NAME: Barbara Coloroso
BACKGROUND: In “Parenting Through Crisis: Helping Kids in Times of Loss, Grief, and Change” (HarperResource, $24) Barbara Coloroso outlines ways to help children cope with death, divorce and other life-changing events. Coloroso, an educator and frequent speaker on non-violent conflict resolution and grieving, is also a regular commentator on parenting issues on “Canada A.M,” a national news program.
Q–Crises come in many sizes, don’t they?
A–When my middle daughter was diagnosed with cancer and we were in the midst of all that, some of my friends would come to me grieving about their kids’ purple hair, and I had to step back a moment to not say, “Get a life, woman! This isn’t a big issue.” Because to them it was a big issue. They hadn’t walked in my shoes.
Q–Similarly with children’s idea of a crisis?
A–We have to resist the urge to say “Don’t worry about this” when to them it’s the most godawful thing that’s ever happened.
Q–How do you suggest people navigate through a crisis?
A–I say, learn to accept that life isn’t fair. That life hurts. But that life is good.
Q–And struggling against those things adds to suffering?
A–When there is a death or a great loss that we mourn, that’s true suffering. But to try to remove ourselves from it, to deny it, magnifies the suffering. I hear people say, “I’m not going to take my kid to the funeral–he doesn’t need that.” And yet the child might need some closure on Grandpa’s death to know why Mom is so sad.
Q–How do kids tend to react to the news of a death?
A–In my lectures I use the example of a family in which the mother and father had to tell three siblings about the death of their brother on his way home from college. All three children handled it differently.
The teenager did what most teenagers will do: He got angry–at his brother, at the world, at his mother for asking his brother to come home. At the police for not responding fast enough. At the car dealer who sold him a fast car.
The 9-year-old said, “How did he die? How fast was he going? When is the funeral?” The way 9-year-olds typically deal with a major loss is: Give me the facts. It’s almost as if, if I have the facts, I can start to process it.
The 5-year-old put his arm around his mother and said, “That’s OK, Mommy. When he’s done being dead, he’ll be back.” Because dead is not permanent at that age.
Q–How can you pay attention to your kids’ needs when you’re suffering yourself?
A–That’s where I talk about the “tao” of time, affection and optimism. It’s not rose-colored optimism, because there is none when you’ve had a major loss. It’s the ability, when you’ve been brought to your knees, to get up in the morning, fix your children breakfast and say, “We will make it through this.”
Q–Let them know you’re in it together?
A–The beauty of children is that they grieve in spurts. They’ll run out and play and then come in and watch “The Lion King” for the 12th time so they can be sad with Simba. A teenager will have buried Grandpa, to whom he was very close, and then turn to his mother at the funeral and say, “I’m going to the dance tonight.” They need some “normal” in their lives. Death is not normal to them. And they’re not being disrespectful; they’re saying, “I can’t grieve constantly,” which, by the way, is healthy. We can learn from our children.
Q–So, tune in to them individually?
A–And also know that if children experience a major loss at a young age, they will revisit it at the other ages and will process it differently. That 5-year-old who thought his brother was going to come back, at 9 may say, “Is he a skeleton yet?” and at 15 get very angry. It doesn’t matter what kind of loss it is–divorce, whatever. You might think you’ve gotten through it and then in the teen years they say, “I’m so mad at you and Dad for doing this to me,” and you say, “Wait! Wait! That was seven years ago.” But that’s their way of emotionally and intellectually dealing with it.
Q–The element of time is tricky, even for adults. It’s hard to remember you won’t always feel the way you feel right now.
A–The first time you go through the passages of grief, and that’s often as a child, you don’t know that you will get to that other side. In the book I tell the story of a boy who was in remission for leukemia and then went back for a test and found out he had it full blown again, and he said to his father, “Do you think I’ll ever get my joy back again?” And his father said, “Yes, just as you did the last time.”
We need to be there to help our children know that. If we ourselves get stuck in grief, and refuse to deal with it, we can’t see the other end ourselves. It does take time to get through grief. And you need time to get away from it. Families who’ve experienced a major loss might take a little holiday where nobody else knows about their grief and they can just be happy for a while.
