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So did your Daddy cry when the car died?’, Natalie Shaw and Lauren Rondestvedt
‘So did your Daddy cry when the car died?’
Natalie Shaw and Lauren Rondestvedt write about preparing pre-service teachers for supporting children through experiences of bereavement
From supporting children through the loss of a pet to framing the death of a family member, the experience of being a significant presence during a time of bereavement is one that all teachers inevitably encounter at various points in their career. As Chadwick (2012) notes, teachers’ appropriate responses towards loss, and their ability to accompany a child or group of children on the journey of coming to terms with death, directly relates to the quality of our schools as places of emotional security and inclusion, as well as places where challenging human experiences can be explored intellectually.
At ITEps (International Teacher Education for Primary Schools: the first full bachelor’s programme to train students to become teachers in international primary schools), the topic was approached with Year 1 student teachers in conjunction with a design-based education book project, during which the experience of death was one possible focus for students to address in their children’s book. However, the issue clearly has wider significance, with regards to general pastoral responsibilities as well as with a view towards the inherently intercultural teaching and learning situations that students will encounter throughout their careers. Familiar with the caution regarding narrow narratives about human experience (Atrey, 2016), students were invited to a workshop about bereavement, where the topic was explored from a broad perspective, whilst reflecting the plethora of understandings of death that are present in our schools.
Negating attempts to classify children’s understanding of the concept of death in stages related to age (Chadwick, 2012), the session explicitly drew on approaches that focus on the agency of children (Mahon, 2011; Esser et al, 2016) and acknowledged that a myriad of factors contributes to children’s expertise with regards to the concept of death. Students heard that intellectual, personal and cultural aspects equally contribute to a child’s expertise: intellectually, an accurate understanding of core bodily functions enhances a child’s scientific understanding. On a personal level, prior experience with loss provides a child with expertise through lived experience, whereas the prevalence of death and metaphysical ideas present in a particular culture shape the child’s exposure to and acceptance of death as a part of life (Mahon, 2011).
Language was identified as a key factor in providing honesty and accuracy. Grollman (2013) warns of the danger of framing death in ways that may instil fears in children with regards to regular experiences of life: the idea that death may be explained as ‘having gone to sleep’ may lead to children avoiding bedtime for fear of ‘disappearing’ overnight. In particular, communication was explored with regards to attachment theory, and the necessity to enable children to conceptualise the experience in ways that facilitate continued secure attachment. Attachment theory as a method of framing a child’s experience of grief was introduced broadly to students, and the three main styles were outlined: secure, anxious and avoidant. Research regarding attachment styles and grief has suggested that the attachment style of a child has an impact on that child’s coping styles and needs, as explored by Stroebe (2002) which has provided a model for categorizing adaptive or
maladaptive coping. However, understanding children’s grief is a complicated process that began on the assumption that children’s grief mirrors that of adults (Dyregrov & Dyregrov, 2013). Historically, ‘letting go’ or ‘moving on’ from grief was seen as the means to closure. Packman et al (2006) explored the concept of continuing bonds as a means to support ongoing attachment, specifically related to children. Based on research and personal stories, students heard ways in which children could maintain a healthy relationship with the deceased individual in a way that supported secure attachment while clarifying to the child that the person was no longer physically present.
The overall goal in supporting children in grief through attachment is not to confirm children’s fears of abandonment (anxious) nor to suggest that they should never expect attachment in the first place (avoidant). With a view to promoting secure and healthy attachment, students were provided with the concept of resilience, and the importance of fostering resilience in children in a multitude of ways. In this way, they can support children in overcoming small challenges and changes in an effort to equip them with tools for coping.
To outline the manifestation of grief, the 5 stages of grieving (Kübler-Ross, 1969) were presented as a broad framework for understanding. At its conception, these stages were believed to occur in sequence, and unsuccessful resolution of one stage prevented movement to the next. Recently, these stages as a sequential process have been ‘debunked’ (Koningsberg, 2011) but have remained as descriptors of possible phases. As Phyllis R Silverman (principal investigator of the Harvard Child Bereavement Study) suggested, grief does not end at a particular time. Stroebe et al (2017) emphasized that grief is a system of complex emotions and processes, and that individual factors should be considered. The takeaway message for students was to use the stages as possible manifestations of grief, but be aware that each individual will vary in the way grief is experienced.
Relating both to the manifestations of grief and to the general concept of death, cultural influences were further explored. The facilitators took care to examine the different implications of both ethnic and religious culture on the perception of death and the grieving process, while also highlighting the influence of popular culture (PenfoldMounce, 2018) and family culture (Thieleman, 2015). The real-life example in a Middle-Eastern teaching context of a mismatch between a well-intended, Western teacherinitiated grieving session and local children’s surprise at the expectation that they should be sad about a community death enabled students to reflect on the intersection of these influences.
In conclusion, students were invited to draw on all aspects that had been discussed in the session as ‘diagnostic tools’, assessing every situation they might encounter in practice as a new and unique manifestation of a universal experience, and to use their newly gained insight flexibly to determine the best possible course of support.
References
Atrey S (2016) “The Danger of a Single Story”: Introducing Intersectionality in Fact-Finding. In Alston P & Knuckey S (eds), The Transformation of Human Rights Fact-Finding. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Chadwick A (2012) Talking about Death and Bereavement in School. How to Help Children Aged 4-11 to Feel Supported and Understood. London: Kingsley. Dyregrov A & Dyregrov K (2013) Complicated grief in children: the perspectives of experienced professionals. OMEGA-Journal of Death and Dying, 67(3), 291-303. Esser F, Baader M, Betz T & Hungerland B (2016) Conclusion: potentials of a reconceptualised concept of agency. In Esser F, Baader M, Betz T & Hungerland B (eds) Reconceptualising Agency and Childhood: New perspectives in Childhood Studies. Abingdon: Routledge. Grollman E (2013) Explaining Death to Children and to Ourselves. In Papadatos C & Papadatou D (eds), Children and Death. Philadelphia: Hemisphere. Konigsberg R D (2011) The truth about grief: The myth of its five stages and the new science of loss. New York: Simon and Schuster. Kübler-Ross E (1969) On death and dying. New York: The Macmillan Company. Mahon M (2011) Death in the Lives of Children. In Talwar V, Harris P & Schleifer M (eds), Children’s Understanding of Death: From Biological to Religious Conceptions. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Packman W, Horsley H, Davies B & Kramer R (2006) Sibling bereavement and continuing bonds. Death Studies, 30(9), 817-841. Penfold-Mounce R (2018) Death, The Dead and Popular Culture. Bingley: Emerald. Stroebe M S (2002) Paving the way: From early attachment theory to contemporary bereavement research. Morality, 7(2), 127-138. Stroebe M, Schut H & Boerner K (2017) Cautioning health-care professionals: Bereaved persons are misguided through the stages of grief. OMEGA-Journal of Death and Dying, 74(4), 455-473. Thieleman K (2015) Epilogue: Grief, Bereavement and Ritual Across Cultures. In Cacciatore J & DeFrain J (eds) The World of Bereavement: Cultural Perspectives on Death in Families. New York: Springer.
