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Tips to Help Children Deal with Grief and Loss · 5–Minute Parenting: Tips to Help You Raise Competent, Godly Kids.

• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to another episode of Five Minute Parenting.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: Today I have a special guest, Joyce McColl.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: She's an award-winning educator and retired high school English teacher who appreciates Shakespeare and the classics.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: She lives in Middle Tennessee and enjoys volunteering in her church and in her community.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: And Joyce has just written her debut picture book about coping with the loss of a loved one.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: Her picture book is beautifully done.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: The illustrations are amazing.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: And it's called Look for the Pink Ribbons.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_00: And you will find more information about that on her website, which will be in the show notes.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: So welcome, Joyce.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_00: And we're excited to hear what you have to share to help parents help kids deal with grief.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you, Sandra.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_01: I'm honored to be here.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, you had asked me to think of five points to help kids deal with their grief.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_01: And Ambassador International, the publisher of my book, did a great job of helping me come up with some discussion questions at the end.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_01: And the overall theme is hope.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_01: And question number five at the end says something about hope being the most important message in this book because Jesus Christ offers us hope for eternal life if we believe in Him.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_01: And again, that's the biggest takeaway.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_01: I want children and the adults who read to the children to get out of this book.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_01: Everyone dies, but Christ offers us new life.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_01: And in addition to that hope, I think I try to present that idea through seasons.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_01: The Illustrator did a beautiful job of helping me to focus on the seasons of life.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_01: In my book, it's which is really an allegory based on my mother's experience with breast cancer.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_01: My mother died of breast cancer well over 30 years ago.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_01: It had metastasized to the brain.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_01: And at that point, people the medical field didn't aggressively treat things like they do today.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm very hopeful that I know that people that have had this experience now are still living to talk about it.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_01: But my mother did die after a couple of years.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_01: And my sister kept telling me, even though we prayed for her to be healed, that God did heal her in heaven.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_01: And that's another thing that I think the book emphasizes.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_01: Recently I had a Wednesday night children's group of five and six-year-olds, and this was our topic.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_01: One of the mothers had said that her child had had some nightmares recently because her great uncle had died.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_01: He was in his 80s, but it was the first funeral she had ever attended, and she was worried that she was going to die.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_01: And so I used this book to talk about the hope of life after death.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_01: And one of the other things that I did, this is my second point, was help the kids to focus on the positive.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, we're all going to die eventually.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_01: And I kept trying to emphasize how with children, their deaths are more than likely going to be many, many, many, many, many years into the future.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_01: But I also used Tamma Fortner's book, um, God I Feel Scared, one that she recently wrote with a professional counselor, licensed professional counselor, Michelle Needer.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_01: And to quote her, she says, Scared happens to us all, and that's okay.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_01: But God doesn't want you to stay afraid.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_01: That's why He promises to stick right by your side.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_01: And the passages about the birds chirping and the sunrise happened while the birds started chirping and the sun started happening.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_01: The sun came out brilliantly through the through my sunroom windows, and and I knew that God was speaking to me.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_01: And my third point is to share that hope with others.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_01: Um, the two cubs in the story, the two line cubs, have been taught by their mother to to look for pink ribbons as a symbol of hope.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_01: And um they are also encouraged to be supportive to other people and to share that idea.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_01: You know, when someone, a child's friend, is sad, they can help them to see um uh the beauty in God's world around them.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_01: And in the midst of grief, kids can find comfort by helping someone else in need.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_01: And that's so timely right now with what has happened with the hurricanes in our country and um the storms, the flooding.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_01: And yes, we're all sad, but we can allow our sadness to be kind of taken away, lifted a little bit when we reach out to someone else and focus our attention on the positive rather than the negative.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_01: And then finally, I think you can ask children to express their grief through their own words if they're old enough, or through images.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_01: If they can't write words, they can create pictures.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_01: So, for example, writing a letter to a loved one or drawing a picture to express that grief and to express the love that that person had, the connection that they had.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_01: They can also maybe take it to the grave or to the cemetery or put it in a special place in their home and read it at night whenever they feel scared.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_01: So, this is what happened with the little girl.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_01: I encouraged her to write a letter, and she seemed to be okay with it after it was all over with.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_01: So, another point in the book, the very last question, is that we have not seen what heaven looks like.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_01: The I quote the scripture, 1 Corinthians 2 9, I have not seen nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of a man the things which God hath prepared for them that loved him.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_01: So ask a child what does he or she think heaven looks like, and have the child describe that beauty, and that might help their grief.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_00: Those are really good points, and I really especially um, like you said, just with all the tragedies we've had lately, um, this book is important right now.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's very important to help kids deal with grief and loss.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_00: And um so I I think and your point about kids learning to help others, that definitely will take their eyes off of themselves and help them see how much they do have if they help.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, I think that's not just a point for us to remember, but for the children, but for adults as well.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely, absolutely.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_00: Well, thank you so much for being on the podcast today, and thank you for those great tips to help parents.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you, Sandra.