funeral.
-Child dreams of the deceased.
-Child feels the deceased is with him or her in some way.
-Child wants to call home during the school day.
-Child can’t concentrate on homework or class work.
-Child bursts into tears in the middle of class.
-Child worries excessively about his or her own death.
-Child sometimes appears to be unfeeling about loss.
-Child becomes “class clown” to get attention.
-Child is overly concerned with caretaking needs.

* (Goldman, 1994)

Session 4: Commemorating

Objectives:

(1) Have the child establish a way to remember the person they lost in their life.

Materials Needed: paper, pencils, crayons.

General Procedures: Create a memory book of the following format:

The most important thing I learned from the person is...
Write a letter. Dear ________, Love, __________
What is the funniest memory you have?
My most special memory is...
If you could tell your loved one just one more thing, what would you say?
What do you think they will tell you?

Processing Hints: Inside the memory books, kids could use stars, stickers, photographs, and other decorations.

Session 5: Going On

Objectives: Kids need to begin loving again and enjoying life (Goldman, 1994). Having fun is a good way to move on from a loss.

(1) Have children understand that moving on is not "forgetting," but developing a readiness to participate.

(2) Encourage a "healthy withdrawal from the deceased" (Smith 1999).

Materials Needed: none.

General Procedures: Discuss different activities the group can do together for fun. Next, go around the circle and ask what each student likes to do for fun out of school. This is a good opportunity to emphasize having fun and keeping busy in order to move past the grieving stage. Encourage the students to participate in activities and have them understand that moving on is not "forgetting." Finally, have each student discuss ways in which they cope with their pain.

Processing Hints: Have the children dictate the pace of this session. It is okay to let each student a few extra minutes to discuss their coping strategies and out-of-school activities.

Session 6: Closing the Group Session

Objectives:

(1) Identify feelings about the group sessions and provide feedback for the students.
(2) To provide closure for the group members and to provide an the students with time to reflect upon the impact of the group experience.

Materials Needed: refreshments.

General Procedures: Reflect on each student's feelings at this point. Then, provide appropriate feedback concerning the group experience. Next, give the group time to enjoy refreshments.

Accountability Measure*

Read the following statements and circle the answer that best applies to you.

1. I wasn't certain at first that I wanted to be in this group.