Hello Moms,
I am sorry for the delay in getting the recap out to you. Dr. Katherine Konzen spoke to us about how to deal with grief. She specializes in teaching other doctors how to break bad news. Studies have shown that the way bad news is broken to family members affect how they deal with the loss and subsequent grief. Grief is a process NOT an event. The grief process is not linear – if we do not allow ourselves to work through the stages of grief – it will be very detrimental to the quality of our lives. We have to walk THROUGH the grief. We can’t go over it, under it or around it – we must walk through the grief. It is crucial that during this process we learn to take care of ourselves and be gentle with ourselves.
I am sorry for the delay in getting the recap out to you. Dr. Katherine Konzen spoke to us about how to deal with grief. She specializes in teaching other doctors how to break bad news. Studies have shown that the way bad news is broken to family members affect how they deal with the loss and subsequent grief. Grief is a process NOT an event. The grief process is not linear – if we do not allow ourselves to work through the stages of grief – it will be very detrimental to the quality of our lives. We have to walk THROUGH the grief. We can’t go over it, under it or around it – we must walk through the grief. It is crucial that during this process we learn to take care of ourselves and be gentle with ourselves.
Dr. Konzen also spoke about the differences between adult vs. child’s grief. They are both similar in the needs to express grief openly, to have grief acknowledged by others and the need for extra support during this. Whereas an adult’s grief is continual – a child’s grief is intermittent, sometimes absent. A child’s understanding of death of death is limited to age and cognitive development. A child depends on a consistent caregiver to meet basic needs, an adult’s needs are met by self.
A child’s response to death depends upon the family’s openness of the family environment regarding the loss, a healthy support system, care-givers willingness to acknowledge and role-model grieving and ultimately the family’s ability to accept the child’s way of grieving.
Jesse Wright
Jesse Wright
