Children and Grief at School: One Counselors Story

By Julie Taylor

I’ve always dealt with children and grief; after 20 years as a school counselor, I can’t count how many family deaths and personal losses I’ve encountered among the children and communities where I work. But this year is the worst I’ve ever seen.

On Zoom or in the classroom, I see so many sad faces. There are stomachaches, headaches and crying, angry outbursts and withdrawn silences. COVID-19 has really taken its toll.

One creative, social, laughter-loving student has been so full of anxiety that she’s been crying hysterically at home and refusing to go to school. She lost a relative “when she was little,” she told me, and that loss came back with the threat of the coronavirus. She is terrified her mother will die, and is afraid that her desk and school supplies are covered with deadly germs.

Another student feels sad and cries about so many things: He talks to me almost every week trying to sort through it all. It started with his grandmother’s death last year; then his parents divorced and he was adjusting to living in two different homes. This year, he had to give his dog away. And it’s all complicated by pandemic-induced remote learning: He sets up his Zoom station in seven different places, with different family members or at day care.

"She is terrified her mother will die, and is afraid that her desk and school supplies are covered with deadly germs."

Then there is a student who throws school supplies, stomps on classmates’ personal belongings, tries to run out of the classroom, or refuses to leave the room. We know there was a death in his family and one parent is incarcerated, but we don’t know much else. This little one uses our “calming corner” and is so exhausted by his grief that he’s fallen asleep in the beanbag chair there. That’s the hard thing about children and grief. For some, it shows up as sobbing; for others, it’s being withdrawn; and for others, it’s anger and frustration and lashing out.

Grief comes from so many different circumstances. Direct loss is the most obvious, though we educators aren’t always aware that the loss has occurred. It might be a death in the family, or having a parent who’s gone away. Past losses are also resurfacing. Some children are grieving the loss of contact with grandparents or cousins they can no longer see because of quarantining and social distancing measures.

Indirect loss can be less evident. Some children have lost financial security or are experiencing food insecurity. Children also pick up on the news — not just about the pandemic and the numbers of lives lost, but also about violence, racism and political tension — and they overhear adult conversations. They’re taking all that in, especially now that they’re home more.

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Children and Grief at School: How to Help

There’s a lot to unpack when grief is in the room, and with so much of our learning environment limited to a screen now, we’ve had to get even more creative about how to comfort children and give them tools to cope with loss.

As the school counselor, I visit elementary school classrooms from kindergarten through fourth grade and teach lessons on how to handle feelings of sadness. We talk about death, so children have a vocabulary to talk about a topic so many of us usually avoid.

My district was doing in-person school, but it’s shifted to remote learning and we’ve moved those lessons to the computer screen. During our weekly remote lessons, we talk about how things are going, and the children share their experiences and feelings. Then, those who want to stay continue the conversation, and we usually have four or five students in a smaller group. Plenty of children also choose to have one-on-one Zoom calls with me.

"These positive, non-judgmental sessions show the kids that it is OK to share, and they’ll tell me, “It felt good to tell you, Mrs. Taylor.”

Kids who have never talked to me before ask to have “virtual lunch” with me now. I wind up having lunch at all hours of the day — 10:30 a.m., 2:30 p.m., whatever works with their schedules — and right now, my calendar is filled up two or three days out. These positive, supportive sessions show our students that it is OK to share, and they’ll tell me, “It felt good to talk to you, Mrs. Taylor.” At some point in our conversations, I’ll ask if they’d like to share with a parent, and we might role-play to make it easier for them. I might get on a call with them, to support them as they talk to the parent. Or I’ll contact the parent to let them know this conversation is coming.

We sometimes share our grief with classmates as well. I helped one little girl make a memory book about her father, who died last summer. There were a lot of things she didn’t know about him, so we talked to her mom and filled in the blanks. She eventually read the story to her classmates, and we talked about how they might support her. Her mother told me that the cards and pictures they made for her daughter were the most wonderful thing they could have done.

I had lunch every day for two weeks with another child who was feeling extremely anxious, and I’d peek in her classroom door throughout the day, where she’d give me a thumbs-up if she was doing all right. Then we would message her mom at the end of the day with one positive thing that had happened. These sorts of gestures reassured her that she was supported and loved, and she finally got back on track.

"It’s emotionally exhausting. You worry about missing something, and you worry about not being enough."

I’ve learned these techniques over a long career in school counseling, watching great educators and counselors do great things, attending workshops and learning by doing. If COVID-19 had hit 20 years ago, I’m not sure I’d have been equipped to handle it. But even as an experienced professional, I am always learning and growing, and I have leaned on AFT’s training and professional development resources. Whether you are an experienced professional or new to the field, they are invaluable to school counselors and educators alike, introducing all of us to supportive and creative ways to do this work.

It’s still not easy, though. I know I’m not alone in saying that I’ve not been sleeping well, and I can’t seem to shut my mind off. It’s emotionally exhausting. You worry about missing something, and you worry about not being enough. When the day is done, you sit down and sometimes you cry. I know colleagues who have broken down at school, at home, in their cars.

But you stay focused on doing what you have to do. You order carryout instead of cooking, you watch something silly on TV. And you go back the next day to do it all over again.

Julie Taylor is a school counselor for kindergarten through fourth grade in Oregon, Ohio. She is a member of the Oregon City Federation of Teachers.

Check out the AFT’s free webinar on supporting students with grief on-demand.

Republished with permission from AFT Voices.