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Articles by Michelle Shreeve MA
How to Support Grieving Youth on Father’s Day
Father’s Day is right around the corner, but the day might look a little different for children grieving the death of a dad. It is important that caregivers, survivors, and those who work in the field supporting grieving youth do what they can to help these children find comfort in the day and know they are not alone in their grief journey.
Bibliotherapy Can Help Grieving Kids Navigate Parental Death
When a young child suddenly loses a parent, the world they were accustomed to changes overnight. Everything from daily routines to where they live or go to school, to how they feel safe and loved can change. With the right support, survivors and caregivers can help a child's new normal following a parental death make them feel safe and loved again, but kids will need extra support to not feel alone during this especially difficult and challenging time. Children do not like feeling alone.
Preserving Parental Legacies for Grieving Children
The question that surviving family members and friends ask the most after the death of a parent is what can they do to better support the grieving children left behind. This is a powerful question, as there are many impactful tasks survivors can do right away to help comfort grieving children. A great start is to gather photographs, letters, birthday cards, past gifts, ticket stubs, and other related mementos that the child’s late parent gifted to them and that hold some special meaning.
How "Guardians of the Galaxy" Comforts Motherless Sons
Some teenage sons will be celebrating Mother's Day a little differently than their peers this year. While many sons are spending time at brunch or swimming in the backyard for a Mother's Day celebration, there are others for whom Mother's Day will look completely different: sons who will not have their mother present this holiday.
How "The Parent Trap" Can Comfort Motherless Daughters
With Mother’s Day approaching, little girls and teen girls who have lost their mothers might be in need of some extra comfort. There might be other women in their lives who can serve as motherly figures, but nothing will fully be able to fill the void left by the loss of their beloved mother. This is where comforting mother fictional characters can help.
How to Support Grieving Youth on Mother’s Day
For most families, Mother’s Day is filled with the tradition of presenting mothers with the most beautiful bouquet of flowers, sharing happy memories, and meeting a beautiful mother for brunch at the traditional breakfast café. For most families, it can be a happy and special day. However, there is another type of Mother’s Day that gets semi-celebrated, and semi-mourned, which is the Mother’s Day for children, teenagers, and young adults who have already lost their mother at such a young age.
How Music Therapy Can Help Parentless Children Navigate Loss
Music therapy can assist grieving adolescents and children. Music can help comfort grieving youth in a variety of ways. Turning to music can be a healthy outlet for grieving youth. Finding comfort in music can help grieving youth cope with the death of their parent. One of the many activities children and teenagers enjoy doing throughout their childhood is listening to music.
How "You’ve Got Mail" Can Help Comfort Motherless Daughters
When teenage and young-adult girls lose their mother, their connection to their late mother suddenly gets disrupted. A mother’s love for her daughter always lives on, and the bond will always remain, but a disruption occurs when a mother dies. It is painful for anyone, but in this post we will focus on daughters losing their mother at a young age. Sometimes young daughters who lose their mothers might be able to relate to other girl peers who also lost mothers.
Why It's Vital to Preserve a Late Parent’s Home
A home is more than just a house to children. It’s a place where they feel most loved and safe, where memories are made, projects are worked on together as a family, and holidays and birthdays are celebrated. It's where they can grow over the years in a place they are most comfortable and familiar with. When children or teenagers are grieving, a home can be more important to them than the outside world realizes.
How Wind Phones Can Help Kids Feel Connected to Late Parents
In Otsuchi, Japan in 2010, something was built that touched those who were trying to navigate the difficult terrain of grief. Separate from the hustle and bustle of the city, or the noise of traffic jams connecting rural to urban counties, something wonderful was built in nature. They called it a wind phone. It looks like something out of a Doctor Who episode featuring the time-traveling Tardis, but in actuality it mirrors what most phone booths looked like once upon a time.
Spotlighting Caregiver’s Day for Familes That Experienced Parental Death
February 20 is National Caregivers Day, celebrating caregivers everywhere, whether they are friends, professional caregivers, or family members, for the hard physical and emotional work they do that often goes unseen. Caregivers also include surviving parents trying to navigate their grief after the death of their spouse, while also supporting children who are trying to navigate their grief from the death of their parent. Being a parent is challenging.
The Importance of Parentless Teens Sharing Stories Together
When a teen loses a parent, they can feel isolated from their peers overnight. Some teens know of at least one peer who also lost a parent, but many more do not. This can complicate the grief process because it makes teens feel like they have to grieve alone. Adults around the grieving teen might offer them opportunities to open up about how they are feeling after the death of a parent, but some teenagers won’t feel comfortable enough to open up to adults for many reasons.
Why It's Vital to Preserve Parental Legacies for Grieving Kids
When a parent dies, children feel the pain differently than surrounding adults do. A parent is the whole world to a child, so to have this bond suddenly stop forming instills a deep sadness. After all, they have bonded with their parent since they were born, and are used to exploring the big world with them. Now suddenly they have to try to figure out how to navigate moving forward without their parent. This is not easy for a child to do.
How Alan Rickman and C.S. Lewis Can Inspire Parentless Teens
Feeling isolated after loss from parental death is common for teenagers, but that doesn’t make their situation any easier. In fact, it can complicate the grief process even more if teens don’t have anyone else close to them in their life who also lost a parent. The loss can suddenly make them feel different from their peers, almost like an outcast. This is where a helpful positive coping mechanism exercise can benefit them.
Watching Movies About Father Loss Comforts Grieving Youth
This Father's Day, many families will be celebrating their dads by having BBQ's, giving gifts, or treating their dads to a round of golf. Hugs will be passed out, thanks and gratitude will be shared, pictures will be posted on social media, and cards will be presented. It promises to be a happy and memorable time for most families. But for some families it will look a little different.
Watching Movies About Father Loss Comforts Grieving Youth - Michelle Shreeve Ma
This Father's Day, many families will be celebrating their dads by having BBQ's, giving gifts, or treating their dads to a round of golf. Hugs will be passed out, thanks and gratitude will be shared, pictures will be posted on social media, and cards will be presented. It promises to be a happy and memorable time for most families. But for some families it will look a little different.
How Lego Therapy Can Help Children Navigate Parental Death
Art therapy can significantly assist children trying to process parental death. Legos are a creative way for grieving children to express themselves. Grieving children can build whatever they are feeling. Young children can have big feelings after the death of their parent, but might not be able to verbalize what's going on, on the inside.
"27 Dresses" and the Effect of Parental Death on Older Siblings
Older siblings may feel responsible for younger siblings after a parent dies. Older siblings may also try to help the surviving parent after a parental death. Coping with grief needs to be balanced with an older sibling's new responsibilities. When a parental death happens and there are siblings involved, it is not uncommon for the older sibling to step into bigger shoes and act as a responsible caretaker for the younger siblings.
How Mother's Day Can Affect Parentless Children
Mother's Day is usually seen as a day for celebrations for families. Mother's Day brunches are common, flowers are purchased, and a day of happy memories are made. Yet for children who have lost their mother, Mother's Day can feel overwhelming and sad. If this is a child's first Mother's Day without their mother, they may find it especially difficult. Most families have Mother's Day traditions, so this year the tradition might be broken—although it doesn't have to be.
How Curie, Tolkien, and Mandela Can Inspire Parentless Teens
Sometimes after a teenager loses a parent, they might feel alone, especially if there aren't any known peers who also lost a parent. Feeling alone while trying to navigate their grief can complicate the process. After all, this is new territory, and feeling alone makes teens feel more isolated than they are comfortable feeling. This is where a research exercise can be implemented to help teenagers not feel alone anymore.
'The Greatest Showman' Had Parental Death Secondary Losses
Secondary losses can delay coping with parental death. The more support grieving children have, the fewer secondary losses they will experience. Secondary losses can complicate grief for children. It is challenging to navigate grief from the death of a parent combined with dealing with secondary losses. After the death of a parent, people nearby assume that the death is the only loss the child and family are dealing with. This couldn't be further from the truth.
How Drawing Can Help Children Navigate Parental Death
Young children might not be able to verbalize their feelings through words just yet. Art therapy helps children process grief after parental loss. Letting children be in control of their artwork creates a safe place for them to express their grief. Losing a parent is not easy to navigate for anyone at any age. After all, our bonds with our parents are typically among the longest bonds we have with anyone in our lives.
The Importance of Routines After the Death of a Parent
We all know that routines are important for children to have stability and predictability while growing up. It's important for their well-being and gives them peace of mind that each day they will know what to expect. But that stability can be shaken when they experience the sudden or unexpected death of a parent.
How a Rabbit on Easter Can Help Kids Process Parental Death
Easter is a time for families to be together. Yet, some families might be experiencing grief around the holidays. Some families might also be trying to navigate through parental death. The death of a parent is a heartbreaking situation for a child or teen to experience. Children and teens depend on their parent for many developmental reasons, so to suddenly have that connection interrupted can be devastating for them to have to try to navigate.
Scriptotherapy Can Help Teens Navigate the Death of a Parent
When a parent dies, a teenager enters new territory, life without their parent. Up until this point, from when they were born, their parent was always there. Never could they have imagined that their parent would not suddenly be here during the remaining time of their childhood. Teenagers will need healthy coping outlets after the death of a parent to help keep them on a positive path. This rings true especially if the parental death was sudden and unexpected.
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