Grief and loss and children: a guide for caregivers and educators

Loss and the accompanying grief that children experience in childhood is a real and problematic concern for the healthy development of children. Often times, children's grief experiences are overlooked or minimized because adults don't want to draw attention to it for fear of making it worse. This project was undertaken to demonstrate the need to address this issue. I researched the impact of leaving issues of grief and loss unresolved in childhood, and the impact that this has on subsequent development. I also examined therapeutic practice that has positive outcomes for children and combined those into a series of lessons. These lessons are crafted to work within the current BC education curriculum and can be incorporated into one on one, small group or the classroom setting, with therapeutic approaches and techniques designed to support both the grieving child and those caring adults and peers who want to help in a time of loss. --Leaf i.