← Talkaboutable with Dr. Susan Swick
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Lemonada
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Talk About Able is produced by Lemonada Media in partnership with Montage Health and their Ohana center for Child and Family Mental Health. And it's made possible through funding from the Montage Health Foundation.
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So much of this grief work is really about giving people permission. People, whether it's kids, teens, adults, come in and they're really tangled up about their idea of what grief is supposed to be like. They have certain ideas around how long it should last. They have certain ideas around which emotions are acceptable for grief, which losses are okay to grieve. We tend to compare our losses. Oh, well, this person went through a bigger loss than I did. So I shouldn't still be sad or it's been a year or two years or five years. I shouldn't still be feeling these things. This person wasn't a good person in my life. I shouldn't be allowed to grieve them. So really kind of helping someone reset and just get to a baseline of giving themselves permission. Permission to acknowledge how big this is, how many ways it's perhaps impacted their life, all the complicated feelings that come with it. This is a really important piece of it.
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I'm Dr. Susan Swick and this is Talk About Able. Today I'm speaking with Claire Bidwell Smith, a therapist with expertise in grief and a best selling author. Claire knows grief professionally and personally. By the time she was just 25 years old, Claire had lost both of her parents to cancer. And that experience led her to work in which she supports other people facing loss, first in hospice care, then as a therapist. Death is perhaps life's central mystery. And kids can sense that whether it's losing a pet or a family member, they are going to have big questions and feelings and we as adults don't always know how to address them. Claire and I explore the best way to approach these conversations. What rituals can do for grieving families, and how to keep the memory of loved ones alive for your kids. Even if it's as simple as baking a cake. This is a conversation about grief. How it's an experience to be born, not a problem to be fixed. And how when we stay connected to one another, that experience can be easier, it can become meaningful, and there's so much still room for joy. So, Claire, I'm so excited to have a little time to talk with you today. The earliest part of my career was spent in working with families through a cancer center where a parent had cancer diagnosis while they still had kids at home. And so maybe a third of the time I was working with families that were facing end of life care. And we would talk a lot about death and dying, but often I didn't have as much time with families after a loss. It was anticipating a loss. And I think so much about how grief is a normal part of life, a very difficult part of life, and it excites a lot of anxiety and stress for parents in particular who wish they could protect their kids from having to experience. And one other thing was. So, you know, the universe tells us something. We're not always sure what it's telling us, but in the last few weeks, I lost my mother, who was. Thank you. She had been sick for a long time. She was in hospice for the last six months. But it still reorders the planets to lose a parent. And then we had an unexpected loss. I lost my beloved dog, which was totally unexpected. But it happened just a few days before my mom passed. I feel like I've been getting a PhD in different kinds of grief over the last month. And all of our training and work experience doesn't necessarily fully prepare you for the emotional reality of it.
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It really doesn't. It's humbling.
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It is very humbling. Exactly right. It's just like actually raising kids compared with child psychiatry is very humbling. So I'm really. I understand that your work, your work in this area was shaped by grief also. So I'm wondering if you could tell me a. And the story that brought you on a path to the work you do now.
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Yeah. So I was 14 when both of my parents were diagnosed with cancer at the same time. I was an only child and my mom and I were incredibly close. My dad was quite a bit older. My mother was incredibly sick with colon cancer and she was going through a lot of treatment all through my high school years and, you know, really struggling with her health. My dad kind of went into remission after treatment and was okay, but my mom died when I was a freshman in college and it just really dropped the floor out from underneath me. She and I were so close and she was just a really exciting, wonderful, loving mom. And you know, I didn't know anybody who'd lost a parent. I didn't know anybody who'd been through anything like that. I felt really ill prepared for her death. Even though she was sick for so long, we didn't talk about it that much. No one really explained to me that she was going to die. And so when she died, it was felt shocking. And then My father died seven years later. His cancer came back in my 20s and after I Finished college. I became his caregiver and took care of him at home in hospice until he died. Then I was 25 and starting my young adult life, you know, with no immediate family and a lot of grief and a lot of big questions about life. So that's really what started me into this work. I mean, it took me some years to heal through that before I was able to really start to do this work. But I eventually went back and got my master's in clinical psychology. I then worked in hospice. Now been in private practice for about 15 years.
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Incredible being an 18 year old. To me it sounds like it can be one of the most vulnerable moments to lose a parent, actually, because your peer community has very little shared experience. There's very few peers who've had a similar loss. Maybe the adults in your extended orbit think you're an adult. They think, oh, she's 18, she's launched, she's going to be fine. Unlike if you were 8 or 12 and 18 year olds are still kids. We're legally adults, but 18 year olds, I say we. I'm clearly still 18. Internally, 18 year olds still need to dock their ship in their parents harbor periodically. They're experiencing the world as adults, but they need a lot of connection to their parents. So such a vulnerable moment to lose your.
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It really is and I'm understanding it more than ever. I'm turning 48 this week, so it was 30 years ago and my oldest child is turning 17 next month. So I'm really seeing, you know, I'm seeing myself at that age through her. And I'm just thinking a lot about how young I was and how much support I still needed. And you're right on the nose when you say that all the adults around me kind of viewed me as an adult when I wasn't at all yet. And I still needed, you know, I had barely left the nest. I still needed to be able to come back to it.
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Yes. Yeah, you need the nest. Did your dad's grief also mean it was hard? Could he not be there for you in a way that was helpful or what was that part like in the seven years before you lost him?
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Well, my father was 57 when I was born, so he was in his late 70s when my mother died or mid-70s and he was, was a World War II generation. Like, you know, just get back on your feet, kid, you're fine, you're an adult. You know, you had your mom for 18 great years, let's keep going. And so, you know, my response to her death Was initially tremendous anxiety. I began having panic attacks, hypochondria, social phobias, became afraid of flying. Everything was scary to me, and I really didn't understand why. And there was no one around me helping me understand that. So I. I thought there was something else wrong with me. I thought my mother died. But also I had this weird other problem that was anxiety. And at the time, there was very little in the grief literature about anxiety and grief. And so I really, truly, for years, just thought I had this other problem. And I also had an incredible amount of anxiety, knowing that my father was likely not going to see me turn 30. So I was walking towards his death and the end of my immediate family, which just contributed to my anxiety. Yes, it was a lot. But then when he died, I was his, you know, power of attorney. I was in charge of everything. I was with him when he took his last breath. So I was the one to call the mortuary to end his Social Security, to plan his memorial, to have his body cremated, to sell his condo, to, you know, go through his belongings. And that was. That was a lot to deal with at 25.
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Oh, Claire, my heart is heavy hearing this story. I mean, I'm sure you've thought about this a great deal, professionally and personally. But were there things that stand out as having been critically helpful to you in that time or in the aftermath that were just really part of getting your bearings back?
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You know, what's interesting is that my father was very different from my mother. She was my emotional center, and my father was so practical and logical, but it actually was the way that he handled things that helped me a lot. My mother emotionally couldn't face the end of her life. We didn't have conversations about it. My father asked me to, you know, to companion him through that endeavor. And it was hard, and I was scared, and he kind of asked me to show up in a way that ended up being really helpful. We had the conversations that we needed to have. We said goodbyes. He died in the manner in which he felt most comfortable and peaceful. Yes.
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Well, it's so interesting because I think our culture, to the extent that you can call the United States a place with a single culture, but our culture is generally not great at death and dying. We don't talk about it. I hope maybe this conversation can be part of making death and dying talk about able so that it can be such a more comfortable, dignified, humane experience.
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Oh, absolutely.
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Yeah. So I'm hoping to tell you a little bit about a guest that we had on the show a little while ago named Rosie. And Rosie is a divorced mother of one child, five year old Eleanor. And Rosie lost her own mother, who was. She was a person that was a strong personality, maybe not always the easiest, but of deep and abiding importance to Rosie. And her mother was also named Eleanor, and she named her daughter after her mother. And her daughter's five now and hears a lot about her grandmother. The figure has been animated for her by Rosie and she's starting to have a lot of questions. And Rosie came with a lot of questions herself. Feelings of fear of telling her too much, telling her not enough. Where young Eleanor's questions are like, are we all gonna die? She has five year old questions. So I'm wondering if we can start there, hearing sort of your thoughts about how parents can approach a subject either when it's on their mind or when it's clearly on their child's mind. For those littlest kids, for those preschoolers, and then maybe for a little bit older school age kids and then teenage kids, what are your thoughts about what they need to do for their kids?
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Oh, gosh, so many things, so many thoughts. You know, I think it sounds like Rosie is really carrying her mother's death into her new experience of motherhood and parenting. And I really and sympathize with it. I have three children and I've been raising them without ever having met my parents, you know, and that can be hard. And you want your own children to know about your parents. And there's a heartbreak that comes with just not having especially a mom there when you become a mom. And so I understand Rosie's desire perhaps to really talk about her mother and to bring her into her relationship with her younger Eleanor. But it's also understandable that young Eleanor is experiencing anxiety around this. You know, it's so hard for a five year old to conceptualize what death is, that, you know, a mother can die, relationships can end. It's so natural for her to have a lot of questions. But I think my advice to Rosie would be to keep them simple, to answer those questions in very simple, plain language, maybe to not overshare too many details about how her mother died physically and to understand that that Eleanor is going to continue to have many questions. I think this is the thing that a lot of adults and parents don't understand about the way kids grieve is that they continue to grieve at different developmental milestones. So as they age and as they grow, they come to new understandings about death. And each time they do. It adds a new layer to that loss. And so you watch a kid who goes through a loss at a young age, they continue to grieve over and over and over as they develop. So they'll grieve again at 9, at 12, 12, at 15, at 18, at 22, because they keep meeting that loss in a new way and understanding it and that that's okay and that's normal.
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We're going to take a break. When we come back, Claire shares what young kids truly understand about death. Why to avoid using euphemisms such as passing on and what we might say instead. You mentioned something about what a five year old can understand. Can you say a little bit more about that in your experience, the average 5 year old, what can they understand about maybe the finality of death?
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I don't think they can understand very much. You know, I think it's very abstract for them. And so to them it can become very scary. You know, will my mother die? Will my person disappear? Sometimes adults will use euphemisms like, oh, she passed away, or she went to sleep and never woke up again. And those kinds of sentences can be very scary to young minds. You know, they think, oh my gosh, if my mother goes to sleep, will she die? Will she not wake up again? And there's just a lot around attachment here for kids of, but especially that young age. They're looking for security, reassurance, you know, routine, knowing that something is secure and going to stay in its place. And so when they hear about that kind of disruption, it can cause a lot of anxiety. But they don't fully understand it all. And you won't see, I think, you know, as adults we talk a lot about grief and we talk about loss and we talk about our feelings, but kids don't have the language for it entirely. So you'll see it expressed a lot more through their behavior, which could be anger and irritability or sadness or clinginess or regression of some sorts. I think that we tend to kind of misgauge some of that as parents and as grownups.
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Yeah, I love that you point that out. And in my experience, littler kids, preschoolers, and it starts to shift around 5 or 6, depending on the child. But preschoolers are really, they still have magical thinking. So even talking about the idea that death is final, they believe you, but not for long.
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Right? It's not a permanent thing to them.
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It's not permanent. The next day they're like, so when is grandma coming? And you're like, well, we Talked about this yesterday, but every day feels like a whole new century for them. And magic is possible when they're.
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If we make her favorite cookies, maybe she'll come back. You know, they really have that kind of thinking.
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Yes. And they can be very concrete. I love that you remind parents don't use euphemisms because that may lead to misunderstandings which can create a lot more anxiety for a child. I remember a family I worked with that talked about how a grandparent was in the ground, in the ground, which they thought was a gentler way of saying they had died. And the child got very distressed and said, are they being eaten by worms? They finally felt comfortable asking that question and are they afraid? Do we have to get them out? And the loving parent, it hadn't occurred to them that they would be afraid of this. So taking care with euphemisms. And it seems to me that maybe the most important thing for a parent is, is to slow down a little and to ask questions like, well, what did you hear? What do you think happens? And to be able to offer really concrete, simple, but direct answers, but not assume that what we as adults are sad about or worried about is what your little child, your preschooler, is asking about or worried about. See if they can tell you what's got them a little worried first.
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Yeah, absolutely. And I think, you know, letting them be the guide, answering their questions, letting them come to you, letting them talk about it, but not putting too much on them, not forcing them to talk about it if they're not ready or if they want to go play and run around. I mean, kids will vacillate between grief and regular life so quickly. And so I think a lot of parents are so surprised when they don't see their child exhibiting the kind of grief that adults do. You know, like, I've heard a lot of people tell me that they told, you know, say a seven year old that a parent had died or a grandparent had died, and the child didn't have much of a response and then said, you know, does that mean I can't go to Jimmy's house this weekend? You know, or just they worry about playing or school or birthday party and parents are a little disturbed by that, but that's really normal. They can't conceptualize the totality of a loss and what it really means to their life. We look at that when we tell a seven year old or a five year old something and we think about, oh, this kid isn't gonna have their parent there at graduation or their wedding or they're gonna carry this loss their whole life. The kid isn't thinking about that. They're thinking about tomorrow and how they planned to wear their new shoes to school or whatever. And so we really have to let the child guide us and show us, what do they want to talk about? Where are they? What are they understanding? Exactly. And keep it very plain and simple and direct. But that said, I also think it's really okay for parents to exhibit their own grief. A lot of the work that I do today, I lead grief retreats and different support groups, and I work one on one with clients. And sometimes we have to kind of go back and unpack their early understandings of grief. I love to ask people to look back. Maybe they're coming to me in their 30s with a big new loss. But I like to go back and say, what did you understand about grief growing up? When was their first experience of a loss? Maybe it was a grandparent or a pet, a friend or a family friend. And I always ask, you know, how did you see the other people around you grieve? How did people talk to you about this loss? Were you allowed to talk about it? Were you allowed to cry? You know, did you see other people cry? And so how we show up and how we model grief is really important. And I really think it's okay to start. Start doing it at a young age, you know, to an extent, you know, because it really does help do some healthy role modeling for children.
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Have you found There's a lot of parents that get anxious about expressing their own. That they don't want to talk about it because they're afraid they'll cry in front of their child. And they're like, oh, they're going to be so upset or distressed if they see me, like, tearful or like blubbering and sort of like messy crying. What do you tell parents about that?
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It's one of the number one things I hear from parents. They're really afraid to grieve in front of their kids. And for me, I think that if you're going to have some really messy crying and emotional release, I think that is maybe best kept a little bit away because it can be scary. And I think having a big, messy emotional release is important in grief. Sometimes we need to be doubled over, heaving, wailing, like this is a normal thing. And I don't know if a child needs to see that because it can be scary. But I think normal crying, tearing up when you're talking about someone or just like, you know, just Kind of normal crying is absolutely okay. I think it allows children to feel safe to do that themselves when they're ready.
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Yeah. Yep, yep. It's even a chance for a parent to, you know, if their child looks upset or afraid, the parent can say it's. Is it funny to see mom crying and to be able to say, you know, this is. It makes me sad. I miss my mom, and it makes me sad, and that's okay. That means I loved her very well. It's a wonderful chance to make something physical, emotional, to bring it into the realm of words, so that it's one of those moments where kids can start to develop awareness of how strong feelings can. Can pass over you and you can bear them even when they feel big, big and hard to bear.
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Absolutely. Yeah. I think it's helpful for them to see a healthy, normal release of emotion and then the parent continue to function. That's such good role modeling.
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That's right. And in some ways, kids can teach us that as parents, when grief is in the house. One of the things that Rosie talked about was that they were watching a Disney movie. I think it was Moana. And that created a kind of opportunity to talk about Grandma Eleanor, her spirit grandmother. Are there books or movies or things that you found that come up again and again as being useful to facilitate families talking about loss?
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A
Absolutely. I mean, I think there's a lot of amazing kids books out there for grief, and you just kind of type in kids grief books and you'll see them pop up everywhere. And I think just sitting with a child and reading through one of those can be really helpful and bring up a lot of conversation and normalization of what's happening. I think kids respond really well to ritual and to finding something to kind of do with their feelings and with the connection to that person with the loss. I've always really wanted my parents to be part of my children's lives. So I always refer to them as your Grandma Sally and your Grandpa Jerry, rather than my mom and my dad. So that they have this. You know, they think about their Grandma Sally, even though they've never met her and she's not here. They don't think just, oh, my mom's mom. So I've always made a point to do that. But then I say things, too. You know, my son was drawing something the other day and talking about how much he loves art. And I'll say, you know, your Grandma Sally really loved art, and she used to draw all the time. She was an artist and just kind of trying to bring that into their life. We make cakes on my mother's birthday, when my girls were really little, I would let them make, like, the bakery biggest, craziest, messiest cake. And they would decorate it with all kinds of pink and sparkles and crazy stuff. And we would light candles and we would sing to her. And they loved that. They liked being able to do something with this information and with this, you know, with whatever grief they might be feeling or some kind of connection to her. You don't have to believe in anything specific. I think to help children feel a connection to someone who's not here.
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B
That's right. Oh, that's beautifully said. I love the cake story. That's fantastic. How to make it a sweet. A sweet remembrance. It's so incredible. We're going to take one more quick break and we'll be right back with more from Claire. Say a little bit more about older kids and teenagers and what they might need or want as they're figuring out maybe their identity or what they're good at or having to master new skills. How does it shift then for parents?
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A
Yeah, I think the ages of like, 14 to 24 are pretty tough because at those ages, kids are very, very peer focused and they're really thinking about how they fit in with their peers, how they show up, how they're relating, how they're similar and dissimilar. They really like to be similar. They like to be part of groups and, you know, feel accepted by their peers. And so when a kid in that age range is going through a loss, they often won't talk about it and don't want to address it because it's something that sets them apart from their peers. And I see a lot of people come back around in their late 20s and want to explore a loss that may have happened during that time. And they're now ready to really think about it, unpack it a little bit. And so I remind parents about that a lot, too, that it is okay and normal if they don't want to do that. It's also a great time if there's a child going through a loss in that age range. The grief camps that exist around this country are incredible. And that is a place where a kid can go and be at a camp that's like a. A normal summer camp where they do normal summer camp stuff all day. Yet every kid there has gone through a loss. And so they don't feel other. And they can. They don't even necessarily talk about it that much, but they know, like, oh, this whole group of girls has lost a parent that I'm hanging out with right now. And it can help them be in it a little bit more and identify with it a little bit more.
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B
Yeah. Yes. Do you get parents who are worried that their child is depressed or is anxious? Of course. These are common problems in adolescence. So that parents may worry, oh, they're not grieving. Right. Or they may worry, am I missing depression or are they too sad? Should I get them treated? What do you say to parents that think I can't trust my judgment anymore about whether my child is okay is normal?
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Yeah. I mean, I think one thing to note is that a lot of times the parents are going through the loss as well, so. Right, of course. And that they're grieving, you know, and they're vulnerable and they're overwhelmed with their own experience. And then they're watching their kid, and they're so scared of what their kid is feeling or not exhibiting. And so just kind of really trying to help normalize all of it. I think we do see depression in, you know, especially in teenagers and young adults. I think a lot of anxiety, I would say, is the most common feature that we see. But it makes so much sense. When we go through a big loss, the whole world changes. Our sense of safety changes, our belief system changes about what. Right. And what's wrong or how things work in the world. This all can create such a deep sense of unease and of fear. So we see a lot play out, especially with teens and adolescents around anxiety.
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What about where the loss is of a person that's more complicated? Maybe a parent, where there was a lot of conflict or where there was alienation and there hadn't been a robust connection. That must present really different challenges.
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A
It does. Complicated grief is a lot. And it's more common than people think. You know, we can't just reserve grief and loss for a healthy, loving relationship we have. We're human beings with very complicated relationships to each other. And so I see a great deal of losses that were with, you know, an overbearing person, an abusive person, an estranged person, or just times, maybe when things were difficult and maybe they'd only recently gotten better. A lot of guilt in those places. There's so much guilt to sift through. I think there's a lot of important work to do around self compassion, really helping the griever understand how to have compassion for themselves while grieving this complicated relationship, have compassion for their part of the relationship. However that played out, I think writing is an amazing tool for that really kind of writing, not just journaling, but writing letters to that person and really kind of sifting through the complicated relationship, but really giving them permission as well for it to be grief. Some people will say, well, I'm not allowed to grieve this person because they were abusive or they weren't a good person in my life. And you're still allowed to grieve them. You're allowed to grieve for the relationship you didn't get to have. You're allowed to grieve for the moments when it was good and that you yearned for. There's a lot of grief there. But what I see most of all, to kind of really answer your question, is that there's these kind of hurdles you have to get through before you can even just find any peace with it or. Or let the grief be more simple. So there's a lot of guilt, anger, disappointment, feelings of rejection, and those pieces really have to be processed.
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B
Yep. Well. And I think even by doing the work you do, where you make grief easier to discuss, easier to talk about, more of a normative experience, and being able to say, grief includes complicated relationships, you can grieve for the love that was there, even if it was couched in a lot of other more prickly emotions, even if that person had been lost to you a long time ago. Just. Just putting that out into the unit, like talking about that, making that understood by people, gives young people and adults a sort of permission structure to say, no, I'm grieving. I'm grieving the love that was there, even if it was under a few blankets of other strong and difficult feelings.
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A
So much of this grief work is really about giving people permission. I mean, people, whether it's K, kids, teens, adults, come in and they're really tangled up about their idea of what grief is supposed to be like. They have certain ideas around how long it should last. They have certain ideas around which emotions are acceptable for grief, which losses are okay to grieve. We tend to compare our losses. Oh, well, this person went through a bigger loss than I did, so I shouldn't still be sad, or it's been a year or two years or five years. I shouldn't still be feeling these things, or, you know, just, this person wasn't a good person in my life. I shouldn't be allowed to grieve that. So really kind of helping someone reset and just get to a baseline of giving themselves permission to acknowledge how big this is, how many ways it's perhaps impacted their life, all the Complicated feelings that come with it. This is a really important piece of it and helping them also. One of the things I do a lot in my work that I think is important to talk about is how many messages we get from the outside about what grief is supposed to look like. Right? Like there's the media and television and shows and stories that we see. And you'll see a lot of different depictions of grief there, where grief looks like crying and sadness and depression, and grief is reserved for healthy, loving relationships. That's what we see predominantly in the media. But then that's not exactly what's happening in the real world. And then you've got people on the outside, you know, saying, oh, are you feeling better yet? It's been, you know, it's been a month back on your feet, you know, and a month is nothing. A month is just shock and numbness and denial, and then you. It's barely starting to penetrate. And. And so I like to help people kind of break down. What messages have they internalized from the outside? And are those useful? Are they harming them in some ways? And kind of help them start fresh with acknowledging where they are, not where everybody thinks they should be.
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B
Oh, I love that. Sometimes loss, and some of our losses can feel especially distressing to others, whether it's death of a child or death by suicide or some kind of a sudden or unexpected or violent death. That not turning away from someone who's gone through the death, but just keeping them company without your own expectations. Take care of yourself, of course, but staying with them.
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A
It's one of the hardest things for people to do, is they get so worried about what to say or what to do. And they also really want to kind of fix someone's grief. They want to fix a child's grief. We cannot fix grief. We accompan any grief. You know, we have to just be in it with them and just be there with them. We cannot fix it. And when we try to fix it, it really invalidates what they're. What they're feeling. When we try to tidy it up, when we try to offer solutions, when we say things like, at least. Or, you know, it could have been worse, or it could have been this, or at least you still have this. That immediately invalidates what they're going through. And that's right. So we say these things that I think can just be so invalidating. So just all you have to do is show up and say, I'm here. I love you. I don't know what to do or say, but I'm here, and I'm gonna sit in it with you.
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B
Yes. That kind of kinship, like a living connection, it feels unbearable. But they have no choice, and you're there with them.
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A
I witness your grief. I witness your pain. And I will just sit here and hold your hand.
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B
Yes, that's really helpful. One thing that I heard from families that I work, worked with who had lost a parent or lost a child was also how important it was that there were people you could talk about what was wonderful or very funny or like to animate, to conjure the lost person or the lost pet in a way that was delightful. And that grief isn't just about tears and prayers and ache and missing them, that it becomes anxious. Increasingly important to have people with whom you can, in a lively and happy way. Like tell stories with loved ones.
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Absolutely. You know, a pet loss is a great example of how to do that. You know, you could have a dinner one night and have everybody share a story about the pet, the funniest story about that pet, or the weirdest thing that pet ever ate or did, you know, and you can all sit around and really just like, there's so many fun things you can talk about and just kind of revel in the relationship that you. You had and the existence of that sweet creature in your family or that problematic, crazy creature, you know, whatever it is. And I think that those are really lovely opportunities.
- [36:13]
B
Well, and it seems that with children who lose someone important, it's extra important to create those kinds of rituals because it's an opportunity for them to think about, to hear from other caring adults in their orbit about what that important person would have loved about them, would have thought about them, would have said about this, that, or the other. So I love rituals that create loving space to do that, where people don't feel like, oh, we're not allowed to talk about that person because it's too painful. It's so important that they can be laughed about and talked about and learned about.
- [36:52]
A
And rituals don't have to be religious. They don't have to be formal. You can get really creative and informal with things, and you can just make stuff up. You can Google ideas about rituals. If you're really, like, not coming up with anything, you know, you can really get creative, ask the kids, what would be a good ritual? What's something that we could do, you know, once a year to honor grandma or whatever it is, what was her favorite meal? Let's cook it and let's talk about her. Let's go for a walk. Let's light a candle. Let's watch her favorite movie. There's so many things that you can turn into a ritual.
- [37:28]
B
Oh, I love that. That is so great. I love that you do great birthday celebrations of important people. It's such a love to conjure them, to learn about them, to be in their company, even if they can't physically be there. It's just wonderful. Have you spoken with your own kids or if they've had questions for you about what it was like for you to lose your parents? Now that your kids are approaching you have a 17 year old, is that something that you planned or thought about? Or have they surprised you by kind of jumping you with a question like that? Has that been part of the experience?
- [38:09]
A
They do. They're talking about it more and more. My daughters are about to be 14 and 17 and they're definitely coming into much more of an awareness that, wow, this is something mom went through, you know, for a long time when they were little. It was just the grandma Sally's not here and mom doesn't have a mom. And now they're thinking much more about it. They're like, wow, mom was close to this age when her mom died. And they have a lot more questions and I'm pretty honest with them. I've been surprised that it's brought up a lot of emotion for me. My daughter was really, one of my daughters was asking me about the pets and my dogs the other night and then, you know, we had a pretty good conversation and she was just like, wow, mom, you went through some really hard stuff. And then I went to bed and I laid there all night just thinking about all these hard things because it was so interesting to see it through her eyes and to reflect back on being so young.
- [39:04]
B
But that's compassion for yourself. It's grief too, that your younger self had to survive first. And there's enough grounding now to think about how young you were, what you wish you had, what you are doing for your own kids.
- [39:23]
A
I've tried to be really careful to not put too much of it on them and I never want to make ask them to feel sad about it. You know, sometimes they do. They do feel sad that they don't have grandparents and they do feel sad that I went through what I went through, but I don't expect that of them. I know well enough that, you know, what age they're in right now is very self focused and it's okay for me when they're not, you know, preoccupied or sad about it. I Don't want them to have to feel that.
- [39:53]
B
Yeah. So what do you say to a parent that is going through something parallel? Do you have a few simple guideposts for them? Or you're like, well, just keep showing up and, you know, it's okay to feel tearful. If you have the howling cries, you may need to retreat and take good care of yourself first. What are the guideposts that you start with with parents?
- [40:20]
A
I think parents definitely need to be finding their own support. You know, really having a therapist or support group or someone that they are talking to if, you know, often the whole family's going through some kind of loss. And so I really think it's important for the parent to be getting their own support so that they have an outlet so that they can also show up and meet their kid where their kid is and what the kid needs. I think having patience with their child, remembering that they can't fix their child's grief. And I think that that can be really scary. As parents, we are fixers. What's the solution? Let me get my kid through this thing. Let me get my kid onto that soccer team or help them get a better grade in algebra or whatever it is. We really try to fix a. And do a lot for our kids, and grief just isn't something we can do that with. So really reminding ourselves to slow down, take a breath, and just be in it with our child when it shows up for them. So when our kid is feeling the grief or talking about it, it can feel scary. And just remind parents to, like, take a breath and just be there with them. And that is one of the most helpful things you can do, is don't be scared of it. Don't try to fix it. Just listen. Let them talk about it. Let them cry. You hold steady. And I think that that's a really important thing. And then also not to be disturbed when they don't see their kid grieving. So, you know, it could be the day after a funeral, and the kid's like, I'm gonna go out with Stacy, or whatever. And you're just like, what? Like, really? And that that's normal and that's okay, and their grief is there, and it will show up in different ways. They have to just kind of stay calm and be patient.
- [42:00]
B
That reminder that there's no right way to grieve. They have the rest of their lives to adjust to a world without an important person in it, and they're still 5 or 15 or 25, and they have a lot of things on their plate. They're figuring out math, or they're figuring out their romantic relationship, or they're figuring out how to master the rules of soccer. And giving them the space to go at their own pace is such a good reminder. And don't fix it. And rituals, I love rituals that create.
- [42:39]
A
No euphemisms.
- [42:41]
B
No euphemisms. We have a longer list. These are a lot of guideposts. Yes, yes, yes. And I love that the rituals that you describe create some room to feel all kinds of things, but it includes that grief doesn't have to just be morose and ponderous and serious, that there's also there's ache, but there's joy and delight. There's the exquisite appreciation of what that dog or what that person brought into our family or into our lives and that we can connect it to them by connecting with each other about that.
- [43:19]
A
Grief is not a bad thing. You know, it's deeply painful and it can be overwhelming, but it's also an opportunity to reflect on what matters to us. Who we are, what our relationships are like, what we want to do with our time. So you see a lot of kids go through a loss, and it enables them to become a more, you know, reflective person, have a deeper relationship with themselves and the world around them. And that's not a bad thing.
- [43:47]
B
Oh, I love that. That's lovely. Well, Claire, I thank you so much for taking time to share your wisdom and experience with us so generously with clients, but now, and now with a community of listeners.
- [44:02]
A
Thank you. Same. Susan, thank you so much for opening up this whole conversation for people.
- [44:10]
B
If you haven't subscribed to Lemonada Premium yet, now is the perfect time. You can listen to Talk about Able completely ad free, plus you'll unlock exclusive content, like even more helpful advice and tips on the challenges parents are facing. Just tap that subscribe button on Apple Apple Podcasts or go to lemonadapremium.com to subscribe on any other app. You can also listen ad free on Amazon Music with your prime membership. Talk about Able is produced by Lemonada Media in partnership with Montage Health and their Ohana center for Child and Family Mental Health, and it's made possible through funding from the Montage Health Foundation. Together, we're committed to helping families talk about the issues that children, teens and young adults are facing today. We believe that when these conversations happen at home, even about the most challenging subjects, children build the skills they need to flourish. Because when families are connected, the hard moments become more bearable, the good moments become even better and it all becomes talk about able. The show is produced by Hannah Boomershein and James Barber. Our senior producer is Muna Danish mixing and sound design by James Barber. Kristin Lepore is our VP of Content Development and Jackie Danziger is Head of Content. Maggie Crasher is our senior Director of Partnerships. Executive producers include myself, Stephanie Whittles Wax and Jessica Cordova Kramer. Special thanks to Kelsey Talley and Maya Smith. You can help others find our show by leaving us a rating and writing a review. You thanks so much for listening and we'll see you next week.