Introduction
A lamented child is a tragic moment for the parents to watch. It is an intensely tough incident for teachers, guardians, and above all, parents. However, there are a few methods that can assist children and their parents, develop a long-lasting strong response to any losses that may have ignited such sadness.
The Book – When Children Grieve
The book “When Children Grieve” is written by the co-authors of the book “The Grief Recovery Handbook” John W. James, Russell Friedman with a psychotherapist Leslie Landon Matthews. The book is a marvelous piece of information for people who suffer from loss including children of all ages and parents as well. The book proposes an ahead of its time volume to liberate children from the bogus perception of not sensing bad and to make them powerful with optimistic & effective procedures to deal with losses.
The book features a practical, compassionate approach towards the issue and it would be simply unfair if this remarkable script is only read by parents to recently come across the position of parents of a sad and grieved child. The book widely emphasizes the issues of grief and this can be a major aspect as to why it is unfair not reading it in the first place. Secondly, the book not only teaches the lessons to children, who have lost their pet, any parent, or a close relative or friend, but kids whose parents have separated and perhaps divorced, who have come across accidents which led to any amputating injury, or who have experienced any other type of disturbing loss. It’s a fact that at a certain point, children do face losses, due to inexperience and immaturity, so the book also cautions parents to be ready before any such incident.
Reaction to the book
Upon reading and understanding the above-mentioned book, it can be sincerely said first of all, that the book is a masterpiece and one of its kind.
Grief is a part of life and every being comes across issues that tend to be hurting and demoralizing sometimes. The author’s John James and Russell Friedman have presented an astonishingly assisting book. The book assists in getting familiar with grief and its aspects especially from a child’s point of view. The book is very easy to understand and explains grief is healthy for children. It also advises parents and adults to let their children bear a loss and realize and then come up with the situation allowing them to restore to health again. “Children need to feel bad when their hearts are broken.” (p. 27)
The book comprises five different parts analyzing and investigating critically, the legends of grief, the procedures of recovery, and the finishing point of it, realizing one’s own being i.e. self-discovering oneself, and other failures. To start with the aspect of grief, the authors of the book advise elders to refrain from cheering a child in such situations and say “don’t feel bad.” (p. 34) such an expressive phrase can emotionally damage the child.
The authors also state that grieves should not be substituted. Instances of this legend are when elders tend to replace the stolen bike that the child once strolled upon, immediately to mollify the child. And for another instance, elders in the abrupt awakening of a family pet’s death, go out and buy a new pet to halt the child from bereavement for the loss of his/her beloved leisure companion. James and Friedman believe that this bereaving period is healthy since its natural, developing the immunity in a child that helps, in the long run, to remain strong and cope up with situations. “The emotional attachments children make are essential to happy lives.” (p. 30)
The book also elaborates that grief doesn’t exist and prevail due to death only, instead can be driven by divorced parents, loss of beloved pets, moving to a new separate place, and even in some cases, parent’s jobless life. The book also elaborates that grief grows from unexpected changes in ritualistic activities. It is the role of elders to smooth the progress of a child’s emotions by assisting them to find out “undelivered communications,’ messages that they intended to utter before the loss, but in no way it was done.
If the approach of the reader is philosophical, one would agree with the authors’ view that “Time doesn’t heal—actions do.”(p. 9) Elders can assist in motivating the child’s remedial by commencing the recovering procedure. Forgiveness is one essential and effective feature for this to take place though. Act of contrition for these undelivered communications can be assured through jotting it in journals or farewell letters. However, it is quite crucial that the grown person guide in that way.
The book teaches elders how to approach the affected children and show them the right way through their complicated times. It’s a classic and a must-read for all lecturers, administrators, guidance and psychology counselors, and above all parents who want to give confidence to the poignant escalation and intellectual well-being in kids. There isn’t any defined modus operandi for dealing with such grief, yet the book is sensible and makes an impact.
Conclusion
It can be concluded that the book emphasizes highly on the aspects of grieve that intervene in everyone’s life. The book should be read by people of different ages since it covers efficient methods of relieving grievous events.
References
James, J.W, R. Friedman and Matthews L. When Children Grieve: For Adults to Help Children Deal with Death, Divorce, Pet Loss, Moving, and Other Losses. New York: HarperCollins, 2002.