When Someone Very Special Dies: Children Can Learn to Cope with Grief

Rating:
Summary: An Important Book For Every Teacher To Have
Review: Learning to cope with difficult emotions is a most important achievement for young children who are experiencing grief from some form of loss. The experience of death needs an adequate explanation using correct terms and simply stated definitions. When vague terms are used, children become confused. When children are given the opportunity to ask questions and to express feelings of grief through physical and creative activities, they are able to develop healthy coping patterns that will continue through adulthood.
When Someone Very Special Dies, Children Can Learn to Cope With Grief, written by Marge Heegaard, is a book intended to help children move through various levels of grief through the use of writing and drawing their own illustrations. This workbook's presentation is a valuable tool to be used by children through a confusing emotional time. Throughout the 32 pages of narrative prompts and partially drawn black and white illustrations, children are able to actively participate in a concrete and personally reflective experience. Children are encouraged to explore curiosities about death by asking questions, and they share personal understanding through the use of writing and creating their own illustrations.
In response to grief, children may display a spectrum of emotions often acted out because they are unable to clearly express feelings verbally. Through the use of supportive prompts, children are coached in choosing ways to express anger or fear in a way that doesn't hurt other people or animals, or themselves. Children are encouraged to use suggestions on how to use physical movement and exercise to avoid the stuffing of feelings, which over time can cause severe physical ailments.
In a classroom, grades kindergarten through 3, this book work well as a guide for designing a range of collaborative activities. For K-1 students, When Someone Very Special Dies, Children Can Learn to Cope With Grief can easily be used to introduce the concept that change is natural. The first four pages of the book consist of partially illustrated discussion prompts which students are invited to complete with their own illustrative ideas. These pages explore change in the life cycle of a butterfly, change in the seasons, and change in people as they age. The reader learns about the origin of feelings of grief, how living and growing things change, and how death is a natural part of this change. A group discussion following time to work in the book is important for children to be able to express their understanding behind their own illustrations.
In a classroom of 2nd or 3rd graders, students work in pairs answering various provided prompts from pages 11-20. On these pages, students discuss curiosities they have about their own personal feelings and what influences them to change. They explore expressions of different feelings and where these feelings are located throughout the body, discovering alternative ways feelings can be expressed in a safe and healthy manner. Through this activity, students learn to feel comfortable to discuss an experience of painful emotion. In this way, students are able to identify the problems and pain of others by gaining insight into their own experiences. Following the discussion, each pair of students might create a poster reflecting the information they have collected about what they learned regarding various emotions and how they might be expressed in a safe and healthy manner.
When Someone Very Special Dies, Children Can Learn to Cope With Grief would serve well as a personal journal for students in grades 4 through 6, rather than strictly as a whole group activity guide. Some portions could be referred to and used to guide whole class discussions or for non-stop writing prompts. Other portions of the book should be left for private reflection and entry due to its personal reference to religious content.
I strongly recommend the book When Someone Very Special Dies, Children Can Learn to Cope With Grief for every classroom library. It provides a healthy message and positive means for helping children work through an experience with grief. Children need help to grieve and grow in healthy ways. Children must be allowed to get their sadness out by sharing feelings and memories with trusted listeners. This book provides children with a positive healing experience, and the ability to know that life can be okay again.