Latest / MESSmerized - Funny and faith based encouragement in marriage , family , Christian parenting , and finding purpose / Epsiode 165: Walking Our Kids Through Grief with Sissy Goff

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Epsiode 165: Walking Our Kids Through Grief with Sissy Goff · MESSmerized - Funny and faith based encouragement in marriage , family , Christian parenting , and finding purpose

• 0:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: This is Cynthia Gannoff, and you are listening to the mesmerized podcast.
• 0:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: All right, friends.
• 0:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: Welcome.
• 0:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: Can you believe it's November?
• 0:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: Me neither.
• 0:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: Um, I feel like, you know, I made this intentional effort to enjoy every second of October.
• 0:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: I talked to you about it.
• 0:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: I was going to write down, and I did write down every single day on my calendar, something that I enjoyed about fall and something I did that was October-ish.
• 0:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: as simming that was a word.
• 0:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so literally I wrote down I'm reading a few of them that I went to a high school football game.
• 0:42
  [SPEAKER_01]: I went to college football game.
• 0:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: I got to go to Chicago and walk around and see the leaves.
• 0:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: I got to go to Utah.
• 0:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: That didn't happen very often where I get to go on two fun trips in one month But I saw leaves there and got to hike.
• 0:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: I made soup one day.
• 0:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: I wrote down all the things I did because I wanted to really appreciate October
• 0:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: and it's still flu-buy right?
• 1:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so now we are in November and so here's my challenge for you.
• 1:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: I don't know if it's really a challenge, but it's just a thought.
• 1:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: I love the verse Psalm 166, the boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places.
• 1:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: surely have a delightful inheritance, and this is a pretty famous King David Psalm and I just love that idea the boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places and as we go into November and we're thinking thanksgiving what a great way to approach life.
• 1:33
  [SPEAKER_01]: Now can we all just say?
• 1:34
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think we talked out last week when Doug McCellby was on the show
• 1:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: It is not without trials in this life, right?
• 1:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: There are hard things all around us, but by and large, I think we can all say the boundary lines of fallen and pleasant places for us.
• 1:49
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so that is my theme verse.
• 1:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to put that as my lock screen on my phone.
• 1:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: But every day, this month in November, I'm going to write down one place of Thanksgiving, where I can say like the boundary lines of fallen and pleasant places, whether that's...
• 2:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: through relationships with my kids or a good meal with friends or whatever that might be.
• 2:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: But just reframing my heart towards that this month of Thanksgiving.
• 2:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: So I want to encourage you in that if that's something you want to do.
• 2:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm literally writing it on my calendar because I have a paper calendar everybody because that's who I am, apparently I'm a thousand years old.
• 2:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: I write it down in the bottom corner.
• 2:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: of each day and I highlight it so I can go back at the end of the month and be reminded of that.
• 2:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: So just the thought is we go into November, okay, today we have Sissy Goff on the show with us and we are going to talk about walking our kids through grief through hard things and I don't feel like we need a lot of introduction because if you've been here long, you have heard Sissy Goff on my podcast many times, she and David Thomas, they are counselors and Nashville and just incredible people.
• 2:44
  [SPEAKER_01]: So we're going to talk about walking our kids.
• 2:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: They're grief, they're trauma through hard places, and we're also gonna talk because, you know, I am who I am.
• 2:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: We were gonna talk about the fact she's been on the today's show a couple of times, and I think that's amazing, and I wanted the behind the scenes.
• 2:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: So that's where we're headed today.
• 3:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: I will link it all in podcast notes.
• 3:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: Thanks for being here.
• 3:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: Here we go, with Sissy Goff.
• 3:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: Sister, you're back, you're in the house.
• 3:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm so honored to be in any house with you anytime.
• 3:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: Well, it's always so fun.
• 3:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: I don't want to say that I'm bad luck in the pet area for you.
• 3:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: But if we might revisit the past, I was thinking that this morning.
• 3:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: Did you recall when I was on your podcast a couple of years ago?
• 3:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: And you're talking just past away, remember?
• 3:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it was like the day after Lucy died.
• 3:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: but I love you so much and I wouldn't get a miss it and so we just did it and I think I probably cried through most of it.
• 3:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: I probably cried too, who knows?
• 3:42
  [SPEAKER_01]: And then this time we were supposed to do this a couple of days ago and somebody reached out from your office and said that your new puppy had to have surgery, what's happening?
• 3:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, I mean, it's a genetic thing and little dogs their knee caps slip off to the side of their knees and it's really painful and hers just live off of her knees both back legs, which means I'm going to have to do this twice, but it is no joke.
• 4:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: She.
• 4:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: couldn't stay in the cone, so she's in a donut, but it means she can lick her legs.
• 4:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: So basically, as we were talking about before we started, I'm sitting on my floor with her in a bed next to me in her donut on a leash, and if all of a sudden it's a batch is no, it's because she's trying to lick her in.
• 4:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it's not, it's not some nickname she has for me when I ask a back
• 4:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: Literally she's talking our daughter.
• 4:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm so sorry, Sissy.
• 4:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: Oh, but I'm like the grim Reaper of Sissy dogs.
• 4:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: I know you're not.
• 4:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's just life.
• 4:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's just the things that happen.
• 4:38
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
• 4:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: Well, when when I was emailing back and forth with the air assistant, I said this like spells out the next book because did it did I get this right that patches is going to have to have like a little trailer or something for the back legs or there's some like something that's going
• 4:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: She, she, she should.
• 4:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I might need to think through that.
• 4:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: But that would be really cute because I'm just saying like this right.
• 5:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's next book like that is how we help our compassion and I know I mean, I don't know.
• 5:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: I just feel like the book right themselves and your little in your life with all the little situations to help kiddos out.
• 5:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: So I love it.
• 5:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: I love that too.
• 5:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: Thank you for the suggestion.
• 5:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, okay, just it's fine.
• 5:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like you don't have to like dedicate it to me, but it's not terrible that Cynthia thought of it first.
• 5:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: I didn't have just has or maybe it's a book on bad friends.
• 5:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: And this friend Cynthia that every time I talk to her, my dogs get hurt, I don't know.
• 5:33
  [SPEAKER_01]: So, well, speaking of writing books that go along with life, when I saw that you had written a new book on grief, helping kids through grief, I thought this probably was born out of some really hard stuff that y'all went through a Nashville as my guess when there was a shooting, is that about right, was that about the time you decided to write it?
• 5:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yes, that, I mean, I have had, been doing this work for 30 years, so many hard conversations with families, and that was,
• 6:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: collectively, the hardest that I've ever had.
• 6:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: And as you know, I mean, we are day start is less than three miles from the Covenant School.
• 6:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: And we have counseled kids from that amazing school for a long time and done so many parenting seminars over there and the head of school was a dear friend of David and my both that was killed that day.
• 6:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so I can't remember if I've ever even told you the story, but we,
• 6:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: When the shooting happened that morning I was getting ready to go to work and got a text from a friend who's a coworker who said there's an active shooter on the covenant campus and it's I mean you know it's a teeny school and I thought there's some mistake there's no way this is happening and I got to work and in fact.
• 6:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: There were already counselors there had taken one of our day start dogs down to be with the kids and the reunification center and so I went down there too and several of our staff were with the kids and I stayed up with the parents in
• 7:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: ended up kind of in the beginning going from parent to parent that I knew and they were I mean everything you could imagine and more than you would ever want to imagine of like what do I say to my child that the kid that was sitting next to them in the desk is no longer with us or what do you know how do I handle their fear going back to school and then ended up because that was happening so much and because I have this release we relationship with that place speaking to all the parents just kind of.
• 7:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: on the fly that afternoon to try and help.
• 7:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so yes, it just feels like there's not enough information out there when tragedy strikes in a big picture, but also when it strikes personally and I have a lot of parents, I mean even in the last three to five years come to me who've been given a terminal diagnosis to say, what do we do?
• 7:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: How do we talk to our kids about this?
• 7:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, we had something and no you hadn't sure that thank you for sharing that and we all walk through that and prayed that for all of y'all Nashville and I thought, gosh, no better people to have on-site than day-star.
• 8:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: So, I was so grateful that y'all were there, but
• 8:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: Even in the last couple of weeks, as I was moving college kids back to school and my little one started fourth grade and life was kind of crazy and yeah, tumultuous and then my mom was diagnosed with colon cancer and it's been best case in our for what it is, but walking my kids through that it was really interesting as I was reading through your stuff I was like.
• 8:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: everything in me wants to protect and be like oh it's gonna be nothing it's gonna be fine or somehow sweep it under the rug but when it's something it's a national crisis maybe not when it hits your home and my older one said you know is this a good cancer and I remember thinking
• 8:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: No, not really.
• 8:49
  [SPEAKER_01]: And saying that to the my older ones and then being like, why don't I know, is that, do you shield them to you not?
• 8:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: And all that to say, like, I just don't, I don't feel like any of us feel like we know what we're doing.
• 9:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I'm so thankful that you're in front of this.
• 9:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: Your, your books are that one in 11 children will experience death of a parent or sibling before their 18th birthday.
• 9:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm like, one in 11, that's not grandparents, even.
• 9:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's got to be a much higher.
• 9:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: numbers.
• 9:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: So talk to us a little bit about that.
• 9:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: You talk about, you know, the stages of grief.
• 9:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: So talk to us a little bit about that and what and what what we're looking at with our kids and how they evaluate things.
• 9:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yes, well, you know, historically there have been we have always heard the stages of grief.
• 9:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: I like to think about it more of experiences of grief.
• 9:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, I like that because it's not like we all are moving through them in the same way and kids experience similar stages, but they move in and out.
• 9:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: of those experiences more quickly.
• 9:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: So the five stages of grief, denial, anger, bargaining, sadness or depression and acceptance.
• 9:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: And again, I love to think about it more like experiences than stages, because it's not the staircase that we move up and we've arabbed at acceptance.
• 10:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: I mean,
• 10:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: any of us who have lived long enough to grief somebody that matters a lot to us or a pet that matters a lot to us know you just circle in and out and in and out again and kids especially do and so it's so important for us to study what grief looks like in kids because I mean even after the covenant shooting one of the questions we got the most was
• 10:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: Is this okay?
• 10:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: Is this normal and and I remember thinking that when I lost my mom.
• 10:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: I mean just how much longer is it okay for me to ball my head off when I'm driving from one place to another because this doesn't seem normal and and then I remember thinking there is normal grief just kind of has its way with you and and it is when I went to.
• 10:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: start doing research for this book.
• 10:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: It really was very sad to me how little there is about kids in grief specifically.
• 10:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: So my hope I tried to make it really short and really palatable maybe would be the word I would use because any adult who's reading this for a kid is probably grieving too.
• 11:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so I wanted it to be the easiest lift it possibly could be and hopefully
• 11:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: But I think it's so important for us to understand what it looks like with them.
• 11:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and help us with that.
• 11:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: I know that I have friends who have either lost a spouse or something very significant and their kiddo will be like, I'm going out with my friends tonight.
• 11:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: Or I'm going to go to, you know, and you have these moments of like, well, that seems normal and healthy.
• 11:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: And that seems like you got a real problem.
• 11:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: What is going on?
• 11:38
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like, you don't know how to evaluate what would be a typical behavior.
• 11:42
  [SPEAKER_01]: So walk us through and I know there's everyone by the book because there's a whole book on this.
• 11:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: But walk us a little bit through what this looks like and how it might look different than how we grieve.
• 11:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 11:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: Well, I mean, I think we really know this is coming.
• 11:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: No, it's going to happen.
• 11:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: We know they're going to be a lot of tears.
• 11:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: We know we may be angry.
• 12:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, all of those stages were remotely familiar with.
• 12:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: And we often will even set a sad time to do it.
• 12:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, when my mom died, I took time off work because I knew I was just going to be a mess for a while.
• 12:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: Kids don't know how to do that.
• 12:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: They don't set a sad time and so it really catches them by surprise.
• 12:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so, and
• 12:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: In some ways, that's good and healthy for them because kids really grieve and doses, it's almost like our lungs are developing when you think about swimming and we can go underwater for longer time periods than kids can because they just don't have the capacity, they don't have the capacity for grief in that way.
• 12:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so they'll go under and then they'll need to come back up and have reprieve.
• 12:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: And one thing that I think is really significant is kids seem to have an innate sense of what they need.
• 12:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so it is really important.
• 12:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: And we can talk about specific conversations too, but even in the process for us to follow their lead.
• 12:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: And when you linger a little longer at their bed and you scratch their back and maybe ask a question or say it's been a hard day for me.
• 13:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm just curious about your day.
• 13:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: And they start to talk with let them talk and then when they change the subject we let them.
• 13:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: And then the next day when they run out of play and forget, seem to forget that it even happened.
• 13:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: They have not forgotten.
• 13:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: but that we follow their lead in that because they're working it out inside of themselves.
• 13:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: They don't have words yet, but they intuitively know what they need so much of the time.
• 13:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and I was thinking about this as a little bit off topic, but I was thinking about it if we're walking our kids through grieving with a friend.
• 13:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: Let's say a friend lost a parent or someone very close to them or whatever.
• 13:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: And you know, like we know, like with adults, you still talk about that person.
• 13:44
  [SPEAKER_01]: You still bring it up.
• 13:44
  [SPEAKER_01]: You don't avoid the topic.
• 13:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: You don't avoid the person because it's, you're not bringing it back to their mind.
• 13:49
  [SPEAKER_01]: The adults already have it on their mind.
• 13:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: Is that the same thing as we're helping our kids do that?
• 13:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: Do we say like, it's okay still to talk about their grandparents or their mom,
• 13:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: Or is it one of those things that we just tell our kids and ourselves follow their lead, follow their lead?
• 14:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, yes, all of the above.
• 14:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, they're going to be some kids who don't want to talk about it.
• 14:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: And we followed the, I mean, I can think of one girl specifically after the covenant shooting.
• 14:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I mean, she didn't talk about it for years.
• 14:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I reminded her parents that she will when she's ready.
• 14:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: And please keep talking about it yourself, just mentioning it like this is a part of our life, it's a part of our world and it doesn't mean I have to come up with five questions and sit, you know, need a knee and make her have this intense conversation about it, but I'm going to remind her that this is real and it happened and.
• 14:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm talking about it and we can still model healthy ways to cope, but yes, we want to follow their lead to.
• 14:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
• 14:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
• 14:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: What does it mean for grief to follow along development?
• 14:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: I read that in your materials, what does that mean?
• 14:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: Well, basically it means their understanding is going to evolve as they grow and their kids who will experience it a certain way at five, you know, they I mean it may even look like to some degree they're grieving the loss of a parent and then at eight it's going to hit them in an entirely different way and then at 14 it's going to hit them and entirely different way at
• 15:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: had a girl that I worked with who lost her sister and she was six and the sister was nine and she very much agreed that her sister wasn't there who was her best friend and playmate and then by the time she was in high school she was grieving this best friend that she could have stayed up late at night talking with and experiencing all these things and so it looked different but then in middle school she went through this phase where she didn't want to talk about it didn't want to acknowledge it because it was embarrassing.
• 15:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: So it's just going to follow along where
• 15:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: really be good students of where they are developmentally, too.
• 15:49
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
• 15:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: And what would you caution us on as parents?
• 15:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like what's one of the more difficult stages or experiences of grief that our kids will walk through that's hard for us to walk through with them?
• 16:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: Ooh.
• 16:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, so many because you don't want to see your child hurt.
• 16:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, we've talked about that thousands of times over the course of our friendship and to watch them grieve is going to be
• 16:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: The anger part of it may be painful and I mean I think the biggest thing I would set well two of the biggest ideas I would say one is.
• 16:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: Your kids need, you know, we've talked about this in so many different ways, but your kids need you to process your own emotions and your grief if you're grieving because when we don't inevitably, they're going to spill out on the people that we love the most and it's so good for kids to see you cry to hear kids for kids to hear you talk about it and it's, it's appropriate to do that in a healthy way, it's not appropriate to process with them because so many kids.
• 16:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think especially girls maybe especially oldest boys or you're most intuitive son will rise up and feel like they have to take care of you and when they see you with these feelings that you're not processing the better spilling out they're going to not process their own so much of the time because of yours and so I think for us to make sure we're taking care of ourselves that we have people who are listening giving to us.
• 17:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: is so important.
• 17:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: And then the other I would say, something that I loved when I was reading was that in so much of the research around grief and trauma, you know, I think our our first instinct is
• 17:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: But we live in this culture where we're so focused on the negative on everything and our fear makes that worse that I think we think they're going to have PTSD.
• 17:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: And some kids will.
• 17:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: And even, I mean, 30
• 18:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: plus years of counseling kids.
• 18:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: My experience is certainly that post-traumatic growth happens more.
• 18:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: And the one factor that makes the most difference is for a child to have one safe study adult, which takes us right back to dealing with our own stuff and work in through it on our own.
• 18:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and not to bring this all back to me, but it's just pretty recent when I was talking to my kids and we are moving one kid in college when we found out all this about my mom and my kids are very, very close to my mom and you know I can't have in that moment of thinking I got to pull it together.
• 18:34
  [SPEAKER_01]: I got to pull together and and I like that you're saying like we've got a process our own grief and let them see you process that grief and I remember that I was Terry and I said but we still are going to move your sister into law school and we're still going to do all the things and I remember I can't be having
• 18:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: I just, the Lord, I just put it in my mind, but this him, you know, about greatest I faithfulness.
• 18:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I remember just saying to the kids, I was, I'm like, well, it's so funny that I'm humming that.
• 18:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: But I was like, you know, the God is faithful even in this, right, guys?
• 19:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: And they were like, yeah, and we just kept doing a thing, and I kept crying, and then they kind of cried.
• 19:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: But those moments of,
• 19:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: I feel like intuitively we know as parents, but we try to come up with all the right answers at the right time and I'm not well studied on this, I'm going to screw them up or like you said they're going to PTSD and I just wonder if you could encourage us a little bit that sometimes our intuition is right, how God created us in our reactions it's right.
• 19:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: No, absolutely.
• 19:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: I love that that's where you went and I think it's both it's our intuition and it's the Holy Spirit.
• 19:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: And God is going to give you the man who you need for that moment, even when you don't feel like you have what it takes.
• 19:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: And that reminds me so much, Cynthia, I have the family that I have known.
• 19:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: And the father was diagnosed with terminal cancer, and they came into meet with me.
• 19:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: The mom and dad to say, what do we do for our kids?
• 19:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: Maybe last fall and their kids were, you know, we have our little summer retreat program
• 20:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: and he died the morning that the mom was going to come pick him up.
• 20:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so she told them they are at Hope Town.
• 20:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: And before she drove him home, and it just was, I mean, just so painful and heart-wrenching to watch these kids find out.
• 20:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I
• 20:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: was doing something and walked in the room where they were and she did not start humming greatest that faithfulness but she was so teary and said this is awful and I hate that we're having this conversation and you should never have lost your dad this young and you all in the midst of that got us to with us and he is still faithful and it it was like that
• 20:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: acknowledgment of the honesty in the heart and the truth of what she knows.
• 20:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I don't think she wrote that script driving to pick that up.
• 20:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, I think it was just what emerged out of who she is and her intuition in her
• 21:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: relationship with the Lord.
• 21:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: And even what our husband would have wanted her to say in that moment.
• 21:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so, you know, we talk about this all the time, but I think so much of parenting is trusting yourself and that you do know and so much of the world tells you not to right now and not a helpful way.
• 21:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: And yes, even in grief, you
• 21:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: you are the parent, God chose for this time.
• 21:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: He knew this was going to happen and he's given you exactly what you need.
• 21:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah.
• 21:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: Talk to us about boys versus girls dealing with grief.
• 21:34
  [SPEAKER_01]: Do you see in the research and just in life significant differences?
• 21:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yes, well, we know in all things, boys can go outward a lot of times with their emotions and in this too.
• 21:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think they certainly can
• 21:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: They are less likely to talk about it and they're less likely to have peers who know how to engage with them.
• 21:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: Which is why back to your question about if you have a child who has a friend who's struggling to talk about that with them and to sit them down and say let's even talk about some questions you can ask let's talk about some ways you can respond or to call the teacher if you have a child who's grieving call the teacher and have them give a 101 on how to walk kids through this or go in yourself and do that because they don't know where's girls I think intuitively know how to step into it with each other and at the same time.
• 22:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: They can try and rescue each other and sometimes they can be more dramatic in a way that's not helpful for the one who's greening and so they need coaching in their own way really.
• 22:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: But I think we want to pay attention to that idea that boys can go outward and girls can go inward and so it can be harder to get boys to talk it can be harder sometimes to see in girls because they might want to please us act like everything's okay.
• 22:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: because they know we're struggling and we're worried about them.
• 22:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: And when you say outward versus inward, I'm thinking this through.
• 23:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: So a girl you're saying is probably going to digest it inside maybe more so we're a boy when you say they go outward, you're not saying obviously they're going to have these deep complex conversations.
• 23:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: When you say they go outward or you say they may just turn to other things, they may go live their life in not great circumstances.
• 23:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: They decide they're going to go drink or they're going to, is that what we're getting at?
• 23:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's a really great question.
• 23:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yes, I think they can turn to more destructive behavior.
• 23:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think also anger, David would say, boys in elementary school, their primary emotions, I'll get funneled toward anger anyway.
• 23:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so especially in grief, I think they can go, they don't know what to do with the emotion and so it can get bigger and more explosive or they can try and numb it in some ways.
• 23:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: And girls can do that too, but I think if we were gonna really over general ass.
• 23:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: And that's what the research tells us.
• 23:49
  [SPEAKER_01]: Okay, everyone remember the book is called helping kids through grief.
• 23:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: A parents guide for making sense of death, processing loss, and finding hope.
• 23:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: You talk about 10 ideas to remember when navigating these conversations with our kids about loss.
• 24:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: Can you just give us a couple of those?
• 24:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think the first thing.
• 24:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: that we want to think about is we want to be the source.
• 24:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: You mentioned when it's a family tragedy, also when it's a national tragedy, we need to be the source and talk to kids first.
• 24:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: Because if we go back to the covenant school shooting, I mean, there were kids who found out on their devices at school, which I can't even imagine what that felt like as an adolescent, and there are kids that I have known who've heard about a family member having a terminal diagnosis from someone else.
• 24:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: you want to get their first because in all things, you want the kids you love to feel like you are their trusted source.
• 24:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so establishing yourself that way, part of it means getting their first coming up with really concrete explanation just a couple of sentences.
• 24:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: And just like we talked about that kids have this innate sense of what they need, they also have this really remarkable ability to ask for the questions when they're ready for the answers.
• 25:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: So like thinking about your mom, I mean, since yeah, I'm sure your older kids had much more complex questions.
• 25:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: Is this a good kind of cancer?
• 25:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: Where is your fourth grader may ask nothing for two weeks or three months?
• 25:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: Because internally there's this sense of,
• 25:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so, to give them a little bit, say, what kind of questions do you have for me?
• 25:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: And then circle back a couple of times, we, okay, what have you been thinking about?
• 25:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I think if it's something...
• 25:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: that's happening more in a wider environment to say, tell me what you're hearing because so often with national tragedies, kids get wacky information, which again is why we want to be the source.
• 25:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: Tell me what you're hearing.
• 25:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: What questions do you have about that?
• 25:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: Let me tell you my perspective.
• 25:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: But that we're just that it's not one big conversation we're done, but we're circling back over and over with kids as that source.
• 26:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: Well, this is an amazing resource to everybody.
• 26:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: You need to order your copy because if you don't need it today, you may need it tomorrow.
• 26:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: We all know, like, unfortunately, there's just always something going on.
• 26:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so I'm so thankful that yet again, you guys have a resource that we all need.
• 26:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: I was thinking about something.
• 26:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm switching gears for a second.
• 26:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: But I was watching you on social.
• 26:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I was watching this summer and all the camps you did and all the things that you all do.
• 26:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: through day start.
• 26:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I was just curious, um, you talk a lot about just the anxiety, thankfully, the anxiety that I'm thankful you talk about.
• 26:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm not thankful that all the kids have anxiety.
• 26:38
  [SPEAKER_01]: Let's clarify.
• 26:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: But the anxiety, especially in terms of girls, I just curious after the summer when you were with so many kiddos.
• 26:44
  [SPEAKER_01]: Did you see anything different in the new, anything else sprouting up, cropping up that you're like, huh?
• 26:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: This is interesting, or we're circling back to the same issue over and over.
• 26:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm just curious, because you're just on the forefront.
• 26:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: I feel like you and David, on the forefront of all the things that our kids and as the generations change, as the news changes, as social media changes.
• 27:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I thought, what did you see this summer that you're like, that's interesting.
• 27:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, it was, it was fascinating because of as we know when we release a book in the world, we're thinking so much about that book and everything is kind of seen through that lens and we released a book called Capable in the Spring and then we finished press stuff and I went to hotel and lived with second through 12th graders for seven, seven different weeks and it's such a gift to get to do that and
• 27:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, there's so much that that is the same with kids.
• 27:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I would certainly say they're still really anxious out watching the middle school kids and high school kids and the self not self consciousness.
• 27:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: They walk in with that then you watch kind of drop day by day as they start to feel safe with the group appears, I mean, all of that felt the same.
• 27:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: What I was surprised by was how given the opportunity.
• 28:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: And given the lack of anyone stepping in and rescuing, which parents, please hear me say that was so much grace, kids were deeply capable.
• 28:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: deeply.
• 28:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: And some of them pushed back more than others.
• 28:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: But I mean, we are practicing in silly ways like they help three kids and a counselor make every meal for the group.
• 28:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: And they each have a cleanup job in the afternoons.
• 28:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: And they do things.
• 28:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, we're really small groups.
• 28:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: And it's like 35 to 40 kids.
• 28:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: But they do things like,
• 28:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: give each other beads every night based on a scripture character trait.
• 28:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so they're standing up and giving to each other, speaking in front of 60 people with counselors included, which when I was in fourth grade, I would have turned every shade of red, I would have been sweating, but they did it because
• 28:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: it mattered to them to give to somebody else, which we need to come back to grief about that idea.
• 28:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: And it was just kind of the deal.
• 29:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, there was this, this, I think, healthy, appropriate expectation.
• 29:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I think in this world of anxiety,
• 29:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: and in all the social media that's barking at us, it is hard to know as a parent, what's appropriate to expect?
• 29:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: How much do I let my kids do hard things?
• 29:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: When do I step in and rescue?
• 29:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: And we're seeing more rescuing than they probably need.
• 29:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so I was so encouraged by the resilience and strength that I saw and it made me think we got to keep working on this at home.
• 29:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah, when you and I and David were talking out capable last spring, I remember just those good reminders of in a world that tells us that's good parenting to be available all the time to show up, to fill in the gaps.
• 29:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like that's what the world says, a good parent does, to really go upstream against that and say,
• 30:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: I can still be a good parent and not be too available and too rescuey and all those things like it was a really good reminder because it really is kind of upstream and today's current parenting culture where it wouldn't have been when you and I were going up in my parents I mean they didn't have time to worry about what school to put me in it's what do we feed to they didn't have time to worry about like if I had the right select team like I was lucky if I was on the why why I'm see 18 like that was what parenting and as parenting changes in the norms changes reminder
• 30:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: of you can be counter-cultural and that will benefit your kids and show them the hateful.
• 30:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: That was a good word I needed.
• 30:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: I had a really cool experience.
• 30:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: I went to Colorado, you know, my sister has the two little boys that I get to spend a lot of time on.
• 30:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: You're so sweet.
• 30:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: Well, we went to Colorado last week and
• 30:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: for the first time in the boys, except the four-year-old didn't even know it was happening, but in their life, their bag didn't make it.
• 30:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know how it goes?
• 30:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: All the rest of the bags made it.
• 30:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: We put them all in the conveyor belt at the same time, but they were bagged in making it.
• 31:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: And my oldest nephew, Henry, we figured out it was happening with the gate agent.
• 31:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: And she said, you're going to need to go to the Southwest counter.
• 31:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: And all of a sudden, we couldn't
• 31:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: which I'm sure at seven you think my favorite stuffy is gone forever.
• 31:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'll never see my favorite shirt again.
• 31:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, all that stuff you don't know what that means.
• 31:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so he was just sobbing and I went and sat down by him and said, Henry, that's really hard.
• 31:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I do think we can figure, you know, just try to talk through it with him.
• 31:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: Well, then we get up and he's kind of wiping away his tears and we walk to the Southwest counter.
• 31:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: And the woman at the counter looked at Kathleen and Erin,
• 31:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: She said, are y'all preparing him to fly alone?
• 31:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: And they said, no, and she said, I got this.
• 31:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: And she said, come tell me what's going on.
• 31:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so Henry puts his little arms up on the counter and he said, I lost my bag.
• 32:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: And she said, come back and show me what your bag looked like.
• 32:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: She had him have the whole conversation.
• 32:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: What was in the bag?
• 32:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: All the things he got to hang out behind the counter.
• 32:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: And
• 32:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, she said, we'll find it.
• 32:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: We'll deliver it to you all that.
• 32:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: And then I mean Cynthia his face walking out of that little Southwest area was so proud because he did the whole thing on his own and those are the places it's so easy to jump in to try and rescue them from those big feelings.
• 32:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: I would have tried to rescue them.
• 32:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: The Southwest agent was awesome shout out to Southwest Airlines and so.
• 32:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think to keep thinking about your right, it's countercultural.
• 32:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: It is everything in us to step in and handle that ourselves.
• 32:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: So how do we find those places where we can let them work through?
• 32:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: It is so important.
• 32:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: And what I was going to circle back to a minute ago, the coolest thing, one of the coolest things, besides the post-traumatic growth, in my research on grief for this book, is there is a grief expert named David Kessler who worked a lot with Elizabeth Coupler Ross, who created the initial five stages of grief.
• 33:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: which is meaning.
• 33:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: And he talked about how healing meaning is for any of us.
• 33:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I think that sense of purpose, that's really what I watched play out all summer with kids.
• 33:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so thinking about talking through capability, grief, all the things with kids in this day in time, I believe meaning impacts them.
• 33:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: as much as anything.
• 33:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: And that's something we certainly have got to help kids who are in grief are just in daily life on their way to.
• 33:38
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah.
• 33:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: And last question on this, I was think that I meant to ask you earlier, so I'm going to circle back to how do we know with our kids if this is like normal
• 33:49
  [SPEAKER_01]: grieving or like we might just need a little counseling behind this and and I and I say that like in a way of not like Oh, it's so bad.
• 33:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: We better go to counseling like of course not like I'm so thankful We live in a culture now where it's very normal to be like, hey, I think we need someone else to speak into this But are there there?
• 34:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: There are things we should be watching for that we could say like we might need talk someone else.
• 34:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yes Yes, I mean I think it's interesting.
• 34:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: We will often at day star have somebody call
• 34:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: often for a friend who's lost a spouse the day of we need to get the kids in immediately.
• 34:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: I typically will say you don't actually because they're still in denial and it's not helpful.
• 34:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I think especially for young ones, the person they're going to talk to the most in the beginning as you as a parent.
• 34:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so creating lots of space to do that, keeping a close eye on them, I mean the biggest
• 34:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: factor I would watch for is, are they not only having these experiences of the stages, but do they feel stuck in those stages?
• 34:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: or are the stages significant enough that they're in peating their daily life?
• 34:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: Do they not want to be with any of their friends?
• 34:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: Do they not only not want to go to school for a little bit, but do they continue to not want to go to school?
• 35:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: Do you feel like they're never coming up for air in that sense of they need reprieve?
• 35:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: Things like that, or if you ask them, I mean, I might check, and especially with a teenager, I would check, because they often will feel like,
• 35:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: if I talk to them.
• 35:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so I would just ask the question, hey, we all need support sometimes if you want to talk to somebody at any point, you let me know because we know some great people and then figure out who the great people are in their areas.
• 35:33
  [SPEAKER_01]: Exactly, all right.
• 35:34
  [SPEAKER_01]: Okay, we're gonna end with this.
• 35:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: We can add something just to that question.
• 35:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: Of course.
• 35:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: Okay, I feel like there are being all those things.
• 35:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: Or if you ever hear your child say they want to hurt themselves or hurt somebody else that is immediately a time that you go on and you seek counseling even if they're not super excited about the idea you still do it at that point.
• 36:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: Okay, let's yeah necessary word there.
• 36:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
• 36:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: All right, another hard turn into of the shallowest nature yet.
• 36:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: I want to celebrate this with you.
• 36:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: One of my dreams has always been not a dream.
• 36:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like this is a bucket list.
• 36:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's never going to happen.
• 36:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: But like I've always been like, gosh, I would love to be on the today's show.
• 36:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think it'd be fun.
• 36:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I don't even mean on it.
• 36:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: I mean like behind it, watching it, I guess I've walked by the window before in New York, but I've loved the today's show forever.
• 36:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: Don, if I am not so thrilled that sweet, Sissy and David, not once, but twice.
• 36:38
  [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, we're talking today, show, we're talking GMA, we're talking nearly, I nearly just said date line.
• 36:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: If you were on date line, Sissy, I would be, I would go on to say she was always so lovely when I knew her.
• 36:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: No, like, nightly new, all these things.
• 36:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so, I won, I mean, the whole Christian world that knows you as championing and cheering.
• 37:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so, it's like a victory for all of us.
• 37:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: But, too, I need you to tell me it was fabulous and give us a few little behind the scenes little scoop before we go.
• 37:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: Okay, well, I'm gonna tell you the absolute truth.
• 37:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: I kept praying that I would get to it was fabulous more than I'm a nervous wreck and I still haven't gotten there.
• 37:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: I just am a nervous wreck every time I do it, it's terrible and it's a mate.
• 37:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I just can't even believe.
• 37:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: David and I constantly are like, what is happening, what is happening, we just are so overwhelmed and so incredibly honored.
• 37:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: So you can still continue to pray that the nervousness of science.
• 37:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm still working on that.
• 37:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, thank you.
• 37:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: And the thing that I would say, because we have gotten to do that now.
• 37:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: A couple of times, we got to interview Craig Melvin for our own podcast and we were there this last time.
• 37:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: And Vicki Wynn, who's on NBC News now a lot.
• 37:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: And we got to Sivina Guthrie a year and a half ago.
• 38:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: And we've done NBC News now a couple of times.
• 38:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: So it feels like we've been in that building.
• 38:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I am astounded at the kindness of every single person from the page to the producer of the third hour, which is what we've been on her name Cecilia.
• 38:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, everyone is so incredibly kind that it makes it a million times more fun.
• 38:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: And you start to develop relationships, it feels like still doesn't make me figure out how to take a breath better.
• 38:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: But it's such a sweet thing and experience with that.
• 38:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
• 38:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: We're excited.
• 38:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: Well, thank you for sharing that and we are so excited.
• 38:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: And yeah, I just, I love seeing how the Lord is promoting your work and giving opportunities you never could have had on your own.
• 38:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: I just think it's incredible.
• 38:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: And no nicer kinder people than you and David to get out there and just and to help us do right by our kids.
• 38:59
  [SPEAKER_01]: So.
• 39:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm championing you, I'm praying for your nerves, and you're living out an exciting moment that many of us have always wondered about some things for sharing it with us.
• 39:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: Thanks, friend.
• 39:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: All right, everybody, grab the book.
• 39:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: Helping kids through grief, a parents guide for making sense of death, processing loss and finding hope by Sissy Gough.
• 39:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: It is available September 22nd.
• 39:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: All right, friend.
• 39:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: Thanks for being us.
• 39:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: So good to see.
• 39:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, if she isn't just a total of the light, right?
• 39:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: I love her so much.
• 39:33
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I'd love to carry her books and go to the station with her, but she is not offered that gap, but you know, if any of y'all end up on the station, please know I'd like to go with you and I will literally carry your things around behind you and just be a spectator.
• 39:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: All right, so, thanks for being a part of the show today.
• 39:49
  [SPEAKER_01]: We have lots more coming your ways.
• 39:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: We go into the holidays.
• 39:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: We are going to have lots of my friends and family on this show because you have requested more of that.
• 39:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: So we'll be doing that if you want into the holidays.
• 39:59
  [SPEAKER_01]: So thanks for being a part and that's my family.
• 40:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: You can get a very best.