[00:00:13.080] – Speaker 1
Well, hi, I’m Chris Tompkins, and welcome to the Shaping Our World Podcast. My goal is to invite you into a conversation that will leave you more confident in understanding and inspiring the young people in your life. Each episode, we talk with leading thinkers and practitioners and offer some resources to help you dive deeper into the world of our youth today. Today we are joined by Andrea Warnick. Andrea is a registered psychotherapist, registered nurse, educator, and internationally recognized expert in children’s grief and bereavement. She has a master’s degree in thanatology, the study of death, dying, and bereavement, bringing both medical and psychosocial expertise to supporting children youth, and their families as they navigate serious illness, death, and grief. Andrea began her career as an oncology nurse and has spent decades helping families have honest, compassionate, and developmentally appropriate conversations around illness, death, and loss. She’s the founder and co-owner of AWC Grief Support, a group practice dedicated to supporting people across the lifespan through serious illness, end of life, and grief. She also developed and co-teaches the five-day certificate programme in children’s grief and bereavement through SickKids Centre for Community Mental Health. Andrea served as lead content developer for Canadian Virtual Hospices’ kidgrief.ca and Kids Grief for Educators and co-founded the Kids Grief Q&A webinar series.
[00:01:53.180] – Speaker 1
Central to Andrea’s work is the belief that children are best protected not through silence and exclusion, but through preparation, honesty, inclusion, and compassionate connection. I think you’re going to find this topic really interesting. There are so many great takeaways and insightful thoughts about how to approach a difficult topic for kids and even the adults that care for them. So let’s dive into our conversation with Andrea Warnick. Andrea, it’s great to have you with us.
[00:02:31.220] – Speaker 2
Thanks so much, Chris. It’s great to be here.
[00:02:33.480] – Speaker 1
This is a topic that’s, uh, I think really important for us to engage in, one that often doesn’t kind of enter into our regular everyday conversations, but something that I think is really important for parents and adults who journey with kids in their lives to kind of be more familiar with, and can’t wait to dive into this. But before we talk more about this and get to know you, let’s find out what were the big influences in your life growing up? What shaped your world when you were a child or a teenager?
[00:03:03.110] – Speaker 2
To be honest, a huge piece for me was camp. I went to summer camp from the time I was 7 right through to university. You know, it was such a safe place for me every year. Like, I lived— I was one of those kids, I lived for going to camp every summer. And even as a 7-year-old, I came home and I would cry for like nights and nights. And my mom said years later, she was like, I was like, I thought I had a 7-year-old who hated her home life. I was like, no, I just love camp that much. So, you know, that was a big piece for me. And then whenever I could, even during the year, I would sort of be a camp counsellor when I was older, like at those week-long camps for kids when schools go and things like that. That’s
[00:03:45.670] – Speaker 1
awesome. And you sound like you could be like a lot of the parents that leave our camp asking when we’re offering all this stuff for adults. So, yeah, I don’t presume you go to summer camp anymore, but what shapes your world today? Tell us a little bit about Andrea.
[00:03:59.640] – Speaker 2
I mean, a huge piece for me today is like so much of my work is about grief and we actually do create camps and retreats. Um, but I also, you know, musical theatre is one of my favourite things to do. favourite things. I have, you know, I have a family with a partner and 2 kids, and the one uniting factor amongst all of us, we love musical theatre.
[00:04:18.570] – Speaker 1
That’s awesome. And maybe tell us about how are you shaping the world of kids and families today through the work that you do?
[00:04:28.030] – Speaker 2
Yeah, to be honest, like, it goes back a bit to like my camp experience as a kid. I remember how connected I was with my camp counsellors and, you know, how much I would sort of do vulnerability at camp and like really open up. And I, as I became older, I was like, I became an oncology nurse, mostly paediatric oncology. And I realised that the piece I was passionate about was like not the medical piece, but actually like having really hard conversations. Often it would happen like at 2 AM when parents would ask like their biggest fears and worries about whether their kid was gonna die or, you know, prognosis. I’d have kids ask really hard questions, which ultimately led me down the track of becoming a therapist. But one of the that was sort of always on my radar is I was like, if I could sort of take that camp sort of approach of building community and connection and actually transform that into like a therapy practice, how amazing would that be to be able to have kids who are grieving have access to that? And that’s actually partially what I’ve done. We’ve got a team of 30 therapists across Ontario who all focus on grief and bereavement.
[00:05:43.690] – Speaker 2
Grief-specific, grief is not just death, grief is any loss, but we really specialise in grief related to a serious illness or death. And we work with, you know, like from 3-year-olds basically to 93-year-olds.
[00:05:57.720] – Speaker 1
Yeah, and I’m really looking forward to the conversation because it’s a difficult topic and one that I think many of us have avoided when it comes up. We don’t know how to have it. And I can even think of like many people I know that when they think about like getting into the helping professions, like a doctor or a nurse, there are some people that are just kind of wired for those difficult things and other people that think, oh man, that would be the worst part. Like having to talk to people about death and navigate that every day is overwhelming. What do you think it was that really kind of gravitated you towards this topic? Like why? spend your life helping others navigate grief and bereavement, particularly kids?
[00:06:44.730] – Speaker 2
Yeah, it’s a great question. You know, I think a big part of it for me was actually that as a nurse, I realised that I had training in the medical pieces, but I didn’t have training in having the hard conversations. And I realised it was a real gap that when it came to having really tough conversations, most of the people I was working with didn’t have training in doing it. And so, you know, I actually remember I remember there was one situation where a family came in and it was like a young mom who was dying. And, you know, she had a couple of young kids and I was at Princess Margaret Hospital and no one knew how to talk to the kids. And it was actually like, that’s when I Googled Masters of Death one day, because I was like, this is a world-renowned cancer centre. And none of us, whether you’re a social worker or a chaplain, a physician, a nurse, none of us felt equipped to talk to their kids. And that’s where I just felt like this is a huge gap. Like, this is not okay. Because I very much had a sense of, you know, there’s— when you’re working with kids who are grieving, often you can’t stop that loss from happening, but you can shape the story around it.
[00:07:56.060] – Speaker 2
And that piece felt really important to me. And that’s why I started specialising in being a therapist and having the conversations.
[00:08:04.010] – Speaker 1
And I think it’s true for a lot of the difficult conversations that come up in life. Like, we find it hard to talk to kids. We, we kind of want to shield them and protect them, and we don’t sometimes— don’t even know what to say, and the topics are difficult for ourselves. But I, I wonder, and we’re going to get into a lot of the specifics of this, but I wonder, kind of zooming out, like, you’ve spent so much time in this field working with families and kids. Broadly speaking, what is it that kids need the most from the adults in their lives when someone around them that they love is dying or really sick or has passed away suddenly, what is it that generally kids need from the adults in their lives?
[00:08:47.540] – Speaker 2
Kids need inclusion. They need honesty. You know, a huge piece of what I find happens sometimes is that in an effort to protect kids, people withhold information thinking that’s protecting them. And in fact, I spend a lot of my time, Chris, like really encouraging families if there’s a serious illness serious illness or a death of any kind in a child’s life, it’s important to be honest with them about it. And even some of the bereavement programmes we run, like Camp Erin’s a camp for like 110 kids come once a year. The rule at Camp Erin is actually that kids can only come, they have to know how their person died. And that again is just really recognising that, A, the rights of a child to know when serious things have happened. But also there’s a big body of literature behind this that really show that like kids benefit from honest information. If we don’t give them information, we leave it up to their imaginations. I could honestly write a book one day of all the things kids have told me about how they’re convinced they caused the illness or the death in their life. Right, so we want to include them, and this is including like if somebody’s dying, I remember back to my Princess Margaret days, people would often be like, don’t bring the kids to see grandma dying.
[00:10:09.800] – Speaker 2
Like, it’s going to be traumatic. Like, there is no research that supports that. And so, we never want to force kids, but we certainly want to invite them. Like, prepare them for what it’s going to look like. You know, what they can do when they’re in the room and everything. But absolutely invite them. And kids benefit from inclusion at the bedside when someone’s dying. But also our rituals. Yeah,
[00:10:34.620] – Speaker 1
you used some pretty poignant words, you know, invitation, inclusion, and you also talked about like protecting. And I think that’s something that comes up a lot as adults. Like we wanna protect our kids from the difficult things, but you kind of even moved the conversation towards actually protecting them is preparing them and having honest dialogue and creating a compassionate connection. And you, you mentioned it a little bit, like, I wonder if you can, uh, help us with some of the potential, uh, detrimental impacts on kids by not including them in the process. You mentioned like they can fill in the gap with a narrative. Um, you said there’s no research on how protecting them is helpful. Is there any research or any other information that can actually show the contrary, that like it’s not helpful for us to keep them out of this journey? How can it be harmful for kids if we’re not engaging them in the process?
[00:11:34.030] – Speaker 2
Yeah, it’s a great question. And the thing is, so just to clarify, the research is actually quite strong about, unlike 20 years ago where we didn’t have research, now we do, actually showing that kids benefit from inclusion. They benefit from honest information. There’s these things called the C’s where we talk about the 6 C’s, common concerns kids have when when somebody’s ill or dying in their life. And a couple of those are, did I cause it? Can I cure it? Will I catch it? And those are some of the pieces that if we’re not having the conversations with kids and letting them know that, you know, maybe the situation is mom’s not able to bring them to school anymore because she has cancer and it’s the cancer that’s making it so she can’t take them. Without that information, kids can very easily default to thinking, like, oh, she doesn’t want to take me to school anymore, right? And that’s where we want to help them understand. And really one of the best things we can do is create an environment where kids know that they can ask any of the questions that they have. Like there are no bad questions.
[00:12:49.230] – Speaker 2
And again, we actually have a large body of research really supporting the fact that kids benefit from honesty and inclusion. You know, my dad was dying when my youngest or my oldest was 3 and he was dying of a rare illness called PSP. We barely knew what it was, a Parkinsonian illness. But what we did was we said to her, it was like, you know, Papa has PSP. That’s why his body doesn’t work properly anymore. That’s why he can’t pick you up. He wants to pick you up. He wants to hug you, but the PSP is making it so his body can’t do those things anymore. Right, so you’re helping them understand and not leaving it up to their imaginations.
[00:13:32.810] – Speaker 1
And I would imagine, and I don’t know if you have off the top of your head any research around this, but I would imagine that yes, it’s good for them now, but it also prepares them for navigating this through adulthood as well. Like, is there anything connected to like kids that aren’t included and invited into the process when someone they love dies at a young age, does that impact them and how they process things later on in life? Like, is there a connection there as well? ‘Cause I would assume there would be, right?
[00:14:03.010] – Speaker 2
Absolutely, and that’s where I often will say that to parents. I’ll talk about, you know, this is a really hard situation that we’re in right now, and I want you to know that how you navigate it with your kids, the tools that you give them, these are gonna be tools that they’re gonna lean back into throughout their lives. You know, and it’s hard to imagine, But at some point, they’re going to be navigating things where, you know, if they’re even in a 2-parent family, that neither parent is there to help them navigate. And so that’s where we really want to give them the tools. And I think when it comes to grief, it’s such a hard thing to do. Like often, whether you’re a kid or an adult, it can feel like one of the most emotionally intense and overwhelming experiences. And that’s where I really maintain that our job as adults is to actually build up kids’ confidence that you can experience human suffering and you can survive it. And that’s something that really carries kids far beyond this situation. But in terms of how do they do, I often reference the windstorms of life, right?
[00:15:14.350] – Speaker 2
Like how they navigate other windstorms down the road as well is very much going to be influenced by what we do and how we support them in this situation.
[00:15:24.380] – Speaker 1
You said something before when you were talking about this that just kind of popped into my mind. And this is something I’ve experienced in working with young people and kids my whole life, is that kids generally know something’s not going okay. Like, they know something’s happening, even if we’re trying to protect them from it. So at the early stages of an illness, I feel like we think we’re, you know, not including kids, but they know, don’t they, right? Absolutely. They don’t know exactly what it is, but they know something is— my daughter can sense that to me. She says to my wife all the time, she’s like, is Dad okay? Like, something’s, something’s off with him, you know? And I, I’m thinking, oh, I’m doing a good job managing my own stress in that situation. And, you know, you know, I’m showing up with a smile, but she can figure it out. Is that true from your experience with kids and bereavement and grief?
[00:16:17.990] – Speaker 2
Absolutely. I mean, there’s a wide range. Some kids are much more able to pick up on the nuances than other kids. But I would say overall, most children I work with know way more than their parents think they know. And when I say parents, I’m really speaking to anybody raising a child, foster mom, grandpa, whoever it is. But often the place I’ll start with young people, if I’m working with them, is I’ll just start by like, I’m wondering what your understanding is of what’s happening in your family right now. And often what happens is they know way more than the adults in their life think that they do. And I actually, that’s what I encourage even parents to start with, with their kids when they’re opening up conversations, whether it’s about a separation, a divorce, an illness, a death, what’s your understanding about what’s happening? And that’s where we can really figure out if there’s any misconceptions and things there. But it’s exactly what you said. Typically kids know, like they can be, some of them are like little detectives, right? Like they’re getting into your phone, they’re looking on your your computer for some of the conversations and things like that.
[00:17:25.040] – Speaker 2
They’re overhearing the conversation with the neighbour. They’re really trying to figure out what the information is if we’re not providing it to them.
[00:17:34.020] – Speaker 1
Yeah. And like you said, they may be filling in other narratives to the situation. They know something’s not right and it’s off. And they might just be assuming mom and dad are getting a divorce or like they could be inserting a whole bunch of other things into that situation. Yeah. One of the things as we’re talking, I’m thinking about too, You know, in a lot of the speaking and work that I’ve done, I spent a lot of time on community and how relationships are really important. And one of the data points that I always come back to is like research will show us that even hospital recoveries are way faster when like people are there supporting them and there’s a community around people. So even our bodies respond to relationships. And I was just thinking, How great is it also for us, or as an adult, or someone who’s going through that, to even have the grandkids at an appropriate level part of that journey? I’m sure that only bolsters healing and recovery and health, and not even just physical health, but mental health as we navigate things. So—
[00:18:39.850] – Speaker 2
Yeah.
[00:18:40.330] – Speaker 1
You know, having grandkids show up at a hospital appropriately can also help the patient too, right?
[00:18:46.020] – Speaker 2
Absolutely. I mean, I often say to people that, like, as humans, we’re not designed to do the hardest things on our own. Right? And I would say grief is one of the hardest things. How do we navigate human suffering? And that’s where it’s a tough time in history to be grieving because we’re in smaller families, in bigger homes, at least where we live, you know, in Canada and places like that. And that’s where I find that it’s, you know, grief in itself can be isolating. But there’s reasons it’s extra isolating right now in this time of history. And I think even, you know, if you think back 100 years ago, most people experienced the death of a child or a partner relatively young and things like that. And so more of the grief was done in community, whereas now most of the young people I work with, if they have a sibling or parent die, often they’re the only one in their friend group. So it really increases the isolation. I’d say that’s the same for— I work with a lot of parents who’ve had a child die. Most of their friends haven’t experienced the death of a child.
[00:19:54.850] – Speaker 2
And so there’s a loneliness in that, but then we have this other layer of people often not knowing what to say. And so sometimes not saying anything at all, and it can actually increase that alienation.
[00:20:09.070] – Speaker 1
I know we can’t go into like technically every situation, but I want to kind of go off of that, like we don’t know what to say. So let’s say a parent is listening to this or an adult and they’re like, okay, like I get it, I can include them. But how much is too much information? Like what are some general principles that you feel would be good to share when it comes to this topic?
[00:20:33.100] – Speaker 2
Yeah, absolutely. I find one of the things that I’m always trying to do is like meet the child’s informational needs. Exactly what you said. I don’t want to give them more information than they want, but I want to give them as much information as they need. And in one family, Chris, you can have one kid who needs all kinds of information, other kids who are like, just tell me what affects me right now. But if it’s something like someone’s been diagnosed with cancer, like I’d want to say to them, you know, in our family, when hard stuff happens, we talk about it. Right. And so I want you to know You know, this person, whoever it is, or maybe it’s the parent telling themselves, I’ve been diagnosed with an illness called cancer. You know, I’m wondering what you know about it, what you understand. I find in Canada, because, you know, Terry Fox is such a cultural icon, most kids, even at young ages, will know about cancer, but they also associate it with death pretty quickly. And so I really encourage families to, like, open up the conversation and let them know, you know, like, Is it a situation where the medical team thinks that they’re likely to die from it?
[00:21:41.050] – Speaker 2
Or is it that actually there’s a lot of treatments and right now we’re hoping that the cancer will be totally cured, but I want you to know if that changes, we’re going to come back and let you know, right? And that will bring kids’ anxiety down. Like, there’s actually a strong body of research indicating the more open our communication is, the lower of level of anxiety. For kids when there’s a serious illness in the family. And that’s where I find, you know, really being sort of led as well by the child’s questions, like inviting the questions, that can also give us, you know, some keys to their informational needs.
[00:22:18.280] – Speaker 1
On that note, when we open up for questions, what are some of the typical questions kids do ask when this information’s coming to them?
[00:22:28.790] – Speaker 2
Yeah, I mean, it comes back often to those like 6 C’s. And I won’t say that they always ask them, but they’re often wondering about these things. And so that piece about like, am I responsible in some way? Did I cause it? Can I catch it? So if I kept— if I hug my dad with cancer, am I going to get cancer? So we want to be really clear that you’re not going to get cancer from your dad. You can hug him, you can share food. That’s not how cancer spreads. You know, can I cure it? Is there anything I can do in my power? I’ve had kids make private pacts with gods that families didn’t even know that their child believed in being like, you know, if you keep my brother alive, I’ll never fight with him again. And then invariably for most kids, they’re going to fight. Right. And that’s why I always want to figure out like what the narrative is, what the child’s story is. A huge one, if it’s a parent who has a serious illness, is who is going to take care of me? Right? Like if my parent dies, and even if I’m in a 2-parent family, like what happens if something happens to the other parent?
[00:23:36.000] – Speaker 2
And that is, I would say, to be honest, one of the biggest fears when it’s a parent who has a serious illness is, am I going to be abandoned? Who is going to take care of me? So I’m always encouraging parents, even if you have 2 healthy parents, talk to your kids about who their guardians are and letting them know, we’ll probably never need this plan. But I want you to know there is a plan and you’ll never be left to fend for yourself. Somebody will be here to take care of you.
[00:24:02.270] – Speaker 1
In those conversations and the interactions, are there things that as parents or adults, as we’re having them, we could be looking for that are maybe beyond? Because sometimes you’ll say, do you have any questions? And at the time it’ll be like, no, I don’t. Is there any other tips or tools you can give us in that conversation? that I think would be helpful for parents to go like, you know, behind the question or behind the interaction? Are there things we should be looking for or watching, you know, as that conversation transpires?
[00:24:33.440] – Speaker 2
Absolutely. I mean, one piece we want to watch for too is even what happens outside of the conversation. Like, are we seeing changes in our child’s behaviour and their sleeping patterns and things like that? Are they more clingy than usual? But within the actual conversation, I don’t wait for kids to actually ask those questions because just like you said, Some won’t, but they’ll be wondering them. So I encourage parents to just like— that wondering word is a really gentle way to explore. I’m wondering if you ever thought that you were responsible for my ALS or for grandpa’s death. You know, I’m just wondering. I know other kids have sometimes had these thoughts. And so it’s very easy for kids to say no or actually share that they have. I’m wondering if you’ve ever worried about what would happen if I die and who would take care of you. Right? So I encourage parents not to wait for their children to take the lead in those types of questions. It’s actually an adult responsibility to open up those conversations. So
[00:25:35.390] – Speaker 1
you have this one conversation and then the journey goes on sometimes for a long period of time. What’s the, you know, we said like, what’s too much information? What’s not enough? What’s kind of the tension beyond like, then talking about it all the time versus having one conversation and ignoring it. Are there kind of other things for us to think through about navigating that conversation beyond that one time?
[00:26:02.900] – Speaker 2
Yeah, I find often parents come to me, they’re like, how do I have the conversation? They’re so focused on the conversation. Yeah, and I’m just like, just to be clear, this is not a one-off conversation. This is opening a dialogue. So you might have an initial conversation that lasts for like 3 minutes and the kids are like, done and just ready to go play or whatever else. And that’s okay. But you do want to revisit it. You don’t need to talk about it all the time. I mean, kids do a phenomenal job of balancing, or I shouldn’t say balancing, but like juggling deep joy and deep sorrow in a way that’s elusive to most adults. So they can have a really hard conversation about mom’s diagnosis of breast cancer. And then 5 minutes later be like, can I go play hockey? And just like Right. And they were crying 5 minutes earlier. And that’s beautiful. That’s how they do it. We see that all the time in our bereavement programming at camps and things like that too. But I do want families to know that this is an ongoing dialogue. And so if your child’s not bringing it up at all, you might just want to check in every now and then.
[00:27:08.420] – Speaker 2
I find sometimes— now my kids are a bit older now, 10 and 15, but being in the car where we’re looking straight ahead and not having, particularly with teenagers, but that could be walking. Going on a hike together can be a safer space sometimes. But really, like sometimes we don’t know, it’s not going to be on the parent’s timeline. We never know when that little window is and all of a sudden the kid is going to share their biggest, hardest fear or worry. Sometimes it’s when we’re tucking them into bed, dropping them off at school. And that’s where we just want to say when that happens, like, so glad you asked me that. It might be a situation where we can’t actually have a big conversation right now, but we’re going to come back to that this weekend, I promise you. And I think an important thing for all adults to know is that it’s okay not to know the answer too. I feel like sometimes we feel like we’re failing kids not to know the answer to their questions. I always thank kids for asking the big questions. And I’m really clear, sometimes I don’t know, but maybe the oncologist does.
[00:28:15.000] – Speaker 2
Yeah. But sometimes, like, I think of the 9-year-old Chris, she was 9 and mom had died. She says to me, you know, the only thing my dad can’t answer is, does everything happen for a reason or are some things really random? And I was like, whoa, like, that’s a great question. And I’m going to be honest, I wonder about that all the time too. And my guess is dad’s not holding out on you. He’s wondering about it. And I think it’s A really important thing to do in this day of being able to Google or ChatGPT our way out of anything is actually like, how do we live the questions with our kids? And when there isn’t an answer, just wonder with them. I’d always rather that they’re wondering with us than just on their own.
[00:29:04.260] – Speaker 1
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[00:30:48.790] – Speaker 2
Absolutely. I mean, grief can affect us in so many different ways. And I’m conscious too, for some people, it’s more of a thinking process. than a feeling. So I always say like it’s the thoughts and feelings when we have a big loss. And that’s where we wanna look for those changes in behaviour, right? Is the young person becoming sort of more withdrawn? Are they more anxious? Are they having panic attacks? Of course, watching for like any self-harm, talk about suicide, anything like that, we take very seriously. We wanna get additional help right away. But I’m also watching, you know, if it’s a young person who used to love playing softball and a big loss has happened and they’re not going back to things that they’ve loved. I really want to watch for that. So those are some of the things that we’re looking for. But the other piece is like sometimes we’re not seeing anything and they’re really masking and they’re still going a lot internally. So we don’t want to make assumptions. I think anytime I get into a classroom in front of a group of kids, I’ll teach them about the fact that like you can look like you’re totally fine, but somebody can still be really struggling On the inside.
[00:32:01.060] – Speaker 2
And that’s where we want to check in with kids. We want to ask how they’re doing with things. Sometimes, you know, they’re going to be angry. For a lot of people, they’re wired to do mad before sad. And so, you know, there might be lashing out and things like that, which as a parent can be hard to realise, like, actually there’s grief under there.
[00:32:20.620] – Speaker 1
You mentioned earlier about children’s rights, and I want to kind of ask a 2-part question maybe. a specific example to get at that. When you talk about grief through the lens of a child’s rights, what do you think, what does that mean in practice? And then maybe to use a specific situation, like something that we would think is really difficult, you know, going to see someone really sick in hospital, attending a funeral, like that time where we’re actually saying goodbye, how do we balance a kid’s right to be included with also like preparing them for what they’re gonna experience. How do those things connect? And what’s a good way for us to enter into a really tough situation if we say, yeah, that is their right? ‘Cause I know, I’m just saying, like, I know even in my own family, people who were not allowed to go to a funeral because it was gonna be too sad. Right. And so where does child’s rights come in for that? And then how do we, if we say yes, how do we prepare them for those really tough moments that are scary. I don’t even like going into a hospital and a visitation, let alone if you’re a young child.
[00:33:33.240] – Speaker 2
I mean, on one hand, I really believe in the rights of the child to have the ability to say whether they want to visit somebody in the hospital, attend the funeral, know their diagnosis or prognosis, know that it was a suicide death and not a heart attack, all of those things. On the other hand, though, what I find the most useful when navigating this with families is that for so many families, like when they’re not giving the information, it’s coming from a good place. They’re trying to protect their child. And that’s where I find, you know, for a lot of what happens in grief with kids, it’s well-intended but misguided. And so really working with them about this piece that they’re trying to protect their child actually can be detrimental. And the best protection is to prepare their child. And so, you know, what I would do with a family who’s maybe really concerned about bringing a child to the funeral, I would wonder with them, I’m wondering, what is your worry if your 4-year-old were to come to their grandparents’ funeral? Like, what is your fear in that? Well, sometimes it’s like the child’s going to be dysregulated, I’m going to have to leave my parents’ funeral.
[00:34:43.210] – Speaker 2
Okay. Every— whenever I’m sending families to funerals, I’m like, buddy up your kids so you don’t have to leave your own parents’ funeral or whatever. You know, have a babysitter, have someone they feel safe who can take them into the next room if they need to. But a lot of times people are worried that it’s going to be traumatic for children. It’s going to be too hard. A lot of times people are like, well, I don’t want them to see grandma as she’s dying because I think that’s going to be the last memory they ever have. I want them to remember her when she was well. And that’s where I just do some psychoeducation about the fact, actually, when— if a child wants to come, we then it’s worse not to bring them. They will imagine grandma’s death to be worse than what it actually is. And in fact, far more useful is to invite them but not force them. Let them know, you know what, grandma’s not waking up anymore, her breathing is changing. It might be actually that it’s loud, it kind of sounds like snoring. I’m always trying to prepare kids, whether they’re going into an ICU, whether grandma’s dying at home, but for what they’re going to see, hear, smell, including including the human emotions around them.
[00:35:51.980] – Speaker 2
Dad might be crying as we’re there, and that’s okay. And one of the things we want to tell them is that they don’t need to fix our feelings. They don’t need to fix our grief. It’s one of the central things that I’m teaching both kids and adults, that grief isn’t something to be fixed. And one of the things I’ve really learned in this work is just as much as adults are trying to protect their kids, kids are often trying to protect Well, I
[00:36:20.900] – Speaker 1
was actually just about to ask that because I think that’s something, as a parent myself, I know I experience and feel. I’ve seen my daughter become upset that I’m upset as well. And so I think a lot of that is, you know, stay strong for our kids. But through this great— if the process that we’re talking about, like if we’re losing grandma or grandpa, it’s also my parent or my in-law as well. And I’m gonna have my own grief to navigate. Can you talk to me about even letting kids into our own grief, what that looks like? How do we do that appropriately?
[00:36:58.770] – Speaker 2
Partly you wanna teach them about grief, right? It’s all the thoughts and feelings when there’s a big loss. You might see people really sad. You might see me crying. Maybe I’m gonna be more tired, more frustrated than usual, lose my patience a bit more, right? So we want them to understand This is not your fault. Especially if we have a situation where we kind of, to use Daniel Siegel’s words, flip our lids or we get really frustrated with the kids and stuff like that. We want to do education with them, reinforce that it’s not their fault, but also let them know it’s okay that I’m having a hard time right now. This is not a weakness. And that’s where I actually do a whole reframe on that piece around strength. Whether I’m working with 4-year-olds or again adults, I’m often talking about one of the strongest, bravest things we can do as humans is allow ourselves to feel our biggest, hardest feelings or our scariest thoughts, right? Tell people when we’re having a hard time. We want to teach them that vulnerability isn’t a weakness. And I really want to reinforce, and I find this particularly after someone’s died in a family, Sometimes kids don’t want to bring up the person who died or talk about it, not because they don’t want to, but because they’re worried they’re going to make the adults sad.
[00:38:18.770] – Speaker 2
And that’s where we want to teach them. So I’ll say to my kids, if you start talking about my dad, sure, I might tear up sometime, but I want you to know you’re not making me sad. I’m sad because he died. And I’m always very clear to use the D word. There’s a lot of research around this too with kids saying, we lost Grandpa. I mean, kids lose things all the time and then find them again. Sometimes people will say, well, you know, your dad will always be in your heart. I’ve had at least 5 kids in my practice come to me and be like, get him out. It’s totally freaking them out. Right.
[00:38:51.700] – Speaker 1
I know. Yeah.
[00:38:53.300] – Speaker 2
Yeah. Yeah. No, it’s not working for them. Right. So, and it’s usually us trying to soften the blow. But really what tends to be the most beneficial is calling it death and dying. And of course, if I work with a family from a cultural background where they’re not comfortable with that, I’m going to work with them around that. But that’s sort of my baseline. And we wanna let them know, you’re not making me sad. In fact, if I tear up because we’re talking about this hard thing that’s happened in our family, you’re actually helping my grief come to the surface. And that’s a helpful thing.
[00:39:24.000] – Speaker 1
That’s really good. It’s really helpful. Just to maybe, this has been so good. So many practical tips and pointers and insights along the way. I wonder, like, not every family is going through a grief or a loss today. Um, but they probably will. And is there anything we can be doing with our kids now, kind of preemptively, um, to make these topics less sudden, less intense when they happen? What does that look like in a family?
[00:39:56.710] – Speaker 2
Absolutely. And I absolutely encourage doing this because grief isn’t an if, it’s a when. It’s universal. It’s going to happen at some point. And that’s where I talk a lot about like seizing the teachable moment. Nature offers so many of them. The dead squirrel on the way to school, instead of just brushing by it and being like, oh, the squirrel died. Its body doesn’t work anymore. It never works again. Yesterday, my 10-year-old and I were having a campfire together and little did we know there was a frog in there. And I tried to rescue and palliate the frog and everything. It didn’t work. And so, yeah, we had quite a dying process with the frog, but we’re both there and we’re talking about the frog and the frog’s body doesn’t work anymore. And I mean, We talk about this a lot in our family. She gets it. But that’s a teachable moment, right? It’s unanticipated and here it is. And instead of being like, okay, like let’s just brush past this, you actually want to sort of seize the moment and use these opportunities to teach kids about our mortality, about suffering and the feelings that come with it, that those are inherently healthy, right?
[00:41:02.000] – Speaker 2
There’s no pathology here. Nothing’s broken. It is a natural human response. To experience the thoughts and feelings we have when there’s a big loss. And that’s where whether, again, it’s the goldfish that dies or, you know, it’s movies and literature, there’s always examples of death. It’s just seizing those moments and having some conversations with our kids around them, even if this isn’t something that’s happening in our life right now.
[00:41:30.040] – Speaker 1
One of the things I love about conversations like this is they, they kind of allow us to enter into topics that maybe we’re not as familiar with, or that, like, you, you know, we’re waiting on, we haven’t engaged in. And one of the things that I think that is so true with this stuff is we really, we often try to do this on our own. And I wonder, broadly speaking, for our listeners, and then maybe specifically, like, we kind of operate in the Southern Ontario area, Yeah. I wonder if you can give broadly, as a parent, as an adult who’s caring for a kid, as someone, what are some resources, places we can go, a therapist, like how do we navigate this so that it isn’t just my partner and I talking about it, figuring out how to do this? How do we broaden the inputs into this journey for us? What would you, some broad suggestions, and then specifically, what are some resources, point us To the work that you do and other kind of applicable things to read, to be a part of, to help us navigate this.
[00:42:37.180] – Speaker 2
Absolutely. I mean, one of the ones that I’d say is really like, you could be from anywhere in the world and access this is Kids Grief Q&A. So it’s through Canadian Virtual Hospice. But it’s myself and a couple of my colleagues. And once a month, we are sitting there, it is totally free, anyone can come from anywhere in the world. It’s on Zoom and ask your questions. People can email in if you’re not available. It’s on Tuesdays at 1:00 PM Eastern time. People can email their questions in. And so, but many people come and they’re just learning from other people’s questions. A lot of parents come there, even parents who have terminal illnesses and need help navigating, but a lot of professionals come too. So, I’d say Kids Grief Q&A, which is through Canadian Virtual Hospice, would be a big one for sure. Totally free. On our website, which is awcgrief.com, we’ve put tons of resources for parents. So all of our favourite tip sheets, like anything we’ve vetted, because the Dougie Centre has amazing resources in the US, Winston’s Wish in the UK, Lighthouse in Ontario. I mean, there’s a lot of great stuff out there actually, but you want to make sure that it is vetted and that you feel comfortable with the language and everything else.
[00:43:50.820] – Speaker 2
So we’ve really just tried to amalgamate like all of our favourite resources, whether it’s stuff that kids can use directly. youthgrief.ca is by grieving youth for grieving youth. kidsgrief.ca is for parents and for educators on supporting grieving youth. So there’s a lot of free stuff out there, but then if your child is struggling or you’re seeing any of those changes that we talked about, or they just have a really big loss in your life, like, that’s where I would encourage sort of reaching out and being like, is there in my community, or even beyond with all the virtual work now, like, is there somewhere they could go and be in, whether it’s a support group or get individual grief support? But again, you just want to make sure that they’re vetted, and you actually feel good about it. There’s now actually in Canada, a Canadian Alliance for Grieving And so it spreads across Canada and there’s actually a directory right on there. Um, and that would be one of the places to go just to make sure that people, you know, are known for doing grief work.
[00:44:55.090] – Speaker 1
Yeah, those are, uh, fantastic suggestions. Uh, as a psychotherapist, you might appreciate my offer to the conversation. Uh, ever since I’ve been, uh, in therapy myself, I tell everybody, yeah, uh, you You should probably, especially if your benefits cover it in here in Canada or anywhere you are, be in therapy regularly. I say it’s like doing the oil change on your car, right? Like there’s some things you need to do to run well.
[00:45:21.880] – Speaker 2
Absolutely.
[00:45:22.620] – Speaker 1
Or more optimally. And then you also are prepared for those times when they come. You have someone who knows you, your story, your journey, who can kind of help speak into that and be a part of that. And I think for kids, it’s really important as well. to find someone, a trained professional to talk to as they navigate it within those groups that you suggested and sometimes even outside of it. I think it’s having someone who’s professionally trained to journey with you through these situations in life, have these conversations, give you things to process and think about, and just kind of in your corner cheering you on. And I would also say include your community, whoever that is, wherever they are, in your journey as well with your kids. Kids sometimes need caring adults outside of mom and dad or whoever’s primary caregivers. It takes a village.
[00:46:17.200] – Speaker 2
Yeah. And, I always say to my kids, I was like, you know what, if you want to use that space as a place to just complain about us and the screen time rules or whatever else, you can do that. It doesn’t have to be the big stuff, but it’s exactly what you said. It takes a village. And, I always want to do that with kids. It’s like, who are the safe adults in your life? And I think it’s really beneficial for parents to give that permission. As much as we wanna have these conversations with our kids, it’s okay if there’s stuff that you wanna talk to other safe adults about too. It could be a school counsellor, it could be your family physician, Kids Help Phone, right? We actually wanna resource them so they know maybe it’s an aunt or uncle who they can reach out to, I think is such an important factor to foster in families as well.
[00:47:05.120] – Speaker 1
Yeah, it’s so important because as you stated earlier, and as I think on one level we know, this is something that is inevitable for all of us. We will all have to journey through some form of grief, loss, bereavement, and, uh, that’s such an important topic. Andrea, thank you. I wonder as we wrap up if there’s any kind of final word of encouragement or advice that you’d offer to a parent or caregiver who’s supporting a child that is navigating a serious illness of someone they love or a recent death? What’s kind of your final charge or encouragement to us today?
[00:47:42.470] – Speaker 2
I think a big one for me is if you have the opportunity for them to connect with other youth going through similar experiences, do that. And I know not all communities have that option, but for many kids, if there’s something happening in their immediate family, It’s a lonely enough experience. They benefit. Like, there’s across this country, there are different bereavement camps. We’re actually, we’re excited. We’re just hosting our first one. This will be specifically for kids who have a parent with ALS. This will be a 2-night camp, right? Where they get to meet other kids who have a parent with ALS. So you want to look for where are those places where they can connect with other young people going through similar experiences. As well, because that tends to be so beneficial, even for the teenagers who are always so resistant. And then they get there and they’re like, oh yeah, this is the best. But the trick is sometimes getting them there.
[00:48:43.570] – Speaker 1
Yeah. Well, thank you for that piece of encouragement and advice. Really good. I know my parents have been part of bereavement groups with children and young people, and I know how significant they are. And even just friendships can be for kids who get it, who know what it’s like to be them. And that’s important on a myriad of topics for young people. So thank you for inputting that. And thank you, Andrea, for so much for what you do in this conversation. Like, it has flown by. There’s been so many practical things and insightful offerings that you’ve had for us and our listeners. So thank you for what you do and for your time today.
[00:49:22.630] – Speaker 2
Oh, thanks so much, Chris, for shedding light on this topic.
[00:49:28.350] – Speaker 1
Well, that’s a wrap for our conversation today. If Andrea’s insights have inspired you to think differently about how to talk to kids about serious illness and death, and how honesty and connection can help children navigate some of life’s most difficult experiences, why don’t you head over to muskokawoods.com? There you’ll find a blog post with key takeaways from today’s episode and a link For you to listen again. Don’t forget to subscribe to Shaping Our World and share this episode with a parent, caregiver, educator, youth leader, or anyone supporting young children through illness, loss, and grief. Thanks for listening, and we’ll see you next time on Shaping Our World.
