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.