THE DEATH OF A BEAN
Children and their grief
Philip had successfully planted a bean seed and it was growing in a clay pot at school. Warm weather had arrived so he was moving the plant outside to the garden. In the process it slipped from his grip. Pot and plant smashed, beyond rescue, on the porch steps. “Oooooh,” he moaned, obviously broken hearted. At the same time he quickly glanced at me expecting, it appeared, my reproach for his apparent carelessness, or maybe he was needing a sympathetic response.
What should I say? Many thoughts flashed through my computer before selecting one: “That’s a dumb thing to do.” “Clean it up!” “Why can’t you be more careful?” “That pot cost 85 cents.” “Nothing serious.” “You can start another one. They grow quickly.” None of those seemed appropriate. Instead it occurred to me that Phil had just lost a friend. He was hurt, mourning the loss of something he cared about and had invested himself in.
I felt what he needed was understanding and empathy. I finally said “Oh, Phil, how sad! That bean meant a lot to you, didn’t it? You really cared for it.” To which he replied, Yes, it’s the first plant I ever grew.”
When his bean crashed it didn’t mean to me what it did to him. My initial feelings were irritation that a mess was made, a good pot broken, a project ended. If I had let those feelings dictate my response I would have totally missed what Phil was feeling-loss, sorrow, disappointment. Caring demanded that I ignore my first rush of irritation and tune in instead to Philip’s feelings, especially his hurt and disappointment. So I tried to put in words an expression of what I perceived to be his feelings.
Another temptation parents must resist, in addition to not blaming, is to provide a quick solution to the problem. When pets die, a bike is stolen, or toys are broken, it’s so easy to say, “Don’t worry, we’ll buy you a new one.” We want to rescue the child from his or her pain. We don’t want them to hurt. We want to quickly fix it so uncomfortable feelings will go away, both theirs and our own.
This seems like a good thing to do, but it cheats children of an important life experience. It’s better to let them feel the pain and mourn the loss with a sense of its permanence. In this way the child goes through a sample of real life. Minutes, hours or days later they will emerge healed. New interests and activities will replace the lost.
Life will go on, as it must in the future with major losses like the death of a brother, sister, father, mother or grandparent, or when divorce takes away someone dear and breaks up a home.
Allowed and encouraged to feel the hurt over small childhood losses, children learn that hurts heal, and they discover the inner resources to cope with grief on those occasions when there can be no repair or replacement.
There are frequent small bereavements in a child’s life. Each offers the opportunity for parents to model sensitive acceptance of the pain: A friend moves away; failing a grade; a favorite teacher quits; not making a team; breaking up a friendship; valuables stolen; a job loss. We cannot “fix” these hurts. The best repair comes from support, understanding and the natural process of mending that time provides.
Summary of Helping in Times of Loss
1. Allow and encourage tears, and other negative feelings. Sometimes we see a child fighting to hold back the tears. Gently say “Go ahead and cry” or “Let the tears go”. That can provide the permission needed to weep. This is good for the griever.
2. Let them talk about it. Repeating the story of how it happened helps work it out emotionally and intellectually.
3. Touch, hug, holding are deeply meaningful. The child who can’t cry or talk may need this even more than the expressive ones; their feelings are more easily overlooked.
4. Encourage involvement in the work surrounding the loss. For example, with a stolen bike, let him or her call the police and go and try to locate it.
5. Avoid pat answers and clichés like “I know how you feel,” “It could have been worse,” You’re a brave young man.”
6. Don’t rush them. Let them get through it at their own speed.
7. Be tolerant. Avoid judgment or blame such as “If you’d been more careful, this wouldn’t have happened.”
8. Avoid moralizing: “We live in a world where you have to expect this sort of thing.”
9. Use religious resources to provide support and a way of thinking about loss, e.g., “I believe Jesus is hurting with you right now.” When praying about it, do so in a way that talks to God about how the child is feeling: “John is hurting badly, Lord, and angry, too, over what has happened. . . “Leave out expressions that may directly or indirectly lead them to blame God, e.g., “It was God’s will that this happened.”
The grief of children in major losses may also be poorly handled simply because they are overlooked when the family is hit with a death or other tragedy. One teen-ager reported, “Everybody told me what a rough time my dad was having when my mother died. They acted like my sorrow was non-existent or of little consequence.”
This may happen also when a grandparent dies. The grandchildren are often closer than their parents to this older person, but seldom are they considered the primary grievers. Parents can easily underestimate the intensity of this pain when a grandparent dies, and miss chances to let children talk and express their feelings about grandfather or grandmother. Recently I tried to talk with a young girl whose grandmother had died unexpectedly. Unfortunately, her father was with her and kept answering for her. Try as I might to let her talk about what this was like for her, I was thwarted by her father’s speaking what he thought she was feeling and thinking.
Most children are so full of life they will bounce back strongly from minor or major losses. Their vitality gives them a resiliency to go on, to live again. This is often true regardless how ineptly the big people treat their grief. Nevertheless, careful handling and sensitive, well-thought-out reactions, plus eliminating some of the typical pat answers or avoidance responses, are called for. These painful events can then be turned into more positive growth experiences where a child sees life and people in a new, realistic way.
