Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / #701 Kristy Thomas: Helping Kids Cope With Grief

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#701 Kristy Thomas: Helping Kids Cope With Grief · Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: It's the Happy Families Podcast. It's the podcast for the
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: time poor parent who just on answers Now. Hello, this
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: is doctor Justin Colson. Thank you so much for joining
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  Speaker 1: me on the Happy Families Podcast today. I've got a
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  Speaker 1: guest with me that I'm really grateful to be able
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  Speaker 1: to speak to about a topic that is really challenging.
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  Speaker 1: And I know that it's the start of year and
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  Speaker 1: we're supposed to have that great energy and feel excited
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  Speaker 1: about life, but the reality is sometimes hard things happen
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: at inconvenient times, like at the start of the year
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  Speaker 1: when we're supposed to be energetic and excited about life,
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  Speaker 1: but we're not. Today we're going to talk about grief,
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  Speaker 1: specifically grief and children. My guests on the Happy Families
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  Speaker 1: Podcast today is a lady called Christy Thomas, who is
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  Speaker 1: the director and manager CEO of Feel the Magic. Christy,
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  Speaker 1: really nice to have you on the podcast today. Our
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  Speaker 1: conversation is about grief. But when it comes to this
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  Speaker 1: idea of Feel the Magic and the role that you play,
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  Speaker 1: can you tell me a bit about who you are
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  Speaker 1: and what you do.
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  Speaker 2: Thank you so much for having me to talk about
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  Speaker 2: such an awkward, uncomfortable topic as well, especially when we're
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  Speaker 2: talking about grief and kids. So my name's Christy Thomas.
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  Speaker 2: I'm actually the co founder of Feel the Magic and
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  Speaker 2: Feel the Magic was born out of my own childhood
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  Speaker 2: brievement as well as a co founder with my husband,
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  Speaker 2: who had lost both his parents by the time he
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  Speaker 2: was thirty. And what we realized actually here in Australia
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  Speaker 2: is that there's minimal resources for children and parents to
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  Speaker 2: access to help kids through the worst time possible. I
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  Speaker 2: don't know if you know this, but one in twenty
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  Speaker 2: kids here in Australia will actually lose a parent before
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  Speaker 2: they turn eighteen.
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  Speaker 1: One fifth of kids will lose a parent to death.
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  Speaker 2: Before that time the time they're eighteen, So we're not
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  Speaker 2: that's not including sibling loss or we also deal with
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  Speaker 2: guardian loss, so that those are not available to us
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  Speaker 2: here in Australia. And also you know, any other kind
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  Speaker 2: of bereavement that a child might have when they're younger.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, So when I hear you share those numbers, I'm
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  Speaker 1: really surprised. And the reason for it is when we
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  Speaker 1: think of high mortality in families, I kind of go
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  Speaker 1: back to like the fifteen hundreds or the eighteen hundreds.
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  Speaker 1: It doesn't feel like that's what would happen today. So
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  Speaker 1: in fact, maybe I can share a brief story to
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  Speaker 1: highlight just how challenging it is, though to put this
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  Speaker 1: into perspective. In all the years that I've been doing
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  Speaker 1: the work that I do, only once have I had
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  Speaker 1: to speak with a parent who was helping her children
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  Speaker 1: go through bereavement. As it happened, these two girls, who
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  Speaker 1: were under the age of ten, had lost their dad
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  Speaker 1: to suicide. They were grieving, and when I spoke to
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  Speaker 1: this particular mum, I said, well, how can I help
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  Speaker 1: you most? And she said, I need to help my
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  Speaker 1: children with bereavement, and she explained the situation. I said, okay,
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  Speaker 1: well I can definitely help with that and she said, no, no, no,
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  Speaker 1: that's that's not the bereavement that I'm worried about. I said,
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  Speaker 1: I'm not quite sure. I am following. What is it
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  Speaker 1: that's going on? And she said, I've just received the
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  Speaker 1: terminal diagnosis and I have around about six weeks left
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  Speaker 1: and my children are going to be on their own.
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  Speaker 1: They're going to be living with their grandparents and their aunties,
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  Speaker 1: and I need to be able to help them through it,
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  Speaker 1: so these poor kids are going to become orphans in
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  Speaker 1: the space of twelve months, losing both parents obviously devastating,
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  Speaker 1: catastrophic for them. Can you tell me a bit about
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  Speaker 1: Feel the Magic the organization yourselves, and then I'd like
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  Speaker 1: to talk more about what grief does to a child,
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  Speaker 1: because clearly you and your husband have both been through
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  Speaker 1: some grief of your own.
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  Speaker 2: So Field the Magic support kids who aged seven to
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  Speaker 2: seventeen who have lost a parent, sibling, or legal guardian,
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  Speaker 2: And basically we bring them into different types of camps,
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  Speaker 2: so we do them face to face and virtually, and
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  Speaker 2: we basically teach them emotional literacy, coping strategies, We give
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  Speaker 2: them tools to actually self regulate and self soothe. And
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  Speaker 2: then the biggest thing that's sort of amazing that comes
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  Speaker 2: along with these programs is that they get to meet
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  Speaker 2: other kids like them. And part of what grief does
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  Speaker 2: to a kid is that isolates them. They become very different.
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  Speaker 2: They don't know anyone else that's going through what they are,
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  Speaker 2: They don't know how to talk about it with other people,
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  Speaker 2: and so instantly when they meet other kids who are
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  Speaker 2: going through the same thing, suddenly their world opens up
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  Speaker 2: to say I'm not the only one and there's a
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  Speaker 2: way forward. So in particular, I want to talk about
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  Speaker 2: Camp Magic because that's our three days signature camp, and
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  Speaker 2: in that program, we match every grieving child with a mentor,
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  Speaker 2: an adult mentor who comes along the journey with them,
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  Speaker 2: so they have someone sitting beside them in their journey
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  Speaker 2: to experience, you know, every session that we do, but
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  Speaker 2: there's someone there with them to support them. So we're
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  Speaker 2: not in the business of fixing kids, where they're to
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  Speaker 2: empower them to actually self regulate and take control of
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  Speaker 2: their grief moving forward.
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  Speaker 1: I'm listening to what you're talking about in terms of
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  Speaker 1: the challenges that kids have feeling isolated, feeling like they've
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  Speaker 1: i guess lost part of their identity when they lose
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  Speaker 1: a parent, and the way they look for somebody who
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  Speaker 1: would understand, somebody who would empathize. In all of the
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  Speaker 1: research that I've done, this is an area that I've
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  Speaker 1: never investigated. I'm curious if you can explain any other
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  Speaker 1: findings from a research point of view in terms of
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  Speaker 1: how children respond to how they cope with the loss
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  Speaker 1: and the subsequent grieving of a parent.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, there's some really obvious things that happen to a kid.
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  Speaker 2: Just from speaking to hundreds of families and parents of
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  Speaker 2: kids who have lost someone's significant one of the main
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  Speaker 2: things is they really suffer with anxiety or separation anxiety,
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  Speaker 2: especially if they've lost a parent. So if they've lost
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  Speaker 2: a parent, they become very, very very careful around the
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  Speaker 2: parent who's left, so they don't want to leave them
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  Speaker 2: because they're scared of losing them as well. So that's
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  Speaker 2: one thing. Any other behaviors like you know, acting out
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  Speaker 2: or their emotional dysregulation and their reaction to things can
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  Speaker 2: be quite overwhelming, especially for a parent who's grieving as well,
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  Speaker 2: so managing that can be really difficult. Isolation, and then
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  Speaker 2: they're much more likely in their teen years to withdraw
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  Speaker 2: and you know, be involved in risk taking behaviors. And sadly,
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  Speaker 2: research has shown that a child who has had the
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  Speaker 2: significant bereavement before the age of eighteen is six times
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  Speaker 2: more likely to die by suicide. So we really look
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  Speaker 2: at the work that we do is early intervention to
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  Speaker 2: ensure that that child doesn't have life long mental health issues.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, life saving, Christy. Thank you for sharing those research
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  Speaker 1: outcomes to something that's so challenging. How do you recommend
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  Speaker 1: that parents respond to children when they're dealing with loss
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  Speaker 1: and grief? So if we would look at it developmentally,
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  Speaker 1: I know that you said that what you do in
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  Speaker 1: your organization and Feel the Magic is primarily focused on
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  Speaker 1: kids from seven through seventeen. But if we start just
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  Speaker 1: with younger children, let's say toddlers and preschoolers, and then
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  Speaker 1: we can talk about the bigger kids after that, what
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  Speaker 1: do you recommend parents do if the children have lost
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  Speaker 1: a parent.
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  Speaker 2: The number one thing we recommend is for the parent
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  Speaker 2: to absolutely seek support and help for themselves, to ensure
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  Speaker 2: that they're modeling healthy grieving so that the child can
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  Speaker 2: look to them right.
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  Speaker 1: And that it wouldn't matter if the child was a
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  Speaker 1: little or big in that doesn't matter.
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  Speaker 2: Just look after you, look after you, ask for how
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  Speaker 2: accept help when it's offered, because people do come to
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  Speaker 2: the party with support, feel it to heal. It is
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  Speaker 2: what we say. You've got to absolutely face that grief
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  Speaker 2: to ensure that you can move forward later and walk
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  Speaker 2: alongside your grief. So when we're talking toddler age, being
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  Speaker 2: honest across all ages around what's happened, being using really
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  Speaker 2: direct language, so not being vague around h they've gone away,
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  Speaker 2: because you don't want to create opportunities for the child
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  Speaker 2: to think are they.
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  Speaker 1: Coming back, or to think that other people are going
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  Speaker 1: to go away and they'll also leave their life.
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  Speaker 2: So using words like dead dyed is really important so
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  Speaker 2: that maybe they don't understand what that word means, they
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  Speaker 2: can seek out what that word does mean. But it's
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  Speaker 2: the truth of what's happened.
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  Speaker 1: So hearing you say that, and I know that it's true.
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  Speaker 1: I've written articles about this side of things, and I
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  Speaker 1: know what the research says around this. Hearing you say it,
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  Speaker 1: it's there's there's that part of me that wants to
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  Speaker 1: say no, no, but can we just soften a little bit
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  Speaker 1: for the kids? Can we just make it a little
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  Speaker 1: bit more palatable, a little bit not nice, or a
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  Speaker 1: little bit more gentle because it's so it's such a
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  Speaker 1: heavy word, it's so so final.
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  Speaker 2: Yes, And that's what we do as a human race,
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  Speaker 2: is we want to care for that child who is
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  Speaker 2: going to be in pain when you deliver a message
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  Speaker 2: like Daddy's died or Mum's died. But being clear and
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  Speaker 2: direct is really important for their for their growth.
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  Speaker 1: In terms of other things, you can do for little
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  Speaker 1: kids who are probably going to be confused, lots of hugs.
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  Speaker 2: Hugs, connection time, spending time with them, creating rituals around
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  Speaker 2: their loved one beautiful in terms of memorial type things
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  Speaker 2: is really important. Craft with them and doing things that
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  Speaker 2: are quite creative can help bring out you know, having
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  Speaker 2: chats with them about their griefs. So that's for the
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  Speaker 2: little ones. And then when we're talking seven to nine,
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  Speaker 2: very similar. They just want connection with their parents, they
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  Speaker 2: really do. They just need love, care, support, direct language,
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  Speaker 2: and a safe space to be able to share what
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  Speaker 2: they're going through. When we're talking ten to thirteen.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, As they start to get older and move
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  Speaker 1: towards those tween and teen years, I presume that it
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  Speaker 1: changes because their responses change, right.
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  Speaker 2: I have to say this is the most popular age
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  Speaker 2: group where we have children come into the programs. Sometimes
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  Speaker 2: seven to nine they're still too young to process and
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  Speaker 2: coming in especially being left alone. But ten to thirteen
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  Speaker 2: seems to be our target area because I hate to
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  Speaker 2: say it, but the parents still has some say over
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  Speaker 2: what the child does, so they can ease we come
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  Speaker 2: to our programs, but they get so much out of
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  Speaker 2: having been connected with other kids their age. Having a
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  Speaker 2: safe space where they're not protecting their parents' feelings or
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  Speaker 2: other people's feelings, where they can share how they feel
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  Speaker 2: is so incredibly impactful for them. Yeah. So again, direct
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  Speaker 2: language lots of connection. But this age group really, and
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  Speaker 2: I would say teens when I'm talking fourteen to seventeen,
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  Speaker 2: a lot of them lose sight of what makes them
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  Speaker 2: feel good. So once they may have been somebody who
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  Speaker 2: I've heard this story a million times, but say we
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  Speaker 2: had a child who loved playing football and it was
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  Speaker 2: something that they did with their dad very often, and
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  Speaker 2: the minute dad passed away, no more football. It just
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  Speaker 2: was too hard. But the parent who's parenting or the
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  Speaker 2: mum who's parenting this child knows that football will be
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  Speaker 2: really good for him. So helping the child, supporting the
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: child to find or get back to activities that make
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  Speaker 2: them feel good.
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  Speaker 1: Christy, you mentioned before about looking after yourself as a parent.
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  Speaker 1: How much of our ability to guide our children through
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  Speaker 1: their grief is predicted by all or reliant on our
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  Speaker 1: ability to be well ourselves.
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  Speaker 2: It's hard to gauge how much, but I think, like
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  Speaker 2: I said at the top, it's almost the most important thing.
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  Speaker 2: If you care for yourself and your own grief, then
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  Speaker 2: you're modeling that behavior and you can then therefore be
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  Speaker 2: much more connected with your child. If you're pushing it down,
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  Speaker 2: it's hard to connect outwards because you're so holding so
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  Speaker 2: tight onto feelings that hurt or are painful. I think
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  Speaker 2: parents are just scared that if they let it out,
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  Speaker 2: it's never going to stop, and especially kids too, and
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  Speaker 2: often I mean children who hold it in because they
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: don't want to upset mum or dad as well. But
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  Speaker 2: what we find is, you know, if you let it out,
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  Speaker 2: it doesn't last forever, and it kind of reduces the
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  Speaker 2: pain a bit for next time, and they become few
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  Speaker 2: and far between. But then they also get easier, and
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  Speaker 2: then outside of letting it out, there's this huge relief,
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  Speaker 2: like I see it at cam Magic all the time.
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  Speaker 2: We'll go into one of the therapeutic sessions and they'll
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  Speaker 2: be kids crying and having it, you know, talking and
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  Speaker 2: sharing their feelings and it's been a really heavy moment,
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  Speaker 2: and not more than ten minutes later, they're out kicking
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  Speaker 2: a football or playing with the ball and laughing and
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  Speaker 2: having fun. So kids, when given an opportunity, are really
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  Speaker 2: good at grieving because they just get it. They're just
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  Speaker 2: so in tune with their emotions if they're given them space.
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  Speaker 1: Do you think that sometimes parents just try to fix
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  Speaker 1: things too fast?
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  Speaker 2: Oh? Absolutely, it's hard not to when you see your
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: child in pain and you're feeling that pain yourself, so
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  Speaker 2: you really connect it to their pain as well. It's
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  Speaker 2: hard not to try to fix or want to fix.
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  Speaker 2: It's really hard.
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  Speaker 1: And at the same time, you're also trying to just
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  Speaker 1: get on with life, right, Like we've still got to
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: go to school, or we've still got to look after
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  Speaker 1: the house, or go to work, or deal with all
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  Speaker 1: the other stuff that life demands. Office. It's not like
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  Speaker 1: we can say, Okay, there has been a death and
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  Speaker 1: now we're going to take six weeks and do nothing
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  Speaker 1: but wear black and sit in ash and grief. That's
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: not what we do in twenty twenty three. Is that's
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  Speaker 1: not how our society works. Last question for you, I mean,
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  Speaker 1: I'd love to I'd love to talk to you about
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: this for so much longer. There's so much that you
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: haven't even scratched the surface off. But if people want
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: to find out more about Fielder Magic and Camp Magic,
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: the work that you're doing. Where would you send them?
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: Where's the best place for them to go?
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  Speaker 2: Our website is the best filmdomagic dot org dot au.
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  Speaker 2: We've got all the information you need to know about
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  Speaker 2: what programs we have, where and when. Also, we have
• 15:10
  Speaker 2: this amazing grief resource hub, so you can go on
• 15:13
  Speaker 2: there and find books and videos and podcasts and other
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: organizations who deal with grief and breathements. So there's a
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: real hub there that you can go to for any
• 15:24
  Speaker 2: kind of resources that you might need. And we have
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: an incredible intake officer. Her name's Lauren. If you fill
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: out an inquiry form, she'll get in contact with you
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: and if you want to talk via email, if you
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: want to talk via text or on the phone, she's
• 15:42
  Speaker 2: available to you anytime.
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  Speaker 1: So now one in twenty hunder eighteen are going through
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  Speaker 1: this at some point in their life. I think the
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: work you do really matters. Christy, it's been a delight
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: to talk with you. That's Christy Thomas from Feel the Magic.
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: The Happy Families podcast is produced by Justin Ruland for
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: Bridge Media, Craig Bruce's Arretech producer. For more info, please
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: visit Happyfamilies dot com dot u and check out our
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: show notes for more about Field the Magic