How do you, as an adult, deal with the complex feelings of children who have experienced a loss of a loved one?

The feelings that grief brings can be stressful for adults, but for children, those feelings can be that and even frightening. Professionals who have worked with bereaved children can shed some light on these feelings.

The following are some suggestions you might find helpful. When someone special has died, even adults may have a hard time expressing how they feel. That's why it is important to take time to listen to your children, and talk about how you both feel.

Each of you, even Moms and Dads, may feel that no one has ever felt this way before, and you may feel that you will never be the same again. It takes a long time to stop missing a loved one who has died.

Sometimes it is helpful to hold an article that had belonged to the one who died. Perhaps the deceased had a favorite hat, shirt or sweater, or piece of jewelry. Holding the article can help the hole in our hearts seem smaller.

When one parent dies, children see that the remaining parent is heartbroken. We must tell our children that it's alright to cry; sometimes the tears can help wash the hurt away. A parent's heart needs healing too.

Each of us handles sadness in our own special way. Not everyone cries. Some people like to be alone to get in touch with our feelings. Some of us like to go for a walk, jog or workout doing our favorite exercise when we feel especially sad.

Children may even feel threatened when a parent dies. They may feel that if the remaining parent should die, they would be totally alone. Therefore, we must reassure our children that there would be "someone" to love and care for them if you were not there for them. Who would that "someone" be?

Outside of your immediate family there may be a special friend who will listen: someone we can share our feelings with.

But sometimes your closest friends may have a hard time talking about your loss. They do care, they just may not know the proper words to use. That's when a warm hug will help.

Remembering is a way our loved one will continue to live with us. No one will ever be able to erase wonderful memories and love from our minds and hearts. In that way love and our special feelings can never die.

If you have a minister, priest, or rabbi, he or she can talk about a life that changes to a new life in a better place. This new life is not unlike the different stages of life a butterfly or dragonfly enters.

Think about the butterfly's different stages of development.

When a dragonfly is in the pupa stage, it lives under water. When it matures, it hatches, enters the air, and becomes one of nature's most perfect flyers. None of the other pupae still living under water can see the perfect flyer until the day it, too, will hatch and join the other dragonflies in the air. Perhaps the wonder of Heaven is like that.
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