How to grieve as you parent

Grief can be one of the most gut-wrenching, and isolating human experiences. While we are trained to think of death-related losses and the consequent grief, non-death losses such as loss of a marriage, or friendship can be equally painful. In fact, many scientists have found that our brain can rarely differentiate between deep physical pain, and psychological pain. They both affect our wellbeing quite similarly and can leave us feeling tired, disoriented, and numb. I say this because many women I know tend to minimize their complex emotions, and dismiss them away. We are made to look for the silver lining, and find statements such as “At least…” to prevent ourselves from experiencing the full-blown emotional experience. 

The tendency to dismiss or minimize our grief can feel especially tempting when we are also juggling parenting responsibilities. Many of us want to protect our children from difficult emotions and experiences of the world. We don’t want to cry in front of them, or let them know that our grief has changed us. We feel guilty when our children see us as unhappy, sad, or angry in our grief journey, and feel pressurized to bury it away, paste a smile on our face, and take them to their play date.

While this desire to hide and compartmentalize our grief comes from a well-intentioned space, it can often be counter-productive. When children notice (and they definitely notice!) that something has changed but the adults around them don’t discuss it openly, they may feel terrified, and may engage in hyper-imaginative worst-case scenarios (I worked with one family that didn’t talk about its grief related to financial losses. Their 6 year old falsely believed that his parents were dying and he would become an orphan in 3 months). They may feel troubled as they try to decipher the events of an adult world and translate into their own relatable terms. What ends up being a healthy balance is to help my parent clients explore what an optimal middle ground is for them. In other words, I encourage them to examine what are the possible ways they can safely include their children in their grief journey, and model what healthy emotional awareness could look like.  

Here are some tips and strategies my clients have discovered over the last few years as they grieve while parenting. 

• Have a feelings wheel on the wall, and point out to the different feelings you are experiencing when a wave of grief hits you. Encourage your child to do so too, when they experience complex emotions. 
• When you miss a loved one, invite your child to share what positive memories you have of that individual or time in your life (e.g., I am missing uncle Patel quite a bit today. Do you have any fun memories with him that we can talk about?)
• When your child finds your crying, it may be more helpful to offer an explanation as opposed to hiding it away (e.g., I am crying because I suddenly miss my friends from our old neighborhood. I know I will feel better after 5 minutes. Can I come to you after that?)
• When your child has questions about your grief, answer them to the best of your ability (e.g., you know, I truly don’t know what happened to Pops after he died, but I do know that we all love him a lot)

Despite our best efforts and intentions, we may never be able to protect our children from their own individual grief journeys. Perhaps the best gift we can offer them is not of stoicism and emotional denial, but one of vulnerability, and self-awareness when it comes to our grief. Depending on our cultures, children may have specific roles to play in our grief journey (e.g., cremation rituals). Respecting and honoring their individuality, while also offering a secure emotional base can be very helpful. While the tips from above can be a good starting point, I encourage you to reach out to a qualified therapist and discuss your experiences in more depth.