The Power of Presence by Joy Thomas Moore & Wes Moore

Author:Joy Thomas Moore & Wes Moore
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Published: 2018-09-17T16:00:00+00:00

LESSON FROM A LIONESS: Sometimes you must look back to move forward.

There is a bit of wisdom that’s made it into pop culture. It’s called the Tester Pancake Parenting Theory. The Urban Dictionary asserts that the firstborn child is like the first pancake on the griddle on a Sunday morning. “It usually gets temperature neglected, and often undergoes premature flipping.” In many ways, Nikki was my first pancake! I didn’t know what I was doing, and circumstances in our lives—the divorce, my venturing out as a single mom, my remarriage, and then the sudden death of her beloved daddy—added to a recipe for confusion, anger, guilt, and rebellion in Nikki’s formative years. She was suffering from childhood trauma, and until I could recognize that, and understand how important it was to help her heal even if going back to those wounds was scary for both of us, there was no way we could move forward.

Bruce D. Perry, MD, PhD, says in an article for Scholastic, “Parents, often coping with the same loss, may underestimate the impact of the separation, move, or death on a child, thinking ‘children are resilient.’ Underestimating the vulnerability of the grieving child actually prolongs the child’s pain and increases the probability that the effects of the loss will persist.” Some of these persistent symptoms are emotional numbing, anger, irritability, episodic rage, and regressive behaviors—all things that I saw in Nikki but failed to respond to earlier.

Inspired by the Dougy Center, the National Center for Grieving Children & Families, here are some suggestions for helping children deal with loss:

Answer the questions they ask, even the hard ones. Parents need to let kids know it is okay to ask questions; it’s parents’ responsibility to answer as truthfully and age-appropriately as possible. Use concrete words like died or killed instead of passed away. If you use vague phrases like passed away, the child will ask the next logical question: “Passed away where? And when is that person coming back?” This so resonated with me because this is exactly what Wes had said: “I was still in the wind tunnel. I heard that my father had ‘passed on’ but had no idea where he’d gone… when I looked into the casket and asked my father, ‘Daddy, are you going to come with us?’”

Don’t be afraid to talk about the person who died or who no longer lives in the house. Bringing up the person’s name gives the child permission to recall happy memories too.

Keep pictures of the person around the house. Share memories, and if there is a special keepsake that brings fond memories to the child, make that a special gift.

Respect differences in grieving styles. Watching and listening to what is said and how a child is reacting will provide you with the cues on how best to help him or her cope with the loss.

Listen without judgment. We as parents often choose to say things like “I know just how you feel” or, worse, “It is time to get over it,” or the person is “in a better place,” or “We are better off without so-and-so.

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