Episode 10. Helping Children Grieve a Loss of a Parent with Dr. Ceri Savage de Lifsitz, Consultant Clinical Psychologist

Season #1 November 05, 2024

Are you a grieving widow struggling to support your children through loss? This episode is for you. Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz, a consultant clinical psychologist specialising in child development, joins us to explore how children grieve and how you can help them navigate this difficult journey.

Learn about:
- How children's grief differs from adults'
- Age-appropriate ways to discuss death and loss
- The power of play and storytelling in processing grief
- Balancing grief and life for both you and your children
- Creating meaningful rituals to honour your lost loved one
- Handling setbacks and regressions in your child's grief journey

Dr Savage de Lifsitz offers compassionate insights and practical advice to help you support your children while managing your own grief. Discover how to create a safe space for open conversations, embrace life alongside loss, and foster resilience in your family.

Resources for Grieving Families:

1. Winston's Wish: UK charity offering support for bereaved children and young people. http://www.winstonswish.org

2. The Ruth Foundation: Provides grief support services for children, teens, and families. http://www.ruthfoundation.com

3. Grief Encounter: Helps bereaved children and their families rebuild their lives. http://www.griefencounter.org.uk

4. Child Bereavement UK: Supports families when a child grieves or when a child dies. http://www.childbereavementuk.org

5. The Dougy Center: Provides support groups and resources for grieving children and families. http://www.dougy.org

Guest Bio:
Dr. Ceri Savage de Lifsitz is a clinical psychologist who has worked for many years with children, families, carers and parents and other professionals who also work with chindren. Her first interest was developmental psychology, initially in academic research, then as a clinician, and the fascination has remained throughout her career. As we develop, humans are a mass of interactions, which somehow unfold over time. Ceri applies psychology to explore how this works. Ceri is also a parent herself.

You can connect with Ceri via Linked in.

Episode Transcript

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Full Transcript\
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[00:00:07] Dr Monika Wieliczko: Welcome to a guide to afterlife, your go to podcast for the young and widowed.\
[00:00:12] Dr Monika Wieliczko: This is your weekly space to help you live through grief.\
[00:00:15] Dr Monika Wieliczko: I'm your host, doctor Monica Velichko, psychologist and your fellow widow.\
[00:00:20] Dr Monika Wieliczko: I'm bringing psychological skills to boost your resilience and help you make room for life while you grieve.\
[00:00:25] Dr Monika Wieliczko: Listen in to insightful conversations with grief experts and those touched by a profound loss.\
\
[00:00:31] Dr Monika Wieliczko: Together, we challenge the way people think about grief, offering hope of life after loss.\
[00:00:37] Dr Monika Wieliczko: Expect honest stories of loss and creative ways to overcome grief challenges.\
[00:00:42] Dr Monika Wieliczko: We tackle common widowhood issues such as relationships, parenting, dating, and social isolation.\
[00:00:50] Dr Monika Wieliczko: Each episode gives you access to hand picked resources and tips on difficult emotions, upsetting symptoms, where to seek support, and how to help children grieve.\
[00:01:00] Dr Monika Wieliczko: Join the conversation and become a part of the grief evolution.\
[00:01:06] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: With me today is doctor Ceri Savage Lifsitz, a consultant clinical psychologist.\
[00:01:15] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: I'm hoping that today's conversation is gonna be interesting to all of you who have children and are currently grieving a loss of life partner.\
[00:01:26] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: So welcome, Ceri.\
[00:01:27] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: I will let you introduce yourself and few and say a few things about yourself.\
\
[00:01:32] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: Thank you very much.\
[00:01:33] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: It's good to be here.\
[00:01:35] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: So, yeah, I'm Kerry, and I specialize in working with children, young people, parents, families, carers, all the adult who have a role with children and, close an intimate role.\
[00:01:49] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: And I could say I could include myself in that as well because I'm also talking today as a parent myself.\
[00:01:56] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: And, you know, I can remember being a child, but there's some things that it's harder to recall as an adult.\
[00:02:03] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: I find, like, sometimes I talk to my own children.\
[00:02:05] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: Oh, I can remember this and I can remember that.\
[00:02:07] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: They love that.\
[00:02:07] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: It's fascinating for them.\
[00:02:09] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: But I I also acknowledge that with my now adult brain and mind, you know, I kind of really there's some things I have to make more of an effort to remember, Like, when you are playing as a child and it's totally immersive and you're just in that world, you kind of know you're playing, but you're really immersed, imaginative play.\
[00:02:27] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: And you can get it so easily.\
[00:02:29] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: Don't know if others remember what that's like, probably.\
[00:02:31] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: It just comes.\
[00:02:32] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: It just arises.\
[00:02:34] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: Or, you know, when you thought the adults around you were kinda really inexplicable because they needed a moment.\
[00:02:41] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: I'll just have this cup of coffee and sit down after dinner, you know.\
[00:02:44] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: Oh, I can't run around yet.\
[00:02:45] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: And I remember distinctly just being to, like, you know, leap up and just go do some assaults or whatever on the climbing frame.\
[00:02:53] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: You know?\
[00:02:54] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: And there's this sort of lightness as a child, a lightness of step that's hard to capture after a certain age.\
[00:03:01] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: Maybe not impossible in some ways, I like to think, but,\
[00:03:04] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: you know,\
[00:03:04] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: it gets trickier.\
[00:03:06] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: So I've spent quite a bit of time in my life, in research and in clinical practice and in everyday life, actually, as well, trying to explore and understand and in my own small way, contribute to explaining human development, which fascinates me.\
[00:03:26] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: I've still been doing that here in the UK where I was born and in Argentina in South America, which is my husband's country.\
[00:03:32] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: My children were born there.\
[00:03:34] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: Sort of adopted, I feel like I belong there too now.\
[00:03:37] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: So, yeah, in this conversation, I think I'm I'm gonna be kind of homey, you know, to draw on the personal and the professional together, hopefully.\
[00:03:46] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: So thank you.\
\
[00:03:48] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: Well, it's wonderful to have you here, Ceri, and all that breadth of knowledge, as you say, in bringing the both professional and personal side.\
[00:03:59] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: And I think it's unavoidable when it comes to children and working with children in particular, not to bring that more, human side of you and having that kind of more playful approach, which I'm hoping that that will be also part of our conversation today, how to use play, how to utilize play, and, when it comes to grief and and loss.\
[00:04:24] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: And then even though it's obviously a very difficult and in some ways Ceri challenging area thinking about loss and grief, especially when we're thinking about it in the context of a parental loss, so when the child loses a parent especially in the context of a family where, a mother or father, is losing a spouse and and then then leaving the children under Ceri of just 1 1 parent.\
[00:04:55] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: So solo parenting in a way, we we we could call it, but in a much more usually in a quite traumatic context of of either sudden loss or complicated grieving experience.\
[00:05:07] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: So I was really excited to get you on the board and talk about all those very complicated aspects, partially because there were so many people in social groups, on Facebook in particular, that were asking about any information, anything that could help them talk to children or help facilitate the bereavement for them and and to help us think together about what what to do, how to manage this very difficult and challenging period.\
[00:05:40] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: So so I I think my first question to you, Kerry, is is about, I suppose, thinking what goes on in a child's mind when their parents die.\
[00:05:53] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: And I think it's it's I think it's very difficult to imagine for an adult, like you said yourself, you know, what what was it like being a child?\
[00:06:01] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: But but I really want to kind of have that space to think about what what goes on in child's mind and what we should be thinking about when we think about death and loss and how do they understand loss in in in particular.\
\
[00:06:17] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: Yeah.\
[00:06:17] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: Absolutely.\
[00:06:18] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: I mean, I guess the first thought I have is that, that sort of class, I suppose, even before thinking about their age and what they can, you know, get their head around as a concept, I'm just thinking, I guess, no matter how young much you know about children and childhood and humans, how much time you've spent, I guess my starting place is that we don't quite know what's going on in there.\
[00:06:41] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: And so, you know, there are some kind of thoughts and clues and maybe some advice that could be given.\
[00:06:46] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: But I think I just wanted to acknowledge that that that's that's universal.\
[00:06:50] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: That's that's quite okay.\
[00:06:52] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: Like, we I would feel a bit unsure.\
[00:06:54] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: And I think in some ways, that's quite a good starting place because perhaps going in with a fairly open mind, curious, wondering, I wonder what is in my child's mind.\
[00:07:06] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: I wonder what is in the child that I'm looking after in their in their mind right now.\
[00:07:11] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: Because I guess 1 of the most important tasks, I think, in the whole of parenting actually, but, you know, never more so perhaps than a particularly intense and acute moment of our human experience is, you know, we don't always quite know what's in our own minds in childhood and adulthood fairly often.\
[00:07:30] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: And so I guess 1 of those tasks is to help that child figure that out in a way.\
[00:07:37] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: I think that adult who's looking after a child is the helper in exploring that and figuring it out and and approaching that that puzzle openly.\
[00:07:48] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: So you're gonna be kind of partners in that task.\
[00:07:52] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: You're looking to be perhaps a wise and guiding partner, but like any wise and guiding partner knows, you don't know everything.\
[00:07:59] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: And so it's gonna be a shared journey, and you're looking for signs.\
[00:08:03] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: You know, that says, I think that, there's a couple of other things that come straight to my mind.\
[00:08:10] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: 1 is about I wanted to say this is perhaps a bit different from adults.\
[00:08:14] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: So I think it's not entirely different.\
[00:08:15] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: It's not the opposite.\
[00:08:16] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: But, you know, when you're trying to digest and take in and integrate into your life in your mind something is enormous, really, of death, which however much you know about.\
[00:08:32] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: You know, the magnitude of that change is quite it's it's it's hard for an adult to absorb, really.\
[00:08:38] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: And I think we go back to it.\
[00:08:39] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: We absorb and we reabsorb and we reabsorb later, and then we we kind of have another look at it perhaps later on when something crops up, maybe years later.\
[00:08:48] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: So it's kind of ebb and flow.\
[00:08:50] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: Feels a bit like the tide coming in, as you kind of try to integrate that into how you see the world.\
[00:08:56] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: And there may always be some questions and, and some wondering.\
[00:09:00] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: None of us has the absolute answer, I don't think.\
[00:09:03] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: But that's okay.\
[00:09:05] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: That's okay as a process.\
[00:09:07] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: I think maybe what's different with children is that they can, in some ways, step out of it in a way that seems a bit incredible for adults.\
[00:09:18] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: Perhaps as an adult grieving at the same time in the process, you might maybe find that you cannot share a little smile, with some sadness still in the background.\
[00:09:28] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: You know, you can start to rediscover little bits of light, little chinks of joy.\
[00:09:33] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: But for children, sometimes they can lose themselves in the moment at the same stage, you know, the same moment of grieving, the same point in the journey as an adult would find that hard to do.\
[00:09:43] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: I think they can kind of fluctuate in and out of states more deeply, a bit like that immersive play.\
\
[00:09:49] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: I think that's really interesting what you're saying because it it immediately makes me think about the brain flexibility in children and how quickly, how much more robust their minds are in terms of, you know, that kind of coming and going out of those states, you know.\
[00:10:05] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: So what you're saying is it can be quite perhaps puzzling for an adult to see that the child's like, oh, is the child grieving if they're playing and having loads of fun or maybe, but appearing as if they're not really grieving or, you know, I wonder you know, that that is really interesting, actually, from the perspective of a parent observing and and what we're seeing or what we're not registering in our child and how that can kind of can come across in different ways at different times and that coming and going, which is a natural process of grief, actually.\
[00:10:40] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: Adults should I mean, healthy grieving involves that as well.\
[00:10:45] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: But it's you're saying that that that's a bit easier for a child in some ways.\
[00:10:49] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: Yeah.\
[00:10:50] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: And I think it can feel a bit puzzling for adults because it's a bit you know, can seem different, and it's almost as if they've forgotten in moments.\
[00:10:58] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: And then in other moments, it they might be kind of filled with anguish as if it cracks open and spills out and you know?\
[00:11:05] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: So I think that, you know, they haven't forgotten them momentarily in a different state, and it'll be there.\
[00:11:10] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: But that's maybe a bit of a different but then that brings me on to the other question.\
[00:11:14] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: Right?\
[00:11:14] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: You know, obviously, there's lots of different ages and, you know, you'll be familiar as well, Monica, about in psychology, we often talk about chronological age and developmental age.\
[00:11:24] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: You know?\
[00:11:24] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: I think that there's some relevance to both those concepts.\
[00:11:28] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: So your chronological age is the time that you've been alive, you know, if you count your birthdays and, you know, I'm 47, for example.\
[00:11:35] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: I'm like chronological chronological age.\
[00:11:37] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: And then in childhood, you know, you've got your developmental age as well.\
[00:11:41] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: And that doesn't necessarily mean across the board, you might kind of I don't know.\
[00:11:45] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: You might be a 9 year old who's kind of reading every book about and teacher might say, you know, crikey.\
[00:11:51] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: This child's reading at Ceri reading age of a 12 year old, let's say, and that's meaning, you know, the majority there's so much variation, isn't there, across as you develop.\
[00:11:59] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: But, you know, the majority of 12 year olds could be expected to be reading about this level or that you've got there sooner.\
[00:12:05] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: And yet there may be other things that are, you know, about the majority of 9 year olds are a bit younger.\
[00:12:11] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: And so I think there are moments in childhood, particularly maybe in adolescence, young know, teenagers.\
[00:12:17] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: It it it feels like the teenage years are quite characterized by this.\
[00:12:20] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: Again, some fluctuation where you can, you know, at moments, seem kind of really mature, older than years perhaps, and then or then other moments seem to kind of become quite little again.\
\
[00:12:33] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: And so we can sort of wibble oscillate back and forth.\
[00:12:37] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: We can move in different situations, context, moments.\
[00:12:41] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: But by and large, yes, that said, there will be some differences over time.\
[00:12:46] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: So, you know, if you think about, like, a really young child, you might have children who are pre verbal.\
[00:12:51] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: They can't put their thoughts into language or very primitive language or even when they're a little bit older and they are starting to talk.\
[00:12:57] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: They don't have the words for all the things that perhaps they want to ask or say or that they're feeling.\
[00:13:03] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: So there's different kinds of communication that might go on there.\
[00:13:06] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: And often children can understand your language.\
[00:13:09] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: That's a bit ahead of where they can actually use the words themselves.\
[00:13:13] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: So you might find that any way you could be talking to them in soothing ways that could be helped or feeling ways that might think, I wonder if they're picking up on all of this.\
[00:13:22] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: But I think, again, that could be that You know?\
[00:13:24] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: Grief verbal aids.\
[00:13:25] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: So de would say, well, depending on which point they'd start developing language.\
[00:13:29] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: But even even when they're just developing language that they might not necessarily understand certain words or even remember in a kind of in a way that we think about memory, as a kind of like a flashcard in your mind or or a postcard or some kind of like a phrase or a smell or something like that, but it doesn't really register the brain doesn't register it this way.\
[00:13:55] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: So, the grief and the loss will be registered\
[00:13:59] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: differently in\
[00:14:01] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: in a small baby or a child that doesn't really have those memories.\
[00:14:06] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: It doesn't mean that they're not grief, but perhaps I wonder whether sometimes it's something about the absence Yes.\
[00:14:12] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: Something rather than the presence of something.\
[00:14:15] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: Absolutely.\
[00:14:16] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: And it's really thought provoking how you reflect on that actually because I think that when I think about what parents or carers or families or grandparents, you know, have said to me when they have you know, when they're worried or they're thinking about their child in moments of grief or change and loss, you know, some of the time, they're perhaps worrying, about how profound the impact may be and how contraumatic Monika, I guess, what the impact could be across their left rest of their life.\
[00:14:47] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: I'm talking about Ceri young perhaps babies, infants, toddlers.\
[00:14:51] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: And perhaps people thinking, well, maybe they're shielded by how young they are because they're oblivious perhaps to a degree.\
[00:14:59] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: And I think often there's a worry about, well, could it be even more because they're young or could it actually be less because they're young?\
[00:15:05] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: You know?\
[00:15:06] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: And I think that's to do with us having different ways to talk about these things and it being quite tricky to know.\
[00:15:13] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: And I think at that early stage of life, a lot can go on.\
[00:15:17] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: And there'll be an effect, and it widow be hard to know quite what it is at the time.\
[00:15:22] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: And it's something that's not just going to happen then and then can continue, you know, through the rest of, like, it's sort of as if the course was set then and just stayed, you know, kind of like a like a line directing them through their life.\
[00:15:34] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: It's gonna be something that you'll revisit many times and will need to be kind of learned and discovered new as they make sense of it.\
[00:15:42] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: 2 things come to mind just now about the kind of, you know, the concept behind the words, the word death, maybe their first experience of a significant death, and maybe an early Savage.\
[00:15:55] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: And this could apply young to kind of across childhood and to an extent into adulthood.\
[00:15:59] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: You're building up this tricky concept of something really permanent which hard especially the younger you go to understand.\
[00:16:09] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: And even if you say you have a child who is able to work in words in that way, explain, you know, mommy's not coming back or daddy's not coming back or, you know, a significant person.\
\
[00:16:20] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: And they may seem to understand that in words and yet it might be a little later on, maybe even the same day or next week, then they're asking a question that seems so every day and and just really poignantly, perhaps painfully for the adult, just kind of daily life like, oh, when is daddy coming home?\
[00:16:42] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: And, oh, where is he?\
[00:16:44] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: And widow we do this with daddy this year?\
[00:16:46] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: As if they're, again, present about the absence and the present.\
[00:16:50] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: It's take I think that's where it can be really quite effortful as the adult who's caring for that child because you need to sustain and revisit your pain as you remind them many times.\
[00:17:04] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: Not necessarily because they've forgotten that their memories will work differently, but because you only really learn what something long term or permanent is over time, and they've not been around that long.\
[00:17:17] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: Yes.\
[00:17:17] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: And that permanence, I think, it's such a crucial element in grief, I think, for adults as well because you can only understand that someone is not coming back when enough time has passed and that permanence has taken place.\
[00:17:33] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: So I think it is as you're saying, there's the developmental element of children just not understanding the concept of time in the same way as adults de.\
[00:17:43] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: But there's also an element of grief that you cannot preempty the experience.\
[00:17:49] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: It's not even it's not an a cognitive skill.\
[00:17:52] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: I think it's almost a lived experience thing, if I could call it this way.\
[00:17:58] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: Like, you have to live through it in order to register that something has taken place because it's only through absence of something long enough that we almost, like, learn to readjust to the new reality of someone not being there.\
[00:18:14] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: So that's reconstructing reality by asking this question because what they're, like, trying to That's what you're saying.\
[00:18:26] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: What they're doing is they are trying to work it out in their minds.\
[00:18:31] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: What does it mean that someone's gone?\
[00:18:33] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: And that means that they won't be here for dinner, they won't be coming back for a birthday, they're not going on holiday, that all these things, it's it's an attempt to work out what has happened and the the permanence of the experience which must be incredibly difficult for a parent who's staying with the child to be reminded of that and in some ways, you know, having to work through it with the child.\
[00:19:02] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: Because I I really liked what you said at the beginning about being curious.\
[00:19:07] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: And that curiosity, sometimes it's being shut down, I think, in us adults, and I wonder how much children can actually help to facilitate some of that normal grieving process.\
[00:19:18] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: I don't know.\
[00:19:18] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: Just just a thought that occurred to me that there's something obviously very difficult but also incredibly valuable to have that mind that is trying to speak up about whatever comes to their mind if they obviously can sort of can talk.\
\
[00:19:34] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: Because if we're thinking about younger children, they might not be at that stage just yet.\
[00:19:38] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: But I think that's really interesting what you just said about that that kind of working things out by having a conversation, by asking questions, by being curious.\
[00:19:49] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: That\
[00:19:50] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: is great.\
[00:19:50] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: And I think I think it is really hard because you're exposed to it again each time it comes up.\
[00:19:55] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: And as a parent, and I think, you need to approach it with that open mind and an open heart as well, which is valuable.\
[00:20:03] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: Like like you were saying, I think that in connecting, sometimes you can feel distant from each other, but, you know, overall widow your open heart, it'll be connecting you.\
[00:20:12] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: But, you know, it's exposing and vulnerable and raw, and I think that for that to crop up repeatedly in everyday life and you can have all sorts of feelings towards it.\
[00:20:20] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: You know, you may at times feel a bit frustrated or it's we've been through this so many times.\
[00:20:26] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: Or or you might sort of think maybe I'm not explaining well or is there a problem that they're not understanding still or, you know, or sometimes you might be touched or charmed by that, just the childlikeness of it, you know, as a child and the the quest to understand that there's lots of different feelings that you might get and and that part of your role and the wisdom of it.\
[00:20:48] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: And, you know, I was reflecting this morning as I knew we were gonna talk and I was thinking, do you know what?\
[00:20:53] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: As a parent, I need to be reminded of, remind myself of, is that actually with all of what you're trying to do, you know, you'll have things that you see as slip up.\
[00:21:03] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: You know, perhaps you'll not be quite as open minded or open hearted as you wanted to have been ideally.\
[00:21:08] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: You know, you all the time all the time in everyday life, you're trying to live and survive, get by, and do best you can, give the best of yourself.\
[00:21:17] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: And then you're also grieving.\
[00:21:21] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: It's impossible for me to imagine that there won't be moments when you'll think, you know, it's a bit short or perhaps I wasn't available enough.\
[00:21:27] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: Well, I think a lot of this is about balance because you're trying to strike a balance there or find a balance between, you know, letting your child know that you can be influenced by them.\
[00:21:36] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: You don't wanna look, you know, immovable or detached.\
[00:21:39] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: It's okay for them to see.\
[00:21:41] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: Perhaps your eyes do feel good tears at these poignant moment.\
[00:21:44] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: Oh, no.\
[00:21:46] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: Daddy won't come on holiday this year.\
[00:21:48] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: You know, it's entirely natural, you know, to well up or not well up as such as is your way.\
[00:21:53] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: You know?\
[00:21:54] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: And there can be something, I think, safe, comforting, reassuring for a child to know they're accompanied and actually, yeah, it's hard for for mommy as well or I don't wanna only talk in terms of mommy or daddy, you know, daddy, as well.\
[00:22:09] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: I might have a moment of intense anguish perhaps.\
[00:22:11] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: I might have a cry.\
[00:22:13] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: That's my child might be the comforter for a moment, and there's nothing wrong with that.\
[00:22:16] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: It doesn't mean you're making them into the adult.\
[00:22:18] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: You know, it can be a really important part of the journey as well.\
[00:22:22] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: Or III can influence I can look after this adult who cares for me, but they'll feel safe if the balance is there, I think.\
[00:22:30] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: They recover.\
[00:22:31] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: They come back to me.\
[00:22:32] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: They acknowledge it.\
[00:22:33] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: Yeah.\
[00:22:33] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: It got me there too, actually.\
[00:22:35] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: It hurt for a bit, but we'll be alright.\
[00:22:37] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: I'm with you.\
\
[00:22:39] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: Yeah.\
[00:22:39] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: And so were you saying, I suppose, is that actually displaying sadness and tears can be quite a cathartic experience for the parent and the child.\
[00:22:51] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: And as you're saying, because it's normal I mean, I think it would be really concerning if the parent never cried or never displayed any Wieliczko, when the child is present because it almost shuts down in the child any possibility that this is a normal reaction or that that sadness is a part of grief, and it's not the only feeling that you experience when you're grieving.\
[00:23:18] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: There's way more.\
[00:23:19] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: But with that kind of being almost like seeing as weak or not coping, I think often gets in the way when parents think about trying to protect their child and from from the grief, but but I also wonder whether sometimes there's an attempt to protect themselves from their own feelings and sadness and that kind of sense of busyness or let's go with let's get on with life because we have to look after the children and and turning it into quite a almost like a mechanical task of of getting through the life, but almost like putting the feelings to 1 side.\
[00:23:54] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: And sometimes they they get located in the child.\
[00:23:57] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: Sometimes they they might be perhaps seen as, I don't know, something that has to be avoided, and and I I just feel like it's just not normal, like, for parents to have this very composed and always have my shit together kind of I should say this especially when you're grief.\
[00:24:16] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: I mean, how can you possibly do that?\
[00:24:19] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: And as you're saying, it might not be that helpful for a child, never see their parent grieve.\
[00:24:25] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: Absolutely.\
[00:24:25] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: And there can be young, and there could be confusion, and there could be, you know, drawing on faith, drawing on others, questioning faith, questioning others, changes in identity, trying to know how you have conversations about it, who, with, when, how.\
[00:24:38] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: There's a lot of valuable learning that will go on, and I think that you're doing something else that's really important.\
[00:24:45] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: Another really important part of parenting, and it brings me back to the I recall I said the 2 things that bring to mind just a bit earlier.\
[00:24:53] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: And this brings me back to what the other, which was about ways we relate and feel safe, attachment, sense of safety and others.\
[00:25:01] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: And we're social creatures and that sense of safety comes from others.\
[00:25:05] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: And I think especially significant others.\
[00:25:08] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: And 1 way of both learning about the world and yourself and finding, you know, that discovering of your own mind is through the modeling of seeing that in someone else.\
[00:25:18] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: It can help you feel safe because, say, I want to be respectful about this because it's an example of a loss and a death.\
[00:25:24] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: But I'm just reminded of a moment when processing the loss of a our family dog, which is obviously on a completely different scale Mhmm.\
[00:25:31] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: From the loss of a parent or a human.\
[00:25:33] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: But just as an example, you know, there were moments you think, I wonder how often I'll mention.\
[00:25:39] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: Oh, I'm oh, I'm missing Zelda heart attack at the moment, or I was just having a little memory there.\
[00:25:44] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: You're aware all the time as a parent that you want to share enough, but you don't want to start to burden your child.\
[00:25:49] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: And I think you can judge that.\
[00:25:51] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: Play it by ear.\
[00:25:52] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: And often children give you the signs of feedback.\
[00:25:54] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: You know, perhaps they'll just kind of not pay much attention and scamper off, or perhaps they might even comment to you if you have an open relationship where, you know, you might comment these things wrong.\
[00:26:03] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: Okay.\
[00:26:04] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: Yeah.\
[00:26:04] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: Not now.\
[00:26:05] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: I'm on board.\
[00:26:06] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: So you can do a lot of blame by ear, but I think it's important to do that some of the time because you demystify yourself as well because they don't have track us, you know, so tuned in to your the adults who look after you, so tuned in.\
[00:26:21] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: So it can be really helpful because they'll know they'll, you know, in words or not words, they'll pick up on a little shift.\
[00:26:27] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: You don't have to explain everything, you know.\
[00:26:29] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: We don't need to be scrutinized all the time.\
[00:26:31] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: But there might be a moment where you find yourself a bit quiet or perhaps you're a bit snappy.\
[00:26:36] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: And then after you say, de you know what?\
[00:26:38] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: I think what was going on there.\
[00:26:39] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: It's not like an excuse.\
[00:26:40] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: It's just a lifting of the lid on your inner workings, your world, your mind.\
[00:26:45] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: Young know what?\
[00:26:46] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: You might have noticed I was a little bit short with you there.\
[00:26:48] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: Do you know what I think happened?\
[00:26:50] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: And I don't know if I knew this at the time.\
[00:26:52] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: I think it might have been missing person who's died just there.\
[00:26:55] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: It might have been missing them actually.\
[00:26:57] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: I think I I was a bit lost in that, you know, and then you might talk about it.\
[00:27:01] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: Or I can feel a bit snappy because I just everything in the world young on felt like a distraction.\
[00:27:06] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: I was just having a moment, wasn't you?\
[00:27:09] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: Or, you know, or I felt, oh, I came home, you know, and I looked through the window.\
[00:27:12] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: This is what reminded me of the dark.\
[00:27:14] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: And I did tell my children and I said, you know when I noticed that I miss her?\
[00:27:18] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: Because that's the other thing in your daily routine, this moment that you'll miss more, probably.\
[00:27:24] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: Because that's the moment when the person used to pick me up from school or we used to do this at the weekend or that was our thing.\
[00:27:31] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: You know, when it happened just for me with, I have lost humans, but, you know, just this is the the the example that came into my mind.\
[00:27:39] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: When I got home from work, the dog used to look out the window at me and leap about.\
[00:27:43] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: I could see a funny face on the other side of the glass.\
[00:27:46] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: And so quite a joy like, I took delight in that, you know, of talks are very welcoming.\
[00:27:50] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: And I said to my children, that's the hardest moment for me.\
\
[00:27:54] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: And, you know, so I don't wanna hold this up as if it needs to be like this, but I recall it because they made there's a childlike charm in this.\
[00:28:02] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: They made they drew a big cardboard Savage of just a Ceri child, you know, drawing of this dog.\
[00:28:09] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: And the next day, they popped it into the window for de, and I bless their hearts.\
[00:28:13] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: It was filled with love that moment.\
[00:28:15] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: I'm still about sad, but what a lovely moment.\
[00:28:18] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: And I thought, like any children, sometimes they respond in a really lovely caring way, and other times they don't, you know, like any of us.\
[00:28:26] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: But that was a I thought, oh, I am glad I told them because I thought I wonder, should I tell them that each day like clockwork?\
[00:28:32] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: I have this moment.\
[00:28:33] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: I feel sad, you know.\
[00:28:35] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: You know what?\
[00:28:35] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: It did me bring me some relief, which again is is good for them.\
[00:28:38] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: And there's that learning process of what's it helps them to make sense in their own minds of perhaps some moments for them.\
[00:28:45] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: It could be an opener.\
[00:28:47] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: Are Ceri any moments like that for you?\
[00:28:49] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: And it makes it not to do.\
[00:28:51] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: It makes it okay to say.\
[00:28:52] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: Because you can say as many times as you like, you couldn't tell me anything.\
[00:28:56] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: But unless that's lived out, unless you can see examples of it, it doesn't ring quite true, does it?\
[00:29:01] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: So you you don't you don't spill everything out, but you give them moments of that and then they really know.\
[00:29:08] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: Yeah.\
[00:29:08] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: Yeah.\
[00:29:09] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: And they they they it's almost like an invitation as you're saying to them for them giving them permission to say to you when they really miss their dad or their mom.\
[00:29:20] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: And there's something about, as you're saying, making that link between some maybe troubled behaviors or or some ways how children might be acting out or behaving that is really about grief, but we might not be picking up on those signs, which kind of brings me to these questions of how do children grieve and what do we notice, what are the signs kind of that maybe are quite to be expected, and other signs that might be concerning in a way that's something that is a sign that we have to pay more attention and maybe understand what might be going Monika.\
[00:29:59] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: What what do you normally observe in children?\
[00:30:02] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: I was thinking, you know, kind of variances of this through other sources, like, if like, a temporary absence, which is so different in many ways.\
[00:30:09] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: But there are just some commonalities that are a bit useful as well.\
[00:30:13] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: Some of it's about also you're doing this in a community and how others might see what's going on.\
[00:30:18] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: So, for example, you could have just little changes that might not seem directly because of grief, but indirectly could well be.\
[00:30:26] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: So, you know, they might anything could crop up.\
[00:30:29] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: They might be ruder, for example, to somebody who looks after them who normally you'd hope that they were kind of more or less polite to.\
[00:30:35] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: And maybe that's because they might not have articulated it yet.\
[00:30:39] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: I don't have a problem with this person, but they're the wrong person.\
[00:30:42] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: They're just the wrong person.\
[00:30:44] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: I used to be picked up by school every day by mom, and now you're here when it's not supposed to be you.\
[00:30:49] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: I don't want it to be you.\
[00:30:50] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: And if I had A1I would make it mom again.\
[00:30:53] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: And, you know, it's a but they may not be saying that.\
[00:30:55] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: An adult grandparent, a friend, a close other, might find it easier to kind of accommodate that relate and respond if they were able to if it was sort of seemed a bit more straightforward.\
[00:31:07] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: Grief.\
[00:31:07] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: Oh, I feel really sad I miss Monika today.\
[00:31:09] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: Oh, and passion may be compassion may be ignited.\
[00:31:13] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: Empathy.\
[00:31:14] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: But if the child is being somewhat rejecting of you, you know, rude rude words or kind of just a bit harder to influence with their behavior crossing more boundaries, you know, that can not be that obvious initially.\
[00:31:29] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: Sometimes, as a guide, as a rule of thumb, I think the feeling it brings out in you can be quite and this is general, I think, but, you know, in the applying it to these situations.\
[00:31:40] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: If you're able to pause for a moment and think what is the actual emotion coming up in me here, that can be a bit easier said than done.\
[00:31:48] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: You know, it sounds like it'd be obvious because it's you.\
[00:31:50] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: Why wouldn't you know?\
[00:31:50] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: But you can take a little bit of sifting through what I'm actually feeling here.\
[00:31:54] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: Maybe you're feeling annoyed, rejected, wishing it was different, frustrated, hitting a brick wall.\
[00:32:00] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: What's going on here?\
[00:32:02] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: You know, some understandable feelings.\
[00:32:03] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: Hopefully, you're an adult.\
[00:32:05] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: You kinda try to contain them, but totally understandable to get that on the emotional level.\
[00:32:09] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: Then you might think, okay.\
[00:32:11] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: There might be something like that going on for this child, and why could that be?\
[00:32:15] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: And I think, again, it makes reminds me of the need for balance because, you know, if children have people around the models who realize that, and sometimes working in schools, I've noticed these are kind of questions that teachers have brought at times.\
[00:32:29] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: They kinda want to make enough allowance for that child.\
[00:32:32] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: They don't wanna kind of throw the book at them, you know, full force as it were, have the same expectations that they would any other time.\
[00:32:39] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: They need to make room for the impact and expression of grief.\
[00:32:42] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: And, yeah, the safety, the knowing where you are with the world.\
[00:32:46] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: Right?\
[00:32:46] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: I get it.\
[00:32:47] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: It's not it's not that everything's changed.\
[00:32:49] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: It means that the children also need not too much change from kind of the usual expectations.\
[00:32:55] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: A bit you know, keep grounded, stay in touch with everyday life.\
[00:32:58] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: So you'll be feeling your way.\
[00:33:01] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: You might, again, take it as an opportunity to come and might not be possible for them to hear you in that moment.\
[00:33:06] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: But perhaps you need to say to them, you know, it's not really okay to, you know, tell tell granny to, you know, f off or whatever it might be.\
[00:33:15] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: It's like, that's not yeah.\
[00:33:16] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: I think you know that's not okay.\
[00:33:18] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: And I do want you to stop doing that.\
[00:33:20] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: I was just wondering whether maybe, you know, you were just it's hard, isn't it?\
[00:33:24] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: I know it's hard because I love to see young, and I think you like to see me, but we both wish it was your mom.\
[00:33:30] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: You know?\
[00:33:31] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: So you're kind of giving that little explanation to it, but you're reminding them that also, you know, that they you know and they know and you know that they know that you can't really do that sort of behavior.\
[00:33:41] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: So you you Savage in your way.\
[00:33:44] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: And, again, it's in in all of these things.\
[00:33:45] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: I think it's in the repeated experience of the recoveries and the orientation to what's going on and the coherence, it all strings together.\
[00:33:56] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: It will make sense on some level.\
\
[00:33:58] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: That's where your safety comes from.\
[00:34:00] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: Young sort of your safety.\
[00:34:01] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: That's what the other person gives young, helps you with to make you feel safe in this disorientating world.\
[00:34:08] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: You get low and you pick back up.\
[00:34:10] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: And it's that that makes someone over time realize just in the back of their mind implicitly, always be a recovery.\
[00:34:17] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: And that's the safest of feelings, I think.\
[00:34:20] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: You can't take away, continue to live.\
[00:34:22] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: You can be safe.\
[00:34:24] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: And I think on that note, actually, what you just said now, it seems so important because I think it is more often with adults than it is with children that adults struggle with continuing with living life.\
[00:34:39] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: I think that's which is kind of brings me to some of my other episodes when I talk a bit more about grief, kind of how adults grief and and how sometimes this grieving process gets disturbed by different things.\
[00:34:55] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: There could be all sorts of reasons for that.\
[00:34:57] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: But when it's in it's very difficult to get back to a routine or living life and how that in itself can be problematic for a child as well.\
[00:35:08] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: Because if the parent doesn't struggle, doesn't have enough support system, that can have an impact on the child's grieving process, meaning that the the whole system is struggling with something.\
[00:35:21] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: So when the parent struggles with something, doesn't isn't supported enough, often, I think, is my experience, it's either social isolation or not having enough people to support the parent.\
[00:35:32] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: And it's either just kind of frantic going back to work and working, working, working, and not really living, which is also not this is just a surviving mech mechanism.\
[00:35:42] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: It doesn't mean that someone's returning to a state of living.\
[00:35:45] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: And, obviously, it takes time.\
[00:35:47] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: I'm not saying that we should just snap out of it and get back to it, you know, Monika after.\
[00:35:54] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: But it is something about that being disturbed in many especially when talking about more complicated forms of grief, when we think about prolonged grief response or or complex grief, which we've talked about in previous episodes, which is a bit more about what gets in the way of the normal grieving process that those ebbs and flows when when we're grieving and then coming back to life and then having moments of coming back to grief, and and and that kind of comes and goes.\
[00:36:23] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: Like young said, often happens with children.\
[00:36:25] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: So that in itself seems important.\
[00:36:28] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: How we facilitate that process by looking after ourselves so we can also help the child.\
[00:36:35] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: So if we're grieving well, the child's chances of grieving well are increasing too.\
[00:36:41] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: I think to be generous to ourselves and acknowledging of, the process we're going through, and I absolutely grief.\
[00:36:47] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: And I think widow the only caveat that sometimes then parents think with every move that, am I am I doing it right?\
[00:36:54] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: You know?\
[00:36:54] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: But I think as long as you're being sort of generous to yourself and you're being compassionate to yourself or in as much as you can, You know?\
[00:37:02] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: Yeah.\
[00:37:03] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: It does need room, I think, is the thing, and you can be a bit out of sync with a child, and that's alright.\
[00:37:08] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: We're adults and children.\
[00:37:09] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: You know, sometimes we are a bit out of sync.\
[00:37:11] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: Just as they can run around straight after eating dinner and we need a bit stillness, that can be the same with our emotions.\
[00:37:17] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: And you're thinking there about how to fit those 2 parallel processes that sometimes converge and sometimes depart into life.\
[00:37:25] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: And it's no one's fault.\
[00:37:26] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: It's not your fault.\
[00:37:27] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: It's not their fault.\
[00:37:28] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: You can't match pace all of the time, and children need a chance to put it down.\
[00:37:33] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: We all do, but children might not be doing that in quite the same way as you are.\
[00:37:37] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: They might be doing it with a higher frequency.\
[00:37:39] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: You know what I was thinking?\
[00:37:41] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: This has come back into my head AAA few times, and I was thinking, you're trying to find sort of your meaning in life and sustain yourself, and somehow it's a work of faith.\
[00:37:52] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: I don't necessarily mean religious faith here, though.\
[00:37:55] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: You know, if you have religious faith to draw on that Yes.\
[00:37:58] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: You know, sort of a matter for each of us individually.\
[00:38:01] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: But a a faith in living, and it's tested at times of death and the aftermath because, initially, it's not unusual to not even have pockets where it feels like it will be okay again.\
[00:38:13] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: You know, especially if perhaps, you know, sometimes there there can be traumatic, manners of dying.\
[00:38:19] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: It can be a case if someone took their own life.\
[00:38:23] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: It can you know, or there's lots of you know, you might have had a complex relationship beforehand, so you miss and also maybe young feel relieved.\
[00:38:32] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: You know, there's a lot that can be going on, and it can be quite overwhelming and really difficult to imagine that there could come a time again when, you know, all of it just feels that you can sustain it.\
[00:38:44] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: Because it's so it can be so draining, and it can be quite, like, all encompassing a physical process to go through, not just a feeling.\
[00:38:51] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: I think that initially, you're trying to do that on faith.\
[00:38:55] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: You know, there's nothing that you're seeing particularly evident in your everyday that that time will come perhaps.\
[00:39:00] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: And sometimes I think that children's resilience depends the meaning you make of it.\
[00:39:05] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: This is what Ken brings to mind, like, the stories we tell.\
[00:39:08] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: You know, we're talking about kind of the ways of communication and playing stories, which overlap a great de, I think, can be part of this.\
[00:39:15] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: So, you know, you might look at your child and be baffled and almost bereft.\
[00:39:20] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: Think how can you still find life to be lived when everything is crushed and gone?\
[00:39:28] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: And yet given a little time, it can be that very observation that can bring little chinks of life in.\
\
[00:39:35] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: You might even envy that.\
[00:39:36] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: It might be something that, you know, I widow that I could feel okay for 5 minutes.\
[00:39:42] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: And there's this work of faith, and over time, it can grow.\
[00:39:46] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: And I think that there's also the stories we tell.\
[00:39:50] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: So the same things can happen and you can weave a different meaning into it.\
[00:39:54] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: And there's moments, just part of daily life, when, you know, I might tell a story to my children and very often when I really don't feel like it.\
[00:40:02] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: There's lovely moments when I feel like it, the classic of it bedtime.\
[00:40:06] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: And there's moments when I just really don't feel in the mood, and sometimes they're I don't do it every time.\
[00:40:11] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: You know?\
[00:40:12] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: But I think sometimes they're the moment when a little voice pops in my head and says, do you know, like, they are not listening to you.\
[00:40:19] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: They're cutie.\
[00:40:20] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: They're irritating.\
[00:40:22] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: They're on the brink of breaking something.\
[00:40:24] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: You're not captivating them, and you're understandably really irritated.\
[00:40:29] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: You do not feel in the mood to tell a story, but there's a little bit of me that goes dig deep because it's the only way through.\
[00:40:36] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: And I'll suddenly change tack like changing tack to catch people's attention, and I'll change tone of voice, and I'll say, once there were 2 little boys, and they'll go, kind of, sort of, little heads.\
[00:40:50] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: So suddenly attend.\
[00:40:52] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: I might be weaving the meaning into it as I go when there might come a point where I thought and it won't be exactly them, but it will recognize themselves, and they kinda, like, giggle a bit.\
[00:41:00] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: Is that you, Rome?\
[00:41:02] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: Is that you who kind of are you the mommy bear who kind of, you know, said, no.\
[00:41:07] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: I won't make dinner for the 15th time because the baby bears had ticked up the fireplace or whatever it might de.\
[00:41:14] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: And it'll be such a good reconnector.\
[00:41:16] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: And so I think stories are you won't be able to tell them all the time, but it's a resource to not forget about because do you know what?\
[00:41:25] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: I'm not gonna idealize it.\
[00:41:26] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: It doesn't make everything perfect, but it does bring me back to myself and back to them.\
[00:41:31] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: I'm not in the mood in the beginning, but if I can dig deep and draw it out, I I it's a bit contagious.\
[00:41:36] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: It can bring me in at the same time just telling it, but but the story has a power in its own right.\
[00:41:42] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: And I think that as a caring adult or as a parent, you know, you're making stories with the children all the time.\
[00:41:49] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: 1 of them is about life can still be lived.\
[00:41:52] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: 1 of them is might be about the sense that you make of dying and yet as part of life and bigger story of life around it.\
[00:41:59] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: And part of making time for ourselves is we actually need the time to make the story ourselves.\
[00:42:06] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: Young story brings meaning and it's coherent.\
[00:42:09] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: It brings things that might be confusing together.\
[00:42:12] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: It can bring peace.\
[00:42:13] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: It doesn't necessarily have to be happiness.\
[00:42:15] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: It can bring some peace, and it can be widow 1 story.\
[00:42:18] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: You can change for quite perhaps forevermore certain things.\
[00:42:22] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: And I think you might need help to make sense of things within yourself widow other adults perhaps.\
[00:42:29] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: Now if you've Savage to find this and sort of make your peace with something, it still has to be ideal or enough peace or our peace within the mix.\
[00:42:39] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: Again, that's the part you can draw on to share with children.\
[00:42:43] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: You know, you might not have all the answers, but you found a sense of peace with that.\
[00:42:48] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: And so, again, I think that I believe in the power of the stories there, but also that sometimes you need help from others to help you find your own story, and your own story comes first.\
[00:42:58] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: You know?\
[00:43:00] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: Yes.\
[00:43:01] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: As you're saying, there's something an element of play in that, isn't there, with with telling the stories and creating stories and helping the child to develop their own narrative of loss and what happened.\
[00:43:14] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: And that could be a very playful way how children do this, and they often obviously play.\
[00:43:21] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: And play is a way of processing feelings for children.\
[00:43:24] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: It's an incredibly important element, isn't it, to facilitate the play so that the child can deal with the loss in the conversation.\
[00:43:34] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: And I was also thinking about the power of rituals and finding some meaning, some rituals that help the child to continue this grieving journey because rituals happen, I don't know, every year, every month, every every so often that you keep going back to something or keeping the memory of the parent alive or, kind of noticing what hasn't happened because I think it's such an important element in grief in general, but it particularly seems relevant for children when they didn't know the parent that well or when the loss happened really early or, you know, during pregnancy that the parent dies and and that in itself can be the question of, oh, so how do you even create that image of the parent that wasn't there?\
[00:44:25] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: Or, you know, there's probably enough material for another 10 episodes to think about, you know, all those different options.\
[00:44:31] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: But there's also an element of, I think, in general, holding that memory and grieving yourself and working through it that facilitates that grieving experience for the child.\
[00:44:43] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: And obviously, it's all about translating that to an age appropriate level.\
[00:44:48] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: But that the age appropriate level is going to continue to change as the child grows and develops.\
[00:44:53] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: And as you said, sometimes there can be setbacks in moments when the child is regressing to previous stages, and that's, you know, that's common with anything traumatic in life or any kind of new developmental stages that children tend to go back.\
[00:45:10] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: But I wonder whether you have any advice on that.\
[00:45:13] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: I mean, obviously, there's no simple thing about that.\
[00:45:16] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: But what happens when the the grief comes out in those kind of setbacks or ways when children struggle?\
[00:45:23] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: Acceptance is probably 1 of the most important parts of that because, you know, that can and probably will happen all the way into adulthood as well as you, you know, live in the fullness of time and notice moments, you know, a wedding day or a significant event.\
[00:45:40] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: And you can build in a cherished moment or an acknowledgment of the absence, a continued absence of that person.\
[00:45:48] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: It's a lifelong difference to change, and I don't think that need be less you know, I don't mean that in a way of like, a hopeless way.\
[00:45:58] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: I think that's part of your life story, the before, the now, and the after.\
[00:46:03] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: And as parents, we're continually, weaving the fabric of our children's life stories with us and beyond us.\
[00:46:10] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: And I think that for the child or growing adult or teenager to know, it's okay.\
[00:46:18] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: Yeah.\
[00:46:18] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: You can say that at any time.\
[00:46:20] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: You can say that it doesn't matter the time that's come by.\
[00:46:23] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: Yep.\
[00:46:23] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: You know, it's still in my mind too.\
[00:46:25] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: And, yep, that's that that's that's true.\
[00:46:28] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: III see that.\
[00:46:30] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: And not lose sight of the other things to be cherished.\
[00:46:33] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: The 2 aren't against each other.\
[00:46:35] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: You can miss and also find a lot of joy in your life.\
[00:46:39] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: And so I think to approach it with acceptance and understanding and try to give it its space and then help to lift out and rejoin living in a well matched way, the the pace that's needed.\
[00:46:57] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: Yes.\
[00:46:58] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: And that's I I think it just makes me reflect on this conversation so far, which is actually we in some ways, children grieve differently, but in other ways, they just grieve exactly in the same way.\
[00:47:10] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: They just might come across, like, in a slightly different ways, but the the process is exactly the same.\
[00:47:16] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: And, you know, this whole thing about learning from the children how to embrace life, I think they they're much better at kind of holding on to those pockets, which is such a healthy response.\
[00:47:30] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: But it's much harder for adults, I think, because there's often so much guilt and I think there's the social element of being, especially for women I think, you know, this concept of being a widow and having to grieve the loss of a partner, which is obviously traumatic in itself and that's an element of it, but there's also life to live.\
[00:47:51] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: And I think it's that kind of lack of balance between grief and life that seem to be an issue when there is any complication in the grieving process because you have to as you're saying, you have to make room for both, and and that is very true for children too and how to live alongside the loss that you've experienced and how you can facilitate that process in yourself so that can also be present in your child's life.\
[00:48:21] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: And could that be possible to happen to have access to both, you know, to both worlds alongside?\
[00:48:28] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: I love how you put that.\
[00:48:29] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: I think that, you're really poignant.\
[00:48:31] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: It's a beautiful way to put it, like, the the you know, to have room for the for the grief and and the life, the balance, the 2 going on.\
[00:48:39] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: And I think they feel like currents in the water.\
[00:48:41] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: They can be there at the same time.\
[00:48:43] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: And children can have a really reverence, which sometimes can amuse us and other times can be quite shocking.\
[00:48:49] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: Is it allowed to say something disrespectful, like, when someone's alive and they're a parent?\
[00:48:54] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: It's a real classic children to be truly disrespectful and irreverent about parents.\
[00:48:59] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: Why are you so fat?\
[00:49:00] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: I hate you.\
[00:49:01] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: And those sort of, you know, relationship is ongoing after I recall this was something that I recall really learning about during my, clinical psychology training.\
[00:49:12] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: Either relationship hasn't stopped.\
[00:49:14] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: It's just that 1 of the participants has died.\
[00:49:17] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: And it but you continue to live, so it doesn't stand still in time.\
[00:49:22] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: You're part of that and your relationship with that person continues.\
[00:49:27] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: And why would you not have moment, you know, as a child where you go, I hate daddy or and that can be oh.\
[00:49:34] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: Yes.\
[00:49:34] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: You know, that's hard to be the adult hearing that.\
[00:49:37] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: And I think making room for those differences between sort of childhood social norms and adulthood social norms sometimes can be a relief and other times can be a challenge.\
[00:49:49] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: And, but I think they go on.\
[00:49:51] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: Yeah.\
[00:49:52] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: And I and I was actually thinking, I think a problem often is when we as adults, we don't allow ourselves to have those angry feelings for the partner that died because, you know, that is also normal for us to have that.\
[00:50:05] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: But, obviously, socially, it's so unacceptable to say, I'm so pissed off that they died.\
[00:50:11] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: You know?\
[00:50:11] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: Or that, you know, how they all you know?\
[00:50:14] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: Especially when the relationship was, you said, was complicated.\
[00:50:17] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: So there were some aspects of that that were very difficult and, you know, how do you or if there was especially when there are elements of abuse in a relationship, the remaining parent is actually quite relieved.\
[00:50:32] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: Young know, how can we make room for that?\
[00:50:34] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: And, you know, it's it's such a complicate I think grief makes things complicated partially because of the social norms as you're saying.\
[00:50:42] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: I completely agree because there are assumptions made around someone who's died that don't always reveal themselves otherwise.\
[00:50:51] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: You know, oh, de must really miss him.\
[00:50:54] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: I'm so sorry.\
[00:50:55] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: And you think, gosh.\
[00:50:56] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: It's instantly become a taboo.\
[00:50:59] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: It's more complex.\
[00:51:00] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: That for me is everybody who died suddenly in 1 category.\
[00:51:05] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: It's only sadness and missing that exists.\
[00:51:08] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: And although I like I hope and this is, I suppose, part 1 of the reasons we're meeting today, and I think I hope and I believe it's important, and I trust that we will as a society grow and develop as well in how we talk about these things and increasing in familiarity and comfort with talking about the nuances, over time.\
[00:51:30] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: But that, you know, will take time and we're a collective, but I think with our children, we can mention these things openly and check it, isn't it?\
[00:51:38] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: I sometimes wonder what to say too.\
[00:51:40] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: I wonder, you know, I'm not sure I don't know this person that well.\
[00:51:43] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: I don't know that I tell them all about it, but you might even practice or role play your responses.\
[00:51:48] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: Oh, yes.\
[00:51:49] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: It is really difficult.\
[00:51:50] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: You know, it's a mixed bag.\
[00:51:52] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: It's tricky.\
[00:51:53] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: Grief can be complicated.\
[00:51:54] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: You know, you might sort of just spend a bit of time to choose how you might live your authentic life and not feel like you're being asked to pretend in a conversation like this And, yeah, find your you know, the measure of how transparent, you know, you want to be.\
[00:52:10] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: It reminds me of something else.\
[00:52:11] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: I was thinking, you know, I might be listening to this, and I might be thinking also about you know, maybe I I might be thinking I haven't kind of lost a partner or, you know, there isn't someone who's died in my children's, like, you know, like a parent or a really significant other in that way.\
[00:52:28] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: And I might be just thinking about it as well because at some point in time, there will be a significant loss.\
[00:52:35] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: It is just part of living.\
[00:52:37] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: And it's something that I don't think we're very encouraged to think about when we have children.\
[00:52:43] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: For example, speaking with friends, de said, oh, I don't think I could have a child, you know, and single parent.\
[00:52:48] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: And I remember saying gently, well, you know, but we might we it's not all up to us.\
[00:52:55] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: You know?\
[00:52:56] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: Even if you were we don't know if we'll split up, but also people some of us will die during our journey as parenthood.\
[00:53:03] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: So there are things that aren't thought about or spoken about or acknowledged very much, and I think we worry that perhaps it's not I don't think it's the same in every society, of course, but I think, you know, in the UK and some other what you might broadly term, western cultures, just to use the kind of expression.\
[00:53:19] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: I think we're we're asked to sort of shield and protect in a way that's not very protective really.\
[00:53:24] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: So I recall that, I don't know, it's all around us all around us, death and dying, amid the life.\
[00:53:33] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: Because, you know, I remember as my children were growing up in Argentina in their earlier years, you know, we found a pitch a nest in the kind of, you know, eaves of our house.\
[00:53:43] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: Oh, let's have a little look at this nest.\
[00:53:45] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: And there was, you know, a little corpse of 1 of the birds that hadn't made it.\
[00:53:49] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: A little kind of miniature pigeon with a paloma, they say.\
[00:53:52] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: Anyway, I I didn't hide it.\
[00:53:54] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: I thought, oh, here's here's to put, you know right.\
[00:53:57] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: Let's see how I'm going to I took an open stance and I what's that, mommy?\
[00:54:02] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: And we talked about it.\
[00:54:03] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: And, you know, you reminded me of this when you talked about ritual.\
[00:54:06] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: Well, what should we do with the poor little thing?\
[00:54:08] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: Should should we bury it?\
[00:54:09] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: It's a it doesn't make me feel sad, but it's also naturally happened.\
[00:54:13] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: It's part of life.\
[00:54:14] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: There may be questions.\
[00:54:15] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: Will it happen to any will it happen to the doctor?\
[00:54:17] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: Would it happen to you?\
[00:54:18] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: And you don't know how much question is gonna come out.\
[00:54:21] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: And you you roll with it and you you say, I don't need to be fearful of this.\
[00:54:25] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: This isn't on me.\
[00:54:26] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: This is life.\
[00:54:27] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: This is the world we're in.\
[00:54:29] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: My job to be a channel for them, to link them into the big wide world with all of its eventualities in a way that can feel as loved as possible.\
[00:54:39] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: And so it doesn't matter if you've not done that yet.\
[00:54:42] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: But, like, I would say, at whatever stage you are, whether you're facing, you know, living with a death like this or not at the moment in our wider society, the more chance that we can give early on that's just part of they've always known it.\
[00:54:57] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: You know, to make a bit of room for death and for it not being a terrifying concept, you know, I think that that's useful, healthy, real.\
[00:55:07] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: Yeah.\
[00:55:07] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: But but but also what you're saying about being guided by a child's curiosity, I think there's something about that that feels important, isn't it?\
[00:55:18] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: That young don't have to have the script.\
[00:55:21] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: Because I was almost thinking, gosh.\
[00:55:22] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: We should be, like, prepare, you know, what to say, how to say things to children.\
[00:55:27] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: But then I'm thinking, well, that's that's part of the problem because you can't possibly know what the child wants to hear or what they're interested in.\
[00:55:37] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: Every child can be different than, you know, if they ask a question, can as you're saying, could it be could it come from a genuine place in you and transparency?\
[00:55:48] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: Obviously, we we not necessarily have to say, like, every detail of it, but, like, appropriate level.\
[00:55:55] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: As you said, rather than hiding the truth from the child, which can have catastrophic consequences later on in life when these things are not spoken about and they're not processed and all those layers of trauma, from the the way I think often not just the fact that the child lost a parent because that doesn't necessarily have to be traumatic longer term as a, you know, something kind of destabilizing, but how it's being dealt with, I think, can de, especially if it hasn't been talked about or it hasn't been really acknowledged in a way grieved as a family.\
[00:56:32] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: I think this can have a profound impact because I see it every day in my clinical practice working with people.\
[00:56:40] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: Whenever there's an early loss in life and then you work with adults who are in their twenties and thirties, forties, fifties, and you can see that that unprocessed grief that's been brewing underneath for years years and turns into something much more dysfunctional than if it was dealt with at the early stage, which is, I think, so important that we have those conversations.\
[00:57:02] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: And we support adults in their own grieving journey so that they can support their children, and there is a language and openness to talking about grief.\
[00:57:11] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: So it could be incorporated rather than completely disowned and pushed out, turned into something that it's not.\
[00:57:19] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: And and what can trip us up is that sometimes early on, it can be something that, you know, isn't finding words and you might or you might not have any tears to release.\
[00:57:29] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: They might be in there, dammed up, inside.\
[00:57:33] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: And it you know, de were all there's a lot of difference, an individual difference, but it's not unusual to not want to speak earlier on.\
[00:57:40] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: And then it can trip up the adults because they can sort of think, ah, right.\
[00:57:44] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: Well, it's okay.\
[00:57:45] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: So this will be how it's maybe better to stay quiet.\
[00:57:48] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: But actually, a bit down the line, it's better to just gently check-in, you know, and and that's where those little bits of sharing from yourself come in quietly modeling.\
[00:57:57] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: At least it's sad because it may be that actually later on some conversations do need to be had.\
[00:58:03] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: So staying flexible like that as well is gonna, yeah, matter.\
[00:58:06] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: And you're just tripping it in.\
[00:58:08] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: It's all centric, but it's not entire.\
[00:58:10] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: Yes.\
[00:58:11] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: You're trying to find those little bits Yeah.\
[00:58:13] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: Where you and also, again, that feel safe enough.\
[00:58:17] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: So and and the children could it's the how.\
[00:58:20] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: You know, it's okay.\
[00:58:21] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: You know, it's alright to pause and a child can see that you're you're a, you know, or a young person.\
[00:58:26] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: They can see that you're thinking.\
[00:58:27] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: They had searching a little bit there.\
[00:58:29] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: You're really in it.\
[00:58:30] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: So, and you might say, yeah.\
[00:58:32] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: I'm not completely sure, but some people say this, and I wonder if that young know, where does somebody go afterwards?\
[00:58:38] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: Yeah.\
[00:58:38] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: I mean, I kind of think perhaps you do have an answer you thoroughly believe in, but if you don't, you know, there'll be some questions that Flummox is all.\
[00:58:46] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: Widow you know?\
[00:58:47] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: I'm I asked myself that, and I'm not completely sure, but sometimes I think of it like this.\
[00:58:52] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: You know?\
[00:58:52] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: So you're giving them a relatively safe unknown and because as you said before, you know, there are some differences, but they are not another species.\
[00:59:01] Dr Ceri Savage de Lifsitz: And sometimes I call my own children little humans because they are little humans.\
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Episode 10. Helping Children Grieve a Loss of a Parent with Dr. Ceri Savage de Lifsitz, Consultant Clinical Psychologist

The Grief MOT

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