Chapter 4: We Will Get Through This Together: Supporting Students Through Grief & Loss
- As children age, there may be additional periods of grieving even after the initial reaction is long past (93). Children grieve at different developmental stages (93).
- Academic Responses to Grief – Difficulty focusing or concentrating, inattentive, failing or declining grades (94). Incomplete work, or poor quality of work. Increased absences or reluctance to go to school. Forgetfulness, memory loss. Overachievement, trying to be perfect. Language errors and word-finding problems (94).
- One out of every twenty children aged 15 or younger will suffer the loss of one or both parents (96).
- A transition in the family such as divorce or adoption can also cause grief (97).
- Students react differently to divorce which often depends on maturity (97).
- Ex// Acting out, disobeying rules, and being more selfish or self involved (97).
- Divorce can affect a child’s ability to learn – they may feel anxious or insecure about their world because it can be difficult to predict what will happen in a day (98).
- Divorce has a negative affect on students intrapersonal skills, such as the ability to maintain friendships (98).
- Classrooms can be a supportive environment that help deal with grief – organic discussions about grief, characters from a book, life events such as a pet passing away, academic topics, etc (99).
- Important that as teachers we know how to respond when a students has experienced grief or loss (100). Andrea Ruth Hopkins (Med.) says:
- To help children feel safe while acknowledging the reality of death (100).
- To promote an accepting classroom atmosphere where children’s feelings are supported (100).
- To provide developmentally appropriate learning opportunities that allow children to discuss death (100).
- “We as educators must create guidelines to aid children through their grief journey, protect them in school during vulnerable times and make their classroom an oasis of protection to explore life issues with support an guidance (101).”
teacher tools:
Tell the Truth:
Schwartz, Kyle. I Wish My Teacher Knew: How One Question Can Change Everything For Our Kids. Da Capo Lifelong Books, 2016.
- Be prepared to respond to our students’ questions about grief and loss in a way that satisfies their curiosity and fosters resiliency (101).
- Take their questions seriously, and answer them as honestly as possible (101).
- Great way for students to record their feelings, thoughts and memories of the person who is no longer with them (105). This could be a journal or a photo album (105). If these thoughts and feelings stay locked in a child’s head, they become difficult to process (106). This allows students to process those memories, while feeling secure and heard (107).
- Make the appropriate teachers and staff aware of what a particular students is coping with so they can me empathetic and supportive (116). With this in mind, respect the student’s privacy (116).
- Information in the inventory can be: brief explanation of grief incident, family members and friends affected, important dates to be aware of, observations prior to incident, know challenges, successful interventions, less successful interventions, etc (117).
Schwartz, Kyle. I Wish My Teacher Knew: How One Question Can Change Everything For Our Kids. Da Capo Lifelong Books, 2016.