4 Things to Remember About Grief Counseling for Teenagers

While grief is always in individual thing, just like many other coping strategies and responses across human groups it can be broadly categorized into age-specific categories. Children cope with grief differently to the elderly, and teenagers cope with grief differently from their parents. For grief counseling professionals, it can be easy to fall into the trap of looking at things from your own perspective, rather than understanding how your client's mind is working. Today we look at 4 things to remember when grief counseling for teenagers.

1. Adolescents don't want to be vulnerable

Adolescents may not want to show their grief, as they might feel it symbolizes a regression to dependence, when they are on the road to independence. Let them know that there is nothing dependent or childish about needing support when grieving. Make sure that other people in the teenagers life show their grief appropriately - and ask the teenager for help and support themselves sometimes, even if they are older. The key here is moderation.

2. Honesty is always the best policy

Teenagers are especially good at picking when people are lying or telling half-truths, and they don't respect it at all. If you tell a half-truth about something, the likelihood is the teenager will not want to listen to anything you have to say. If you are asked a question, answer as fully and honestly as you can. Don't sugar-coat. If you don't know the answer to something, tell them. Make sure other adults in the grieving teenager's life know this too.

3. Adolescent's don't want their grief fixed

As adults, there is an enormous temptation to try to fix the pain of a grieving child of teenager, as part of the protective instincts. Most of the time teenagers don't want their pain fixed … they want to feel the pain, and don't want to just return to normal. This is fine! Share your thoughts and beliefs anyway, but don't pressure them to adopt your views. Simply correct them if they spiral into self-destructive thought patterns, like "they died because of me."

4. Teenagers are still learning from the adults around them

On the borderline between adulthood and childhood, teenagers still learn from the behaviors of the adults around them. Make sure the adults in the teenager's life undergo some basic grief counsel\ling as well, stressing how important it is so that they can effectively help the teenager.

5 Things to Remember About Grief Counseling for Children

Grief counseling is a growing field of specialty, and grief counselling for children is a critical part of the discipline. Children's grief should be handled fairly carefully for optimal outcomes. Children are surprisingly resilient, yet their experiences can create lasting shadows in their later lives. If you’re studying grief counselling, or thinking about becoming a grief counsellor, here are 5 things to remember about dealing with children in your clinical position.

1. It's often the first time they have experienced this sort of loss

Children's view of the world is often very self-centered -- they tend to take on blame for their personal circumstances. They have never been told before that the reason their loved one died was not because of them … and as silly as it sounds to adults, this is very necessary.

2. Children express their grief differently to adults

Children's grief often manifests in behavioral problems. It is essential that any adults in the grieving child's life understand that they can expect excessive crying, withdrawal, refusal to speak, bedwetting, loss of appetite or disruptive behavior at school. Children will need to be helped with these issues in light of the fact that they arise out of grief.

3. Grief takes time

Many of us still don't deal with grief well, even as adults. It takes children a long time to understand what has happened, even with careful explanation by a grief counsellor. Expect to have to repeat the same concept to children over and over again.

4. Don't use euphemisms

Children often take euphemisms for being dead quite literally. If their grief counsellors use the words "sleeping," "lost," or "at rest," the children may expect the return of the dead person for a long time and ultimately delay working through the grief.

5. Grief counselling for adults around the children is just as important

Children learn by watching and imitating, so it is essential that the adults around them know how to express their grief in a healthy, honest and open manner. A big part of grief counselling for children is counselling for the related adults in the same situation. Role modeling is something the counsellor cannot provide, unfortunately.