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Helping Children Cope with Separation and Loss
An Excerpt
By Claudia Jewett Jarrati
on as can be arranged. Whatever the situation, when parents share the news, whether separately or together, they should both make it clear that their love and positive concern for the child have not diminished and that the child is not the cause of the family change.
When Should I Tell the Child?
The best way to help children face significant changes or losses is to let them know what is happening as soon as the loss, separation or change seems definite. When parents try to delay telling the news, they often underestimate how sensitive children are to parental preoccupation and tension. Telling a child about an impending loss not only prevents the distress and anxiety that may build as the child increasingly wonders what is wrong but also allows the child to begin to prepare for what lies ahead rather than being caught off guard. The child has a chance to start getting used to the idea, to raise questions and concerns, to participate in the adjustments parents are making, to play and replay the separation experience as a way of integrating the changes that will occur, to practice coping skills before they must be called into action, to begin to grieve. Talking about the change can promote the awareness that, though the adjustments may be hard, the child can manage both the grief and the loss: what has happened is not so awful that it cannot be faced and talked about.
There can be problems with direct prompt approaches. Imagine a mother who has only the brief time it will take someone to bring her children home from school to prepare herself to tell them that their father has suddenly
