For children who have experienced loss and grief, the holidays, with all of the expectations to be merry and bright, can be an especially difficult time.
There are many challenges that grieving children experience, in addition to their loss. Grieving children are often treated differently than grieving adults, and they often don’t have the words to express how they are feeling.
For children who have lost a loved one, facing a holiday, or holiday season, without the person they have lost, is devastating. It is harder still for little ones who don’t have the words to express how they are feeling.
Some families experiencing loss may not be able to celebrate a holiday the way they did before their loved one died. Parents may be struggling with their own grief and/or financial difficulties. Family celebrations, decorating, and rituals may not occur, or if they do, they may bring up painful reminders and memories of the loss.
Grieving children may have no interest in being at holiday parties or around other kids eagerly awaiting Santa. It leaves them feeling even more isolated and out of touch with the season.
Grieving kids need to be able to talk openly about their loved one. Children need to know that grief will ebb and flow, and they will process the grief multiple times and ways over their lifetime. Their grief will never leave, but they will learn to honor it, and their loved one, and build a life around it.
Children experience grief differently than adults. They may still want to play, act silly, and be a kid. But when they do these normal “kid” things, people often assume they they are no longer grieving, they think the child “has gotten over it.” This is not only wrong, it’s detrimental to the child’s emotional well-being, and it’s hurtful, because like adults, kids don’t “get over” the loss of someone they loved.
Children, like adults, will process the loss over and over again, all throughout their lives. In time, the sadness and loss will become something they don’t drown in because they will have learned, by grieving, how to swim.
One way to help kids to navigate the ocean of grief is to teach them how to meditate. Meditation gives children a safe space to process grief in their own way, in their own time, and without judgment.
Meditation is simply focusing attention on something, for a period of time, without judgment. It is the “without judgment” part that is such an important part of meditation and very important for a child who is grieving.
When a child is grieving, they need to be allowed, and encouraged, to express all of their emotions, without judgment. Grief isn’t pleasant. It hurts. It can make you feel sick mentally and physically, and it is something most people would rather avoid than deal with, especially children.
When a child (or adult) doesn’t run from the feelings, or bury them, they are able to process them in the way that is right and healing for them. One of the most beautiful things about meditation is that it teaches and encourages you to love and honor your body and mind, and every thing that you think and feel.
Meditation for kids with grief allows for the acknowledgement of big emotions, the hurt and the pain, and the acceptance and release of them in ways that are comforting and healing.
A large part of a meditation practice is one of compassion and self-love. That self-love is for all parts of you, especially the parts that are sad and scared and in need of care and comfort. When you care for and comfort all parts yourself, the mind and body relax. When you feel connected to yourself, and the world around you, you can feel less alone.
In addition to compassion and self-love, meditation gives those grieving a safe space to feel their feelings without feeling overwhelmed by them. When you meditate, you are in the present moment, not lost in memories of the past and not projecting yourself into an uncertain future.
In meditation the only thing that matters is the here and now, love and acceptance, and the object of focus. In meditation, the object of focus can be the breath, it can be mindful movement, it can be a soothing smell, a comfort object, a sound or music, or something else the child chooses.
A child may want to designate a quiet, soothing space as their meditation place. In this space they can sit with their feelings, and offer their feelings, and themselves, love and acceptance. They might want to place a hand on their heart, or give themselves a hug, and just acknowledge that this is hard, grief is hard, and they can feel angry, sad, lost, scared, or any other emotion, and it is okay.
Children can offer these big feelings love, and comfort, and just allow them to be there. They may want to cry, they may want to yell, and they may even want to use mindful movement like drumming or jumping on a trampoline, or mindful dance, to move the feelings through their bodies.
By doing this, children often feel a sense of peace, and a sense of release. Again, the goal is not to change anything. The goal is not for the child to “get over” what they are feeling. Rather, the hope is that in acceptance and release of pent up emotions the child will gradually find the strength to cope and, in their own time, feel capable of moving forward in their lives.
Being in the here and now is called grounding. It can be done in many ways, like walking barefoot on the ground or grass, or by simply being in the moment and noticing all of its many sensations. Children can practice grounding outside, feeling the sun on their skin, the wind in their hair, smelling flowers, or noticing the shapes of the clouds in the sky.
There are many ways children can ground themselves indoors, and all involve focusing on the present moment with any and all senses that they choose to use. Here are some examples on how children can ground themselves when they are inside:
To practice grounding indoors, you can focus on your senses by paying attention to what you see, hear, smell, taste, and touch in your immediate environment, while also engaging in techniques like deep breathing, body scans, mindful walking within your space, or using a grounding mat to simulate direct contact with the earth.
Guided and creative visualization meditations allow children to connect with their loved ones in gentle and meaningful ways through their imagination. Guided meditations help children relax their minds and bodies, release tension and anxiety, and then enter a healing mental place with soothing imagery.
In a guided or visualization practice, children will focus on imagining themselves in a calm, peaceful place where they can imagine comforting scenery, sounds, smells and visuals. There are many visualization practices that can benefit children, and often healing imagery is found within nature. This might be in a forest, by a lake, river or an ocean, or perhaps in a special place where they have memories with their loved one.
In this peaceful place they can connect with their loved one, quietly, in contemplation, for connection, guidance, or comfort. They might feel called to connect with their loved one when they see a star in the sky, are under the moon, or feel their presence in the serene landscape of a mountain forest.
⭐️ Tip: Try listening to Turtle and the Shooting Star, a gentle guided meditation story about soothing feelings of grief and loss.
Also known as meditation in motion, active meditations are a wonderful way to help children who would benefit from meditative activities to help them move grief out of their bodies. There are many ways to practice moving, or active meditation, and the focus in these practices is on the ways we move our bodies and our energy to create the movements.
For a child, this might look like meditative dancing, drumming, or drawing/coloring. In such practices they can focus on the ways their body feels as they move in dance, beat their hands on a drum, or the way the crayon or marker feels on the paper.
Another active way to meditate is meditative journaling which encourages a child to write or draw about their thoughts and feelings while in a calm state of meditation. The child might want to listen to gentle music, and follow a prompt to help them process their grief. Meditative journaling offers a variety of benefits for the child including feeling a connection to their loved one by writing them letters or drawing them pictures (even though their loved one isn’t there to read it) helping a child to preserve and keep memories of that individual alive, and, of course, offering a safe, non-judgmental space to process their intense emotions.
Meditation can offer a gentle, powerful way through grief, especially at this time of the year, as grieving children need a quiet space to nurture, accept, and love themselves and their feelings of loss.
