Helping Children with Loss: A Guidebook

Now in a fully updated second edition, this professional guidebook has been created to help adults provide emotional support for children who have experienced the loss of somebody they know, or something they loved.

Written in an accessible style and with a sensitive tone, Helping Children with Loss provides adults with a rich vocabulary for mental states and painful emotions, paving the way for meaningful and healing conversations with children who are struggling with difficult feelings. Practical activities provide opportunities for conversation and will empower the child to find creative and imaginative ways of expressing themselves when words fail.

Key features of this resource include:

• Targeted advice for children who defend against feeling their painful feelings by dissociating from grief Tools and strategies for helping children cope with loss, including engaging activities to help children explore their feelings in a non-threatening way
• Photocopiable and downloadable resources to help facilitate support

Written by a leading child psychotherapist with over thirty years’ experience, this book will support children to develop emotional literacy and connect with unresolved feelings affecting their behaviour. It is an essential resource for anybody supporting children aged 4-12 who have experienced loss.

Table of Contents

Introduction

Helping Grieving Children with their Painful Feelings

Helping Grieving Children who Defend Against Feeling their Painful Feelings

Practical Ways of Enabling Children to Speak About and Work Through Feelings of Loss

Bibliography