One in 10 children in Missouri will lose a parent of sibling before they turn 18, and that statistic is one in 12 in the U.S. That’s why the National Alliance for Children’s Grief is partnering with grief centers like Lost & Found in Springfield to Flip the Script on grief.
Mark Miller is the director of Lost & Found Grief Center at Glenstone and Portland and knows all too well about grief. He lost his oldest son when Luke was just 20-years-old.
“You just want to move away from unhelpful advice or interruptions to a child and just really be present and listen actively," he said. "It's just so easy to lean into saying, 'well, God won't give you anything you can't handle' or, to a little boy, 'you're the man of the house now' — just those kinds of unhelpful bits of advice — to instead listen, be present and listen actively, and do things with children.”
Avoid saying things like “they’re in a better place” or “I know how you feel.” Melanie Blair, assistant executive director of Lost and Found, agrees that just being present for people — both kids and adults — and listening when they’re ready to talk can be helpful.
Blair lost her son Charlie when he was only nine-months-old. She remembers one thing that helped after her loss.
“When my son died, I had two five-year-old twins at home, and I just wasn't functioning at the level that I needed to be functioning at," she said. "And so our house was very sad, and it was very somber. But they're five-years-old, and they don't sit in the grief the way that I was sitting in the grief. And so for my friends and family to come over to my home and pick them up and to go do a fun activity with them, I knew that they were safe. I knew that they were allowed to still be a child in an environment where it was still so raw. Inside our home, there was a constant reminder of who was gone.”
Getting kids outdoors and active helps address the physical manifestations of grief, according to the NACG. The organization suggests encouraging physical activities that might help young people express and cope with their grief, like walking, playing or other gentle physical engagement.
Blair advises people to find ways to look for ways to support those who are grieving and offer to do them. For example, let kids be kids by taking them to the park or for play dates, clean house, mow the lawn or do laundry. Miller remembers neighbors coming over after Luke died and taking their dog Scout to play with the neighbors' dogs. That allowed Miller and his wife to grieve and be present for their 17-year-old son with one less responsibility.
Lost and Found offers grief services – both individual counseling and free group sessions. Find out more at lostandfoundozarks.org.
