Coping with Grief

Lesson 3: Children And Grief

Grieving for Another Child

In an age where school shootings and terror attacks are no longer an aberration but instead a sad reality, children may find themselves experiencing the death of a classmate. Other factors to consider in this context are child suicide, as well as the death of a classmate due to illness or accident. If you are a teacher, you will find yourself in a position where there is not only one grieving child, but quite possibly 25 or more. This is a time to work together with the counselors the school will be able to provide, as well as with the children’s parents. Here are a couple of suggestions that may help you within the classroom environment:

• Honesty.3 If at all possible, be honest about what happened. Details should be shared at the family’s discretion, but as a teacher you need to answer questions honestly yet reassuringly.
• Explanation. Depending on the children’s age, explain what grief is. Be prepared to answer questions dealing with death, eternity, etc. Be prepared to offer answers, but be careful that they do not reflect simply your personal belief in a god or religion. Instead, realize that your students may have other religious traditions, and perhaps their parents may have already explained death and dying to them within that religious framework. If a conversation begins to steer into a religious direction, suggest that the child(ren) ask the parents for more information on that, but reaffirm the parents’ authority and knowledge on the subject with statements such as “Your mom/dad sure is knowledgeable about reincarnation. I think s/he will be able to explain this much better than I could.“
• Enable the students to reach out to the family of the deceased child. This could be done by individual cards you collect and forward to the family or by allowing the children to make one “big” card from all of them for the family.
• Listen. Always listen for clues that a child individually or the class as a whole needs to deal with the grief they are experiencing.
• Maintain the routines. As we have said previously, children thrive on routines. Do not let the routines go by the wayside. They will provide some stability in a time of loss.
• Never assume. Do not assume that the children collectively, or one child individually has grieved long enough and should be “over it” by now. Similarly, do not say “I know how you feel” unless you yourself were in the same position.
• Deal with your own grief. It is highly likely that the death of a child will affect you as well. Have a substitute teacher who is able to take over your class at a moment’s notice.

The International Critical Incident Stress Foundation offers several handouts and other related materials that deal with traumatic losses, due to terrorism or similar incidents, such as TERROR:How to Talk to Children or CHILDREN’S REACTIONS AND NEEDS AFTER DISASTER . Additionally, the National Parent Teacher Association also offers a variety of resources to help teachers deal with the death of a student.

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