Bereavement

Some tips to try

Three short pieces from the library, and the part of each you can act on tonight.

• The Grandparent Who Was a Third Parent. The grandmother who did the school run was part of the parenting.
  • Name the specifics of what is lost: the Tuesday pickup, the strawberry yoghurt.
  • Rebuild the schedule deliberately; do not expect it to settle itself.
  • Be specific; generic “she loved you very much” does less.
  theparentbook.com/parents/library/quick-tips/the-grandparent-who-was-a-third-parent
• The Pregnancy That Did Not Continue. She had been told a sibling was coming. The conversation that comes next matters.
  • Acknowledge her grief openly: “We are very sad. It is okay to be sad too.”
  • Include her in the small rituals: the candle, the flower, the name said aloud.
  • Allow her questions on her timetable, not the family’s.
  theparentbook.com/parents/library/quick-tips/the-pregnancy-that-did-not-continue
• The Things Children Grieve. Children grieve more things, and more often, than adults give them credit for.
  • Widen the frame of what counts as a loss for a child.
  • Name the loss in passing, without making a project of it.
  • Expect the grief in waves, not in a line.
  theparentbook.com/parents/library/quick-tips/the-things-children-grieve

If you want to read further

• When a Child Is Grieving. A chapter for parents whose child has lost something, or someone, that was there last week. theparentbook.com/reader/when-something-is-lost
• The Conversations Parents Avoid. A chapter for parents standing at the threshold of something hard to say. theparentbook.com/reader/the-conversations-parents-avoid

Worth your time

• A book for you: How to Talk So Kids Will Listen and Listen So Kids Will Talk, Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish. The classic on the architecture of a parent-child conversation that works. uk.bookshop.org/p/books/how-to-talk-so-kids-will-listen-and-listen-so-kids-will-talk-adele-faber/6d559e16712802ce
• Something to watch: How to help bereaved children understand grief, Winston’s Wish, YouTube. A short primer from Winston’s Wish on what childhood grief actually looks like, including their puddle-jumping image for the wave-and-pause pattern parents recognise but rarely have language for. Ten minutes that save hours of reading. www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y9rqJlbQDpk

Where else to go

For almost everything, the NHS is the right first move, and it costs nothing.

• Your child’s school. The pastoral lead, the head of year, or the form tutor. Free, already knows your child, and often the fastest route to a change that helps. Before or alongside anything else. A school cannot act on what it has not been told, and what you bring is often what it did not have.
• Your GP. The gateway to everything the NHS offers a child: paediatric assessment, a referral to CAMHS, and support for you as the parent. Ask for a double appointment. Describe the pattern over weeks rather than the worst single day, and say plainly what you are worried about. Bring a written list; the ten minutes go quickly. www.nhs.uk/service-search/find-a-gp

• Winston’s Wish, now part of Child Bereavement UK. The UK’s leading bereavement charity for children. The first signpost for any chapter where a child is grieving. Bereavement chapters where the focus is the child’s grief and how parents can hold them through it. The helpline is warm and unhurried. Merged into Child Bereavement UK · Now part of Child Bereavement UK. The line to ring is the Child Bereavement UK Helpline, 0800 02 888 40. winstonswish.org
• Child Bereavement UK. Bereavement support for families where a child has died, and for grieving children up to 25. Bereavement chapters where the death is of a baby or a parent, or where the family system as a whole is grieving. Complementary to Winston’s Wish; they hold slightly different territory. Child Bereavement UK helpline 0800 02 888 40 · Mon-Fri 8am-8pm, except bank holidays · Live chat and email via website www.childbereavementuk.org
• Cruse Bereavement Support. The UK’s largest bereavement charity. The right line for the parent who is grieving alongside her child, or for the family navigating suicide-bereavement or the loss of a grandparent who was structurally part of the parenting. Bereavement tips and chapters where the parent’s own grief is in the room alongside the child’s, and the family needs a UK helpline staffed by people trained in complex loss. Cruse’s suicide-bereavement training is particularly strong; their volunteer helpline staff are calibrated for that conversation in ways general grief lines are not. Cruse Bereavement Support National Helpline 0808 808 1677 · Mon, Wed, Thu, Fri 9.30am-5pm; Tue 1pm-8pm · Email, online chat, and local-branch face-to-face support via cruse.org.uk www.cruse.org.uk

The full list for bereavement, with what each organisation does and when it is the right call, is at theparentbook.com/help/bereavement/services