Sharing the grief of losing a parent during childhood

This coaching group is for those of us who lost a parent to death during our childhood and most likely never received adequate assistance in processing the loss.  This group offers an opportunity to talk through the experience and its emotional effects along with others with similar experiences.

Did You Know: 

• Approximately 6% of children will experience the death of a parent by age 16
• After 2 years, bereaved children tend to show higher levels of social withdrawal, social difficulties and anxiety, and low self-esteem
• For 20% of them, these levels indicate the need for professional help
• Adults who have lost a parent in childhood are almost four times more likelY to experience severe depression.

​Years ago, when a parent died, the surviving children were often cared for by adults who were themselves caught up in grief, and were either uncomfortable talking with them or emotionally unable to do so.

Children were seen by well-meaning caretakers as needing to be protected from life's harshest realities: visiting a dying parent, attending wakes and funerals, viewing the bodies of their deceased parents, etc.

It was easy to interpret a child's silence about his or her loss, or the lack of emotional/behavioral symptoms, as healthy adjustment. Therefore, the surviving parent, or other caretakers, would assume the child did not need any special assistance or treatment, and were unlikely to offer it