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White Paper providing an overview of the Drink Up! initiative by the Partnership for a Healthier America. For this project, I copyedited the paper and designed the layout.

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While at the Partnership for a Healthier America, I produced and delivered a monthly newsletter to our approximately 50,000 strong email list.

This article was originally published here.

August 19, 2019

In times of great personal loss, it is common for parents and caregivers to need to play two roles, both griever of their own loss and supporter of their child’s loss. In fact, as a child and family therapist at the Wendt Center, Stephanie Handel typically meets with the parents or caregivers first before beginning therapy with their child. She explains it is important that parents and caregivers “are always given their own space to fully acknowledge the depth of the loss… this gives the moment for me as a therapist to invite that parent to express their feelings, their thoughts, their experiences, their relationship with the person who died.”

In these sessions, parents and caregivers often share their concerns. Very often, they struggle to conceal their own grief from their child. However, Handel assures parents and caregivers that children, regardless of age, will always worry about a grieving parent. Instead of simply establishing a barricade between your child and your emotions, here are three things to keep in mind that will help you to balance the demands of grief and parenting.

1. Share your grief with your child in an age-appropriate way.

Emotions related to grief often come on us unexpectedly. We might be cleaning the kitchen one moment and huddled at the table sobbing the next. Parents and caregivers need the space to explore their own emotions and small children often have big eyes and ears. Because of grief, your child may see you in emotional pain for the first time in their lives. They may notice your behavior has changed. At any age, change is scary, but children may especially experience anxiety related to perceived differences in the household dynamic.

Remember though that children also look to the adults in their lives to model behavior, including in times of grief. It is important to talk to your child in an age-appropriate way about your grief, and reassure them that you can still take care of them and provide for their needs.

You might say, “I may look sad, but I can still get you dinner and get you to school on time and make sure our family does things together. However, I want you to know that you’re seeing me express these emotions because the death has really affected me.” Keep in mind, as parent or caregiver, your job is to take care of your child. Sharing your emotions openly and honestly with your child is important but should never put your child in a position where they feel like they have to take care of you. Even if your child seems especially mature for their age, they are still hearing you from the vantage point of very limited life experience. Because of this, Handel recommends aiming for communicating the broad themes about your grief.

Don’t worry: children are excellent at communicating their needs, including their need for more information. When your child feels ready to absorb more information, they will often come to you with questions. Know that, if you give them the space to do so, children will almost always advocate for their own needs, either verbally or through their behavior.

2. Maintain connections with other supportive adults.

It is important for parents and caregivers to maintain connections to supportive adults, whether that means staying involved with a community of worship, other family members, or seeking out a licensed professional counselor, like the staff at the Wendt Center. It is always valuable to stay connected when grieving.

When grieving and parenting, it is often inappropriate to share the full depth of your grief with your child. Grieving often requires unpacking a variety of complex emotions about our relationship to the deceased. Children typically do not know all aspects of the adults’ relationship, nor should they. Your child is grieving based on their own relationship with the deceased. Maintaining a connection to other supportive adults is one way a parent or caregiver can still discuss their relationship in its complex fullness while allowing space for their child to grieve in their own way.

3. Find ways in your daily life to move in and out of intense emotion.

There is no timeline or schedule for grief. You can think of grief like a wave that suddenly crashes against the shore, recedes, and then crashes again. Emotions can rise up unexpectedly and they can be overwhelming. The demands of caring for a child means you can’t only live in the throes of your own grief. Sometimes you need to think clearly enough that you can make decisions that are in the best interest of your child. However, you also need to practice self-care. When grieving and parenting simultaneously, it is important to make space for your own grief. That could mean ensuring you have some quiet minutes each day to cry or write in a journal or hold a conversation with your loved one who has died. “When you are grieving and really mindfully taking care of someone else who is also actively grieving, you have to find these sacred spaces that are very contained, individual, and personal so you can have your grief and then you can shift,” Handel says. The key is not to pretend your own grief doesn’t exist, but to carve out space in your life to explore it in its fullness.

Subject line: Get ready for Do More 24. Become a Wendt Center ambassador!

Do you believe in the Wendt Center's work to rekindle hope and rebuild lives? Do you share our vision of a world in which no one should have to face grief or trauma alone? The Wendt Center for Loss and Healing is thrilled to announce our participation in Do More 24 2019. We are honored to invite you to serve as a Wendt Center Do More 24 Ambassador.

What is Do More 24?

Do More 24 is the DMV's largest annual 24-hour online fundraiser, powered by United Way of the National Capital Area. It's a competition between hundreds of local nonprofits to see whose supporters will show them the most love and raise the most money!

When is Do More 24?

Do More 24 will be held on Wednesday, May 22, 2019 at 12:00 noon and continuing until 11:59 am on Thursday, May 23.

What is a Do More 24 Ambassador?

A Do More 24 Ambassador is a vital role, in which you reach out to your friends, family, colleagues, and whole social network to tell them about the great work of the Wendt Center and invite them to donate to the Wendt Center during the day of Do More 24. As a Do More 24 Ambassador, you will receive your own fundraising page where you can direct your donorsnot to mention our profound and heartfelt gratitude. 

What is the Wendt Center raising money for this year?

Crisis Response.

When grief and trauma unexpectedly visit our schools, offices, places of worship, and communities, it often feels like time has stopped. What was normal now feels all wrong somehow and you wonder if life will ever start back up again. Where do you turn after experiencing life’s worst moments?

The Wendt Center is the DC Metro Area’s premier resource for helping people heal from grief and trauma. When an unexpected crisis happens—an act of violence, sexual assault, or the death of a student, colleague, or community member—local organizations and governmental agencies call on us to provide immediate, on-site mental health support. Our highly trained staff provides individual and/or group support, including psychoeducation, talk therapy, and guidance on how to support your students, colleagues, or other community members. Our unique mix of expertise, compassion, and commitment to healing enables organizations throughout the region to recover from the unimaginable.

In order to fund our crisis response work in the past, we’ve needed to pull resources away from other areas of our mission. Mobilizing our expert staff on a moment’s notice is expensive—and—as the Wendt Center grows, the demand for our crisis response services grows along with it. It is unthinkable to turn people away because we simply don’t have the resources to respond. The DC Metro Area deserves a well-funded corps of mental health experts who can provide on-site support during the gravest of situations. You and your community deserve a world where support is always available and healing can always happen.

We are so grateful and honored that you would join us in this critical journey.