It might seem strange at first glance to consider discussions around grief with a child, mostly because we tend to filter a child’s experiences through our now adult perspective. But grief isn’t just an emotion reserved for the death of a loved one or what counts to our adult eyes as major life losses. Children can experience grief when moving to a new school, or when missing family members who live far away. There is no question that they experience complicated feelings of grief and loss when a parent is incarcerated.
Our role as mentor is to be ready to listen to our mentees if they are ready to discuss those feelings of grief. First, we always let the mentee lead the conversation. You may notice in their demeanor or, for example, artwork – that some emotion is coming through in ways not typical for them. You can help your mentee name their feelings by first giving them space to address them: “Seems like you have something big on your mind today, would you like to talk about it?”. Use your active listening skills to validate your mentee’s feelings.
Normalize feeling grief and discussing it. This will help your mentee feel less alone in their feelings. You can do this by trying some different activities to help them process their grief. Younger children might still need help or re-enforcing of identifying and naming their feelings. Older children are likely more capable of collaborating with you on actionable plans, or things they can put to use when feeling sad.
Just like adults, kids will experience grief in their own ways depending on a variety of factors (age, developmental level, relationship to the person or experience they are grieving, etc) and it’s important we remember that your mentee’s journey with grief may look very different than what you expected. That’s okay. The most important thing is reassuring your mentee that their feelings are valid, and you are there for them when – if – they want to process with you.
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Processing Grief with Your Mentee