Let Children Grieve
Seeing your child hurting is a wholly abysmal feeling. When any emotional hurt strikes, the impulse to rush at our child’s pain, hoping to quickly make it stop, is normal and understandable. The person we most want to keep happy and safe is feeling unhappy and unsafe. To remain still in this moment may feel impossible, but it’s where healing will begin.
As a Certified Divorce Coach and Co-Parenting Specialist I support parents through the stress of separation and divorce. In doing so, I hope to serve their children as well. The sadness and worry that family changes can inspire in a child are upsetting and complicated for parents to navigate. That said, if approached with room to feel, rather than a rush to fix, the transition through and beyond separation – or any loss – presents opportunities for closeness and trust to thrive between parents and their children.
There is a wealth of material on grieving, loss, trauma, and toxic positivity to support the message I wish to convey here. However, all my training and reading aside, it is a single animated movie scene that addresses my point with exquisite success.
Inside Out, the 2015 Disney Pixar film, is the story of 11 year-old Riley who has been uprooted by a cross-country move. The story is told through the perspective of Riley’s emotions as individual characters – Joy, Fear, Anger, Disgust and Sadness.
Until this major transition, Joy has been perceived as the predominant emotion running “Headquarters,” the control center inside Riley’s mind. However, as Riley struggles to adjust to a new home, school, and city, conflict among her emotions forces Joy to consider the value of Sadness, who she has previously strived to contain and avoid.
Mid-story, Joy and Sadness are wandering through Riley’s mind seeking the “Train of Thought” that can carry them back to Headquarters. They have recently encountered Bing Bong, Riley’s nearly-forgotten imaginary friend. He is guiding Joy and Sadness to the train, but en route his only keepsake from his friendship with Riley is destroyed. Bing Bong flops to seated on the ground, devastated.
Joy rushes to him, “Hey, it’s gonna be okay. We can fix this!” She launches an eager effort to cheer and distract Bing Bong – dancing around him playfully, firing off ideas for moving on and pulling at him to get up. Bing Bong remains slouched, mired in heartache.
The equivalent moment for a parent in real life can too quickly inspire: “We’ll get you a new (fill in lost stuffy name here)”; “We’ll make you the BEST birthday party EVER when the pandemic is over”; “You’ll have two rooms to decorate when you live in two houses!” Those things might be true, and there will be time for them, but in acute heartache there is opportunity in slowing down.
Sadness sits down with Bing Bong, speaking gently, “I’m sorry they took your rocket. They took something that you loved. It’s gone, forever.”
Joy admonishes Sadness, “Don’t make him feel worse!”
Sadness, looking ashamed, apologizes to Joy. It’s dangerously easy to assign shame to sad feelings.
However, Bing Bong, responds to Sadness’ emotional bid, “It’s all I had left of Riley.”
Sadness has acknowledged Bing Bong’s loss and now invites him to say more, “I bet you and Riley had great adventures.”
Bing Bong, becoming more animated responds, “Oh, they were wonderful. Once we flew back in time. We had breakfast twice that day.”
“That sounds amazing. I bet Riley liked it,” responds Sadness.
“Oh, she did. We were best friends.” Bing Bong’s eyes well up and spill tears.
Sadness, touches his arm, “Yeah, it’s sad.”
Bing Bong collapses into Sadness’ embrace. Joy looks on with concern, but soon Bing Bong takes a deep breath and rises to standing, “I’m okay now. Come on, the train station is this way.”
Joy, stunned, asks Sadness, “How did you do that?”
“I don’t know. He was sad, so I listened to what…”
“Hey, there’s the train.” Bing Bong interrupts with a smile from the path ahead.
Sadness allowed Bing Bong to grieve. She held open a space for him to express and honor his loss and there he found the strength to move on. Joy’s approach might alleviate her discomfort, but it misses something crucial to Bing Bong’s healing. Sorrow happens because we were fortunate enough to know joy. Recognizing and acknowledging loss creates gratitude which in turn cultivates further, richer joy. Allowing children to grieve equips them to navigate the joys and sorrows of a vibrant life.
The pandemic has given children a great deal to grieve – cut off from environments and experiences that bolster a sense of self, isolated with limits on social pleasures and celebrations, and a keen awareness of illness and death. Let’s always, and especially now, challenge ourselves to slow down – to heal, foster closeness, and assure our children of our support, and their own resilience, in difficult times.
This piece was also recently published in the book Grief & Fatigue: Families & the Pandemic: Stories of Struggle and Hope. All proceeds from its sale will be donated to support Ukrainian refugees.