Lets Talk about Death and Dying - with Children
Wednesday 8th May
- News
Toni Evans, is a qualified play therapist, who works for Farleigh Hospice’s Yo-Yo Project, a bereavement service for children and young adults ages 4 to 18. Here, she shares valuable insights on supporting children through the grieving process and how using role play can help a child to talk about their experience of grief and feel less alone with their feelings.
“Talking about death and grief is often an emotive subject matter. Adults do not always feel confident in what to say, ask or do when the topic comes up, or indeed when someone has experienced a bereavement. The feelings of grief are often complex and mixed which are hard for the bereaved person to feel, make sense of and express.
Being part of a bereavement group can often help someone grieve as they share their experiences with others or hear some of their own thoughts and feelings expressed by someone else. That feeling of connection when so much has already changed in a person’s world can be incredibly valuable and beneficial.
Understanding how grief can present in children
When a child is experiencing challenging emotions or thoughts, it is often noticed in their behaviour and play. Depending on their developmental stage, children can struggle to connect their body reactions to a named feeling. They may feel different, yet not able to identify that their twitching feet and hands or heart beating faster connects to a worry, fear or anxiety. If they do feel and recognise it, they may not like it and make their own attempts to release the feelings. This is no exception when a child grieves. It is important children hear and witness that it is normal to feel grief once a loved one has died and that it is hard but it is also part of being human.
Supporting children to engage in play to share their experience of grief
We know a child’s natural form of communication is through their play. It is also how they process their life experiences. Through the safety of characters and metaphor children can ask questions, try out their ideas, share their views or check understanding without feeling emotionally exposed.
In a recent group for children in the Yo-yo Project, aged between 9 and 12, once the children had developed a safe relationship with each other in their shared space, they were invited to take it in turns to interview each other about their experience of grief. They were all asked the same questions. They were offered a selection of puppets to use as character to protect and share their voice. Puppets could play the role of the interviewer and also the interviewee. The questions could then be asked and answered in character and with different voices, if they wanted. The children knew they could share as little or as much as felt comfortable as themselves or in character. All the children were keen to play their part, share their own feelings and link it directly to their special person who had died. They interviewed each other, with the aim of their experience being shared/released. Role plays like this help to build healthy pathways in the brain and offer ideas of possibility, hope, resilience and healing.
Talking to children through their chosen characters/toys / themes helps to build connections with safe adults and is a helpful form of release of mixed thoughts and feelings from within their body. Some examples of things to say:
- ‘I wonder how Teddy feels today?’
- 'How may that superhero feel when...'
- Who could they ask to help them?
Or - 'Looks to me like the puppet has a big feeling, could it be scared, sad or worried, do you know what they could be feeling?'.
When a child is able to lead the story/play it can offer insight into how they feel about themselves, which can lead to supportive adult(s) around them gaining some insight in to next steps or support and emotional regulation that would be helpful.
Opening up conversation and giving permission to talk about death and grief helps a child to feel less alone with their mixed feelings. They can understand there is nothing ‘wrong’ with them and grief is a normal human response after a death.”
For more information about Farleigh Hospice’s Bereavement Support Services, please visit: Yo-Yo Project: Support for Children & Young People - Farleigh Hospice
For more information on websites that offer guidance on how to talk to children about grief, please visit:
Supporting bereaved children and young people | Child Bereavement UK
Bereavement support for children and families | Winston's Wish (winstonswish.org)
About Toni Evans
Toni is a qualified play therapist who works for Farleigh Hospice’s Yo-Yo Project, a community bereavement service for children and young adults aged 4 to 18.
For over 14 years, Toni has worked with primary school-aged children who have survived adverse childhood experiences in their young lives. She started her career as a residential key worker before moving to the Essex Adoption Service where she supported children and their families.
Her passion for communicating with and supporting children to express themselves and thrive then motivated her to qualify as a Play Therapist. Once qualified, Toni supported children in primary school before taking her first steps towards charity work.
In her role as a play therapist at Farleigh Hospice, Toni feels privileged to be able to offer a child or young person who has survived their traumatic life event(s) an opportunity to be seen – just as they are, heard with ALL their emotions witnessed and expressed using the power of play and creative therapeutic support.
When working with children and their families, many difficult conversations have been explored with empathy, truth and age appropriate language, to help the child or young person make sense of what has happened within their world. Loss has been a consistent theme throughout Toni’s professional roles.