John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, is remembered for the penetrating question he frequently asked of church leaders and members alike: "And how is it with your soul?"
Such a question, taken seriously, may be difficult for even the most spiritually mature among us to answer. As a spiritual caregiver for grieving children and adolescents, I am concerned with this same question. The paradox of my work is that children are at once both more and less prepared to answer that question.
A child is a paradox almost by definition, selfishly demanding and refusing to share one moment, then giving unreservedly of love in the form of wet peanut butter and jelly kisses the next. He fights with his sister over the stupid way she plays a game one day and fights the class bully who is picking on his sister the next. A child's faith, in themselves, their parents, and God is simple and unfettered by traditional theology, ecclesiology, eschatology or any other "ology" of which they have never heard. They accept the stories from their faith tradition unquestioningly for the most part. When they do ask "Why?" it is with the complete expectation that the question can and will be answered. The emotional and spiritual scars of traumatic loss can divert a youngster from their spiritual journey. As spiritual caregivers, we can help ensure they continue on the path that leads to healing, restoration and hope that can be found in the traditions of their particular faith.
When a child is injured after falling off their bicycle, we set their bones, stitch their cuts, and reassure them they will recover in a matter of weeks. Assuming the accident did not involve a critical injury or death, the youngster will probably not suffer permanent emotional scars from the experience.
However, if the child is involved in a car accident that takes her mother's life and leaves herself critically injured, quite another scenario is possible. This little girl may spend months in the hospital recovering from her injuries. When she leaves the hospital she will be confronted for the first time with the reality of her mother's death. As a young child, she does not possess the cognitive ability to understand the permanent nature of death. She lacks the skills to articulate her intense feelings of grief. As the shock of her loss continues to wear off, she may experience a host of traumatic stress reactions, including nightmares, flashbacks, trouble concentrating, failing academic performance, terror of riding in the car or on the school bus, outburst of anger and many others.
Adults would prefer to avoid the knowledge that a child's heart can be so broken—her soul so deeply hurt. Yet, it happens every day. Help and hope are possible, however. Professional spiritual care providers can effectively minister to the hurting children in their churches, hospitals and agencies. Following are suggestions for beginning:
Three Ministries of Spiritual Care
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Offer the ministries of presence and active listening. If you want to know what is going on in the heart and soul of a grieving child, ask them. We must not assume because we are adults that we automatically know what is best for the child. An adult who is also grieving is not the best person to provide the comfort and support needed by a grieving child. Grieving parents need help from other adults in the child's life—the teachers, scout leaders, pastors, physicians and other relatives—to make sure the needs of the child are not overlooked. Children experience the same feelings of grief that adults do, but they do not express these feelings the same way. Adults can learn to hear the language of play, such as drawings, puppet play, sculpting with clay and imaginative role play in which children engage. As in any healing ministry, helping grieving or traumatized children begins with the willingness to be present and listen.
Children are just as eager as adults to tell their story. When asked to draw a picture that tells the story of what happened to them, children and adolescents are almost always anxious and able to share the details of their traumatic loss. Simply asking a child to draw a picture of himself may reveal much. Bobby**, who discovered his mother's body after she died by suicide, drew himself with huge terrified eyes, hair wildly standing on end, and with his teeth gritted together. By engaging Bobby in this simple exercise, we learn that behind the happy facade Bobby presents to the world is a youngster who still harbors much terror for the awful scene he witnessed.
Learn to hear the story in the only way the child can tell it, through creative expressions of art and play and in behaviors adults often call acting out. This is the beginning of understanding how it is with the child's soul.
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Offer ministries of unconditional love. Expect grieving children to carry a burden of guilt. Young children are extremely ego-centric. In their minds, they are the center of the universe. They believe in the power of wishful thinking, believing things can and will happen just because they wished them so. Young boys especially possess an exaggerated sense of their own power. This translates into an exaggerated sense of responsibility. Eight year old Jimmy believes he could have wrestled a hunting rifle out of his mother's arms and thereby kept her from using the gun on herself. Six years after the accident that took his father's life, Charles believes he could have grabbed the steering wheel and taken control of the car if only he had been awake to see that the accident was about to happen. However, Charles was only eighteen months old and strapped in his car seat at the time of the accident.
Children, because they are children, cannot see the fallacies in these beliefs. We can and should speak to them of adult choices for which they bear no responsibility. However, the best antidote for such an awful burden of guilt is the continual reassurance of the child's inherent goodness through unconditional acceptance of him. Even when their behavior is shocking, disturbing or outright bizarre, we communicate that they are loveable and precious to us. Children from Judeo-Christian faith traditions may be affirmed of their inherent worth as a child of God, precious in God's sight. The story of the prodigal son, for example, takes on personal meaning as the story of a child who failed or made mistakes but still found extravagant love in the arms of a caring father.
At the last session of our trauma recovery group every child receives two certificates. One is for completion of the program. The other is a certificate that includes:
Certificates include names such as:
- Jessica, whose name means "God Beholds"
- Gabriel, whose name means "God is my strength"
- and Matthew, whose name means "Gift of God".
The light of unconditional love illumines and overcomes the darkness of doubt and guilt that clouds a grieving child's soul.
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Provide ministries of reconciliation. After the spiritual caregiver has been entrusted with the child's story, it is then time to facilitate reconciliation between the child and her parent or guardian. The youngster has intuitively known that the primary adult(s) in her life is not able to offer the support she needs. She has seen the adult's pain and grief and has invested a great deal of energy into protecting the parent or guardian from further pain and stress. She has kept much of her story, her feelings and her questions to herself. In this case, reconciliation refers to all the ways in which she may be assisted to reconnect with her primary caregiver. As spiritual caregivers, we help build bridges of communication and trust that make this reconciliation possible.
We educate, teaching adults about the unique characteristics of childhood grief. We provide them with information that will help them to understand the developmental needs of their grieving child. Parents and guardians are taught what grief reactions are considered normal for children and teenagers, as well as those which indicate a need for professional intervention.
Spiritual caregivers shepherd the adults, guiding and directing them in giving responses that will support their youngsters and encourage future sharing. It is best to be as specific as possible. Most parents are not trained in active listening skills. Suggest use of the following responses when their child shares with them:
- "That's really interesting"
- "Tell me more about that"
- "I didn't know you felt that way"
- "I feel this way sometimes too"
These responses validate the child's experience of grief and reveal that it is all right for her to trust and share feelings with her parent.
Now it is time to provide an opportunity for the youngster to share her story with her parent or guardian in a safe and secure environment. While difficult, this can be a very moving experience for all involved. In many cases, tears are shed, affirmation is shared, and much love is expressed. It is a healing experience that helps the child to disconnect from you, the spiritual caregiver, and reconnect in a relationship of trust with her parent or guardian.
Christy** was thirteen when it became obvious that her father would not win his battle against cancer. As our time working together progressed, I invited Christy's mother in to hear from her daughter just how this sad and stressful time was affecting her. It was obvious there was a bond of trust between the two, as Christy** shared very openly the pictures she had drawn and the things she had written in her workbook.
There were long periods of silence as mother absorbed all the things that Christy** was sharing. She had not realized until this time the depth of Christy's** sorrow and depression, her fears and her worries. She had not understood the amount of effort Christy** was expending to control her own emotions so as to avoid adding to the stress in the household. The culmination of this session was the sharing of much empathy between this young woman and her mother. Her mother embraced her, literally and figuratively, with an abundance of love and acceptance that undoubtedly helped them both face the death of Christy's** father just two weeks following this session.
The Bottom Line: Offer them hope. Hope is a realistic and adaptive response to the experience of extreme stress or loss in which a person acquires a patient and confident surrender to those circumstances that are beyond his control. (Adapted from Dictionary of Pastoral Care and Counseling, Rodney Hunter, ed) Most adults prefer to avoid as long as possible the realization that children can suffer such depths of despair that their ability to hope is stunted. Yet, "these are the children who pass through my door everyday." "As spiritual caregivers, we are in a unique position to ask of them. "How is it with your soul?" With patience, grace and understanding we can learn to listen to the answers they share. The children we serve will likely enter adulthood with great strength and an ability to cope with life's crises because we have taken the time to care. They will have learned to face crisis as a natural part of their total life experience, as something to be coped with, not paralyzed by. To paraphrase John Wesley, "The children are our parish. Let us offer them hope." There are few opportunities for ministry that offer greater rewards than ministry to grieving children.
* Rick's house of hope is currently called Rick's Rays of Hope.
** The names have been changed.