Transcript

This week we are talking about grief on American Family Radio

>> Dr. Jessica Peck: Hello and welcome to the Dr. Nurse Mama show, prescribing Hope for Healthy Families here on American Family Radio. Here's your host, professor, pediatric nurse practitioner and mom of four, Dr. Jessica Peck. Well, hey there, friends, and welcome to my favorite part of the day, getting to spend time with you, prescribing Hope for Healthy Families. I hope that wherever you are, whatever you're doing, that you're having a great day. And I'm so grateful that you have joined in. I know that your time is your most valuable commodity. And the fact that you are here listening in tells me that you want hope, that you want to be there for your family and that you just long for those connections for like minded people. And you will find that here. And this week we've been tackling some pretty tough subjects, but these are important things, things that impact all of us, all of our families. And today we're talking about something particularly tender. And I do want to give a heads up to everyone listening. We are talking about grief. Now, if you are in the middle of your own grieving journey, I hope that you will stay with us. Because whether you're walking through some fresh loss or you're supporting someone who is, or you're in a grieving journey that is older, we want to remind you that hope is still here. So in this episode, we're going to explore how to hold some space for that sorrow while anchoring your heart and healing. So we're going to walk this road together with compassion and with courage. And we have somebody here to talk to you about that today. We have two guests today. We've got Erin  Leigh Nelson and Colleen Montague. We got Erin who's the founder and executive director of Jessica's House. This is a grief support center for children and their families. And through the tragic loss that she has experienced, she has learned the importance of grief support for children and teens. She's an advanced certified trauma practitioner through the National Institute of Trauma and Loss in Children and she's been supporting grieving families for more than 20 years. And we've got Colleen, who's a licensed marriage and family therapist and the program director for Jessica's House, which we'll be talking about. No relation to me, but this is a really wonderful ministry that supports parents and their children after a, ah, death in their family. And Colleen also co host the podcast When Grief Comes Home. So Colleen and Erin thank you so much for joining us today. We're so grateful for your time.

>> Erin Leigh Nelson: Thank you so much for having us. Dr. Jessica well, Erin we're happy to begin.

>> Dr. Jessica Peck: I know. I'm so happy to have both of you and to have this balanced perspective. And, Erin let's begin with you. You have experienced grief, more grief than anyone should experience in their lifetime. You have lost your husband in an accident. You've lost your mother. You lost your son in another accident. Can you please share with us, your journey of grief and how it has informed your ministry and led you to where you are today?

>> Erin Leigh Nelson: Yes. Thank you so much, Dr. Jessica. Yes. You know, you never imagine that grief will come home for you, but it did come home for me. When I was a young mom, I had two children. One was five, one was three. And my husband and I were, just living our life. And he was, an almond farmer in the Central Valley of California where we live, and we had a farming business together. And we were just, really enjoying our life together. And he loved adventure, and he decided to go fishing up in Alaska. And, he loved to fish, and he loved just that kind of adventure. And so he planned a fishing trip. And I was staying with, his parents in the Monterey coastal area while he was fishing in Alaska with his friends. And I received just that middle of the night phone call. it was a 3am phone call, and I don't know why, but I didn't answer the phone with, hello, But I just said, what happened? And his brother Gary, told me the news that I always feared, and that was that, Tyler had been involved in a midair collision, and he and his friends had all died. There were no survivors. And so I just remember just those words, just no survivors just kind of ringing over and over. And as I packed my kids and I just carried them down, to make the journey home. And I'll never forget just like, wondering, like, why is everybody driving around, going to the beach and, you know, going to work on a day where there were no survivors? And so that was my very first entry, the grief world. And. And so we had to learn how to live without his physical presence in our world. And it was one of, you know, the very beginning of just feeling that intense, profound loss.

>> Dr. Jessica Peck: Erin, I can't imagine that. And I'm so sorry that you experienced that. I know it's been some years ago, but some of those griefs are life changing. And then you continued on. It's like, as if that wasn't enough, you continue to experience more loss. Would you share with us how that journey continued? And. And I really want to get to the point where how can you still have hope. But you continue to experience loss after that?

>> Erin Leigh Nelson: Yeah, I have to say that, you know, during that time, I just. I really did have a very strong community around me, and I was so grateful for that support. And my faith really held me, after Tyler's death. And then I entered into a lot more fragility. My mom, who, had lived with bipolar disorder, she died of suicide, and she took her life. and that. That death was so different than Tyler's. Something that I noticed was that I had spent the last nine months, because it was about nine after Tyler died, and just talking to people about him and about just who he was and just having memories and, you know, really kind, of just sharing and the sorrow of no longer having him. And with my mom's death, I noticed it was just a different type of loss. I didn't feel the freedom to talk about her. And she was like my mom, you know, I mean, I wanted to talk about her. I wanted to share about how she slapped her knee when she laughed and scooped up spiders in a tissue and let them outside and her gentle soul. And so what I learned was it was so different to grieve a death by suicide. And we brought my sister, who was 15 at the time, into our home, and I got to kind of witness what children and teens need when they're grieving, and also experienced my own fragility and going into just a place of just kind of like a lot of questions and just also the trauma that was in my body and learning how to cope with that. And, it was a very complicated death to grieve, especially on top of my husband's, death. But like I said, I'm just so grateful, that I did have a lot of support. But what I learned was that not everybody had that support. And as the years went on and I began to heal, I really had a spark. There was just something inside of me that wanted to help others, because I noticed that there were so many people in our community that didn't have support after the death of a spouse, partner, or child, and that there were so many children in our community that needed support. And so that's when I started just trying to find models of grief support that, I could bring back to our community.

>> Dr. Jessica Peck: Well, I'm so appreciative of you sharing that, Erin, and even hearing you say what I learned during that time. You know, this is not easy, and you can sit here and talk about the hope that you found, but grief is such a messy looping. Journey, and it's not the same for anyone. And people kind of think of grief as a linear journey that, you know, you start at that point of loss and then it gradually gets better over time. And I think sometimes it gets better and sometimes it gets worse and it's unpredictable in the way that it can be. And, and just like you described, having grieving two different losses in such different ways with the different expectations that, you know, society has of what your grieving journey will look like. And I think there's a lot of well meaning who, who try to step into that, but unless you have walked in those shoes and lived that experience, it can be really, really hard. And, and Erin again, I just thank you for sharing that because I know that even though, you know, those losses were, were a while ago, there's some of that that sits with you for forever.

Colleen, how did you enter into Erin's grief journey

And I want to switch for just a second and talk to Colleen and just ask you, how did you enter into Aaron's grief journey? What is your role in this, Colleen?

>> Colleen Montague: I met Erin at the start of Jessica's house, but I was doing other work at the time, you know, becoming a marriage and family therapist. And so I was very intrigued by this program she was developing and I really saw a need for it and in fact referred some of my clients I was working with to Jessica's house. And I got to see the fruits of that, when they would come back in for session. And I just realized then, you know, just to support someone in grief, grieve if it's multi layered, you know, you need all of the layers of support as, someone who's grieving. And so that's kind of when I really knew I wanted to work with those who are living with losses and be one of those layers of support. And so I began volunteering with Jessica's house, a number of years later and just was able to luckily come on staff. And now I get to do this every day. And it's, you know, an honor to be invited into these spaces where we offer these peer support groups and connect families with each other, just as that space to hold each other in their pain and layer with support. And, you know, and from that work too, Erin invited me along to write the book with her. And just our biggest desire is to take what we do and take it beyond the walls of Jessica's house. And that's what we're hoping our book can do is, you know, be another layer of support to families. And that's our podcast as well, just another medium of grief support, for families.

>> Dr. Jessica Peck: I'm so appreciative of you doing this. The book is called when grief Comes home, A gentle guide for living through loss while supporting your child. And for me, as a nurse, I've been witness to a lot of families who have experienced loss. And there really are not a lot of resources out there. It's something that, you know, is hard to wr about, it's hard to talk about, it's hard to have a ministry in this space because there is so much sadness that's involved in that. But there is hope too.

Colleen, what misconceptions do you see society has about grieving

And Colleen, I would love to know what you see as, some of the misconceptions that society has about grieving. As I said, there's a lot of people who are really well intentioned, who want to do the right thing, but there, if you haven't experienced it, if you haven't walked in those shoes, we. We kind of tend to look at it like we've seen on a TV show or a mov. What misconceptions do you see that m. Society has?

>> Colleen Montague: Colleen, you named the first one so well, and it's that, you know, we have this misconception that grief is linear. You know, there was this, the five stages of grief, which was actually meant for terminal illness and anticipatory death. But, we took that and assumed it would be true for, you know, death as well. But really, grief is not linear. It doesn't happen in stages. It is more of this kind of loop de loop, up and down and all around. And it really changes, even moment by moment, especially in those early days. And so just knowing, you know, I had a mom in my group last night, worried that she was going crazy because of all the emotions she's feeling. And her group just reminded her this is grief, you know, especially so early, you know, in her loss. And the other misconception I see too is, you know, sometimes we feel like if we stay busy and we stay distracted, you know, we can distract ourselves from the pain. And while that might be true for a little bit, you know, the pain, it's just there. And the only way to grieve is to go through it, you know, rather than trying to avoid it or go around it. And so while it may be helpful at some point to focus some attention on advocacy work, for example, making sure we don't jump into it too quickly before we've actually done our own work, you know, and started to heal this wound. And then my last one is just that, you know, you can't grieve alone. You know, your grief is your own, but you don't have to do it alone. And so just know that it's always better when help with others who can get what you're going through because they're, you know, they've lived something similar or there are others that are just willing to come alongside you and be with you in that pain and to help you hold it well.

>> Dr. Jessica Peck: And you two are sitting here as such a beautiful model of that. There's so much more to talk about when we come back. We're going to talk specifically about children. It can be very difficult to help children grieve given their developmental status and what they believe and what their brain is capable of understanding. We'll talk about gently going through that and how parents can honor their own grief journey while still meeting their children's needs. Don't go away. This is such an important conversation. I'll see you on the other side of this break. Because of the generous donations provided from listeners like you, PreBorn has rescued over 330,000 babies. But every day the abortion industry is taking thousands of babies lives and we have to save them. Please donate your best gift to save more babies at preborn.com/AFR that's preborn.com/AFR if we learned anything from this election, it's how important it is for us to fight for the lives of babies, which is why every day PreBorn Ministries fights for babies. Preborn's network of clinics are positioned in the highest abortion areas, fighting for mothers deciding between the life and death of their child. PreBorn welcomes these women with God's love and offers them a free ultrasound to introduce their precious baby and hear the beautiful heartbeat. This amazing encounter gives her baby a fighting chance and the majority of the time she will choose life. Would you join PreBorn in the fight for life? One ultrasound is just $28 and $140 will sponsor five ultrasounds. BABIES ARE WORTH FIGHTING FOR! To donate, dial pound 250 on your cell and say the keyword baby. That's pound 250 baby or visit preborn.com/AFR that's preborn.com/AFR All gifts are tax deductible and Preborn has a four star charity rating. PreBorn is there for hurting mothers and at risk babies standing strong in the darkest corners of our nation. By sponsoring an ultrasound, you can be there too. One ultrasound is just $28 and doubles a baby's chance at life. Please donate your best gift to save more babies at preborn.com/AFR that's preborn.com/AFR

>> Made For More by Josh Baldwin: I wasn't made to be tending a grave I was called by name Born and raised back to life again I was made for more so why would I make a bed in my shame When a fountain of grace is running m my way? I know I am yours and I was made for more I know who I am cause I know who you are the cross of salvation was only the star Now I am chosen free and forgiven I have a future.

>> Dr. Jessica Peck: Welcome back, friends, that is made for more by Josh Baldwin and an encouraging message for us as we talk about something today that's tough. We're talking about grief, the intersection of heartache and healing. And grief touches every life. But there's hope for every grieving soul. And today we're going to talk about what it means to grieve with faith, to mourn with meaning and cling to those promises that are comfort us when we are walking literally through the valley of the shadow of death. And you are not alone. You don't have to walk through sorrow without hope. We have hope here for you today in Erin Leigh Nelson and Colleen E. Montague They are authors of a new book called When Grief Comes Home, a gentle guide for living through loss while supporting your child. And whether you have experienced loss or you know someone who has, this is a great conversation and a good resource for you. How do we answer kids questions about death? Should they let us see our grief? How do we support, support them to be resilient? And how do we preserve memories without being trapped in the past and embracing the hope in the future? Erin Leigh Nelson has shared with us in the first segment her own grief journey. Losing her husband unexpectedly in an accident as a young mom, losing her own mom to suicide, and then losing her son Carter in a car accident when he was a young man. This is a woman who has walked a road of grief and has lived experience to be able to stand and to tell us that there is hope, hope on the other side, which is pretty amazing. And Erin thank you so much for sharing that. And Colleen is a therapist who's co authored this book.

How do you grieve as a parent but also steward your child's grief

So Colleen, I want to start back with you and let's talk about, actually, I'll start with Erin Leigh Nelson Erin let's talk about grieving children. Let's talk about specifically, how do you grieve as a parent but also steward your child's grief and move forward as a family? You had young children when you first experienced this major loss. How do you even begin that journey.

>> Erin Leigh Nelson: Yes, doctor. Jessica, you know, when you're a parent and you'd never imagine, right, that grief would come home to you in any way, and you would never want your children to experience the pain of losing, especially either a parent or sibling. Something that we know about loss and, you know, is that many times it involves trauma. And so when we're thinking about just how grief affects us and how this loss affects us, we know that trauma is just this whole body experience. Many times it involves just feeling unsafe and powerless. And as children come into Jessica's house, many times they'll express that, you know, now that their parent has died, you know, they never imagined they would ever go through something like this. They may be worried about the safety of their other parent if their sibling died. Maybe they're worried because maybe if they had an illness, that maybe that illness will also touch them in some way. And so first, really working in the body to help children find coping skills, to really learn how to express their grief. And something that we're always doing at Jessica's house is giving a lot of choice. we're always starting when we, we are talking to children with as much truth as possible. So as, parents are explaining kind of how someone died, we would want them to really, reflect their children's concerns and their questions and be available to them, age appropriately and tell them as much of the truth as you can. And so we're kind of starting there with the truth and then being able to, just to identify some of the trauma responses in their body, which so much of the time that feels a little bit scary, and they maybe have worries that they didn't have before. And so learning how to identify that energy of trauma in your body and to express it is so important. And then there are so many different coping skills that we talk about through bilateral movement and, you know, just being able to do and breathing exercises and really to move through moments of worry and getting to the other side of those moments through expression and coping skills.

>> Dr. Jessica Peck: That's such great advice because you're talking about, you know, the mindset and the heart posture, but also those practical actions that you can take. And sometimes, Erin I think it's difficult for other people to sit in someone else's grief, especially the grief of a child. We don't want to see children sad. We don't want to see them suffering. And we want it to stop because we want them to be okay. But it's just like you said earlier, we. To get through it, you've got to Go through it and you've got to feel those feelings and process those feelings and that can be a really difficult thing to do. But sometimes just sitting with them in their grief, letting that emotion out, having that, that safe place like you talked about for release, and then introducing some healthy coping skills is just so helpful.

Colleen says it's important to just be with your grief

And Colleen, I want to know about this concept that you call the grief's golden hour. What is that and what should we know about it?

>> Colleen Montague: There's a term, the golden hour after a baby has just been born. And it's when they transition from that warm, safe, predictable, predictable environment of the womb into their parents arms. You know, it's a very harsh change for them. but then if they can be held and you know, have that skin to skin contact, it can be such a good transition for that baby. And so we took that concept and you know, Erin was the one that actually developed it and she talked about how, you know, you have a golden hour in your grief as well. You know, there are those very early, early days after you've experienced the loss and it's really hard and tender time. But it's so important to just be with your grief. You know, grief is so intense and it has so many demands on us, on our bodies, on our minds, our cognitive abilities. But if you can just be with your grief and feel it as it comes up, there's a lot of power in that. You know, you won't feel it all at once. Those that grief that comes and goes in bits and pieces and of course at ah, unexpected times, but just noticing how you're feeling and allowing yourself to be in it, whether that's through tears or that's through rage and screaming and there's a lot of protest and grief too. You know, we don't want to lose our person. We don't want to be where we are. The other thing too, with this golden hour is just you are not the same person that you once were and especially in these early days. And so, honor the limitations that you have now. We can't keep functioning the way we once did. It's really hard and it's going to feel like an uphill battle to try and do so. And so just know that you have to be gentle with yourself and tuning into what you need and what others in your family need and trying to teach your supporters what's helpful and even what's not helpful. And with that it's, oh, go ahead, doctor.

>> Dr. Jessica Peck: No, go, no, go ahead, go ahead, Colleen. Keep, keep going.

>> Colleen Montague: Oh, okay. I was going to say, you know, one thing that we created was our CARE acronym. These are very simple ways to bring, you know, support to yourself in the early days of grief. But honestly, every day, you know, just as we are in our world. And I'll go through it in more depth, but just as a quick overview, it's careful for your body. A accept support. R is rest often and E is express emotions. And so going back, caring for your body with healthy food, water and light movement like stretching or walking outdoors. A accepting support in the ways that you find most helpful. So there's a kind of a key with that, right. Is there's a lot of help being offered, but it's okay to accept what actually feels good for you. And then R with rest often and try to keep normal routines as much as possible. This is especially helpful with kids. And E express your emotions with others as they arise. And that's what Erin was speaking of earlier with just understanding and noticing what you're feeling in your body and expressing that out through different activities that work for you.

>> Dr. Jessica Peck: That's such great advice, Colleen. And I'm thinking, you know, this is not just applicable after a death, but after any sort of severe traumatic loss that might be a divorce, that might be loss of relationship, that might be any number of traumas that can happen. And it's so important to do those things like you're talking about. But I think sometimes parents, especially when you have younger children who are in the house, you feel this kind of extra pressure that you don't really want them to see you sad, you don't want them to be afraid. And yet you have these limitations, just like you talked about Erin you know, I'm sure that you felt that too. Just having kids that were three and five when you lost your husband and you feel like, oh, I've got to stay strong, is it okay to cry in front of them? But how do you honor your own grief journey while, still meeting your kids needs? But I mean they're going to, they're going to see that grief. We can't hide it from them. To try to say that is just a lie because kids are designed to get their psychological safety by being in tuned with our emotions and where we are and they know that. And so how do we balance those two things?

>> Erin Leigh Nelson: Yes, it's so true. Kids are so in tune. And I feel like just kids, they know even when their caregiver, their parent is even breathing differently, right? They just know us so well, so there's no tricking them, right? And we can have a smile on our face, but they know if we're sad. And so I think what happens when we are actually being honest about how we're feeling is it builds that trust because it really aligns, inside of them of what they're feeling. And it really just helps them to know, like, how to really learn, how to grieve. We're their very first model of grief. And so as we're on honest with our kids, and if we're sad, we can just say whatever it is. Sometimes we get those waves of grief. And I'm kind of thinking of some of the things that, we've heard from our parents and something I experienced. I remember the very first time I went to the grocery store after my husband Tyler died. And he loved those circus animal cookies, the little pink and white ones with the sprinkles. And I remember being in the aisle with the kids and just crying. Like, I was just like, oh, my gosh, like, I was putting them in the cart and then realized for the first time that I didn't need to put them in the cart. And, you know, as I felt that grief in that moment to model that, that wave just came over me. And now I'm sad. And now I don't even really feel like grocery shopping anymore. And I think, like, just being honest in the moment to model the grief and explain kind of your. A little bit that you're sad that daddy's not here anymore to eat his favorite cookie. And so I think as we can model, and we really are that safe container for our child. And as we model that and as we express it, and then as we come back to our own kind of sense of calm, you know, we know that tears bring us back to that homeostasis and to kind of back to our baseline of, feeling well. And so it's just such a good way to regulate our nervous system is just to surrender to that process and to allow ourselves to. And then as our children, as our children witness that in us, then they can learn that just like a child taught us. One time that he said he felt like there was a big, heavy sponge in his heart. And when he cried, it was like it just. He would wring out the sponge, and then he felt lighter and better. And so I think just modeling that and just helping children to tune into, hey, like, what did it feel like after you cried? What did you feel lighter? And, just having those kinds of conversations along the way, that is so.

>> Dr. Jessica Peck: Good, because we can't change the situation and they are going to see that grief and having some explanation of it and walking through that. That can be so healthy and helpful to also model those coping mechanisms like you just said.

Resources for grief, especially with children, are few and far between

Well, when we come back, I want to know, Erin, about some helpful tips that you give parents about setting some guidelines. Colleen told us the A and the C.A.R.E acronym is accepting help, but in a way that feels comfortable to you. So I think it can be hard to know how do you set guidelines with visitors or your support system and accept that help that you're absolutely going to need. But also having some boundaries and, and being bold in that way, I think that can be hard. And we have so much more to talk about. We'll also talk about how children and adults grieve differently and we'll talk about some of the ways that children express and process their grief that parents should know about. And we'll also learn more about Jessica's House, your ministry that you have. The book is called When Grief Comes Home A Gentle Guide for Living through Loss while supporting your Child is by Erin Lee Nelson and Colleen E. Montague And it is listen, it is tough. I know that you likely know someone who has experienced grief who was walking through something tough. I would encourage you just to be bold and to get this resource for them and just to give it to them in a moment of compassion. No words are needed. Just give it to them and maybe they'll open it when the time is right. Resources for grief, especially with children, are so few and far between. Those faith based resources are so important. So I encourage you to do that and to look at this gentle guide where they provide Erin and Colleen provide honest ways to talk to kids about death and have some meaningful recovery and find healing together. We'll have more with Erin and Colleen when we come back.

Jesus continually points to the scriptures in the Gospel of John

Here's Dr. Al Mohler from the American.

Family Studios documentary the God who Speaks. Jesus in the the Gospel of John continually points to the scriptures. And as he says famously, these are they that testify of me. If you knew Abraham from the scriptures, you would know me. Jesus himself refused to allow that division between his own authority and the authority of scripture. He never set scripture aside. What he did was to make very clear that he perfectly fulfilled scripture. And of course, he went beyond even the Old Testament law in the Sermon on the Mount, saying, you've heard it said, you shall not commit adultery. I will tell you that if you've lusted in your heart, you have already committed adultery. So Jesus Christ himself drives us back to the authority of scripture. And evidently, that's exactly where he wants his church to be. Visit thegodwhospeaks.org.

>> Up by Tauren Wells: From Wall street to the small town barber? Everybody in a dark place? Yeah? Crying tears like a river run no umbrella and you're caught in the rain? Running low on faith? Can I get name in? This is for when life is coming at ya. hands up. Get your hands on. If you're having a hard day? Ain't no way you're giving up?

Up.

If you're dealing with heartbreak? Ain't no way you're giving up? Keep your head high? Keep on fighting? Cause the pressure makes a diamond? Tomorrow's a new day?

Yeah?

Ain't no way you're giving up.

>> Dr. Jessica Peck: Welcome back, friends. That is up by Tauren Wells and he if grief has got you down, we are here to help you look up and to help help you find hope. We're talking today to authors Erin Leigh Nelson who is the founder and executive director of Jessica's House, which is a grief support center for children and families, and licensed marriage and family therapist Colleen E. Montague who have spent the last 20 years supporting grieving families. We're having a really important conversation about how to help kids walk through grief and how to grieve. Well, if you were listening, a few weeks ago, I interviewed J.J. jasper of American Family Radio, who lost his son at the age of four. And that really stuck with me when he said, even in those first hours after losing his precious son in an accident, he prayed that God would help him to grieve. Well, and God has answered that prayer. And God is answering that prayer through Aaron's testimony as well. And she is here to help you grieve. Well, today we're talking about how to help children through grief, which is difficult.

Everyone loves to gather and surround those grieving, especially right after the loss

So, Erin let's go back to where we were and talk about that A of the CARE acronym and caring for yourself and accepting help. It can be hard to do because everybody wants to help, but it may not be help that you need. What guidelines do you have for setting parameters around that?

>> Erin Leigh Nelson: Yes, it seems like everybody, really loves to gather and surround those who are grieving, especially right after the loss. And sometimes what we've learned, over the years with families is that it can be really overwhelming. And so we want to always help families and just support them in that. And to know that what we can suggest is that they can create a sacred space where they can just be with those that are closest to them. And so if you kind of think of it, we have this house acronym that we like to talk about. And if you think about kind of, you have your, you know, primary bedroom, and maybe you have a kitchen, and you have the front porch and just your living room, it's just like, when you think about that, it's like your closest people are those that you kind of have in the kitchen with you. And then you might have, like, people that aren't as close to you, and they're kind of your kitchen people. And maybe those are the people that get the information out about, like, what your needs are. And then maybe those front porch people are those people that are just helping with practical needs. Because what we know for parents is that the school lunches, they still need to be packed, the kids still have sports, and dinner still has to be made. And, there are so many roles that neighbors and friends can fill for a parent who's grieving. And so having those right people around you, but just maybe the presence that just is in your home and closest to you, we want those to be people that really bring you strength. And a good test of that is, do you feel a little bit more energy when they're around you, or are you kind of feeling drained of your energy? And so that's a good question that parents can ask themselves as, they're trying to decide who they should be surrounded with during those early days of grief.

>> Dr. Jessica Peck: That's great advice. And some of those kitchen table people can help to manage the others, you know, that really want to help. Because one of the best things for kids after experiencing loss and going through grief is consistency. And that can be really hard when your grief journey is very inconsistent and your emotions are unpredictable. Having that support system around you, who's going to make sure the lunches get packed and kids get where they need to get, and there's food on the table and there's clean clothes in the dryer. All of those things are really important for consistency. But we know, Colleen, that children and adults grieve differently. And it can be really hard to see children grieving, grieve especially. But there is a way that we can help them to express and process that grief in a way that leads on a path to resilience, to healing, to hope. Can you tell us what that looks like.

He had?

>> Colleen Montague: I just. I like what you said, that children and adults, they do grieve very differently at times. Just everybody in the family is grieving differently. And, you know, some kids might be more of those natural criers. but then with other kids, sometimes it can look like indifference. You know, they're not really seeing a lot of responses from them, so you're not really sure how they're doing. Something that we have seen often in our work is, you know, the parent is afraid to cry in front of their child because they don't want to make them sad or make them worried. And that same child is afraid to bring up the loss or cry in front of their parents because they don't want to make their parents sad. And so it's this protection game that children and parents play with the best of intentions to shield each other from pain. But, you know, the reality is that the whole family's already in pain. And to talk about it isn't going to make it worse. It's actually going to make it better in the long run. And so parents can really learn what their kids need by being a student of them, just watching them, noticing. You know, kids tend to grieve in bits and pieces. You know, it comes and goes. And one minute, you know, they're playing, and the next they're dipping into that grief space and maybe a little more somber or talking about it. And then just like that, they'll just go right back up into that play or. And so just to really let kids do that, you know, sometimes kids can feel shame about emotions like happiness or excited, like if they're excited to go to a birthday party this weekend. But then they feel guilty because they feel like, oh, shouldn't I just be sad all the time? Or even guilty about laughing after, you know, the death, that first time that they laugh again. But just to really normalize that and to tell your child, you know, you can feel more than one emotion at the same time. Time.

>> Dr. Jessica Peck: Well, Colleen, another.

>> Colleen Montague: Sorry, go ahead.

>> Dr. Jessica Peck: Yeah, yeah, no, that's okay. Absolutely. We can feel more than one emotion at the same time. Sometimes it's literally at the same time you're laughing and you're crying at the same time. And those things are normal. And just, being comfortable to sit in that expression of grief, I think is one of the most important things that supportive adults around children can do. Not try to. To make it better, not try to fix it, not try to minimize that emotion. Because just as even Erin Leigh Nelson was talking about earlier, when you cry, we know that that's biophysically therapeutic in releasing stress hormones. That's a good thing to do.

Having reflective listening when kids are expressing their grief can be really helpful

And another helpful tool, Colleen, that you share is something called reflective listening. And this would be good for any adult that's in, that grief circle, whether you're in the kitchen, the living room, the front porch, torch. Having reflective listening when kids are expressing their grief can be really helpful. Can you describe what this looks like and help people to pick up this tool to help walk children through their grief journey?

>> Colleen Montague: I think that sometimes we're afraid of what kids will say to us because, you know, what if we don't have the answers to their questions? Or what if we don't know what to say to make them feel better? But if you bring it back to reflective listening, what that is, is it's just reflecting back what they're telling and even what they're showing you in their body language. And so, you know, the reality is that we can't take away their pain, but we can be with them, in it. And so when they say something like, I'm just so mad that the doctors couldn't save my dad, you just reflect that back to them. Yeah, you're really angry. You wish your dad could have been saved. You wish they could have saved him. And it's deeper than just repeating back what they're saying. What you're showing them with your words is that I'm really here, I'm really tuning into what you're saying. Sometimes just reflecting back what someone has said, it gives them a chance to hear it in a different way. And so that's all part of that processing. And so just reflecting back in their words, you know, what they're saying to you, and just honoring that, that is where they are. That's how they're feeling, healing.

>> Dr. Jessica Peck: That's really helpful. Because again, sometimes I think, you know, as adults, we just have this urge to fix it and to make it better, to make them feel better and to make that grief reaction stop. Because our heart is that we don't want them to hurt.

Erin has helped others through her ministry, Jessica's Help House

But, Erin you have taken this grief journey that you've had, the grief that came home for you, and you have helped so many other people through your ministry, through Jessica's Help House. Can you tell us about what you do in that ministry?

>> Erin Leigh Nelson: Yes. At Jessica's House, we provide a space for children and families. It's free support for however long a family wants to attend. They come to group every other week. And, it's for children, teens, young adults, and then their caregivers. So, for example, on our sibling loss group, every parent has experienced the death of their child. So they're sitting in a circle with other parents, and they're supporting each other. And then for the children, they're always in those circles with Other children that have experienced the death of their sibling. But there are a lot of therapeutic spaces here. We're actually sitting today in our music room. And adjacent to us is our art room. We have a dramatic playroom across the hall. We have a sand tray room and a slow movement room. We have a low ropes course outside where kids can bring all of their attention to cross a bridge because it's a moving bridge and it helps them to concentrate. And all that concentration can help just help them take a break from their worries for a moment. And so we're just including all kinds of therapeutic activities. And like you mentioned early earlier, grief is different for everyone and expression is different for everyone and healing looks different for everyone. So giving the choices to learn about what does help to alleviate some of those really heavy feelings of grief to get to that next moment. So you do that through expressing that energy of grief through art and music and poetry play.

>> Dr. Jessica Peck: Well, one of the things that really amazed me was in reading about Jessica's House, that your ministry supports more than 850 individuals from your. Just your area, from your surrounding zip codes. That is a lot of families who are experiencing grief just right around you, in and around your community. And I want to know, Erin how do you carry the weight of that much grief? Not only your own personal grief journey, but all of these families? And of course, you know, Jessica's house was named after a girl who was diagnosed, named Jessica with the, leukemia at the age of six and she passed away. I mean, these are heavy, heavy things. How do you still maintain any sense of optimism or hope or faith?

>> Erin Leigh Nelson: Yeah, so we, I don't think we ever expected to have that many people that we would serve. That 1 in 12 children will experience the death of a parent or a sibling by the age of 18. And so there are just across the nation. But I think how we do it is we do it together. And our model of grief support is based, after a model in Portland, Oregon. They were the very first grief center for children and families called the Dougie Center. And their model incorporates a lot of safety and togetherness. And for instance, when we are staff and volunteers before group, we spend a whole hour together taking really good care of each other and an hour afterwards after the group. And so I think just like with grief, you get through it together with grief support, we get through it together. We take really good care of ourselves. We're very intentional about our mental health. And so, yes, it's just such an important part of what we do is to hold the heaviness of these losses, Losses. With one another.

>> Dr. Jessica Peck: Well, Erin I would love for you to speak to families who are listening, who know another family who's walking through a grief journey. It's not their own grief journey, but they know someone who is grieving, who has experienced loss. What advice would you give them on how to love that family? Well, because sometimes you think, should I call? Should I not? I remember, recently, one of my friends lost her husband really unexpectedly. And. And it's kind of awkward because nobody wants to say anything, and she said, no, when you say his name, you give me the gift of his presence. And I know this is hard to do. We only have one minute. But what could you tell families in one minute as a way to start?

>> Erin Leigh Nelson: I would just say, just be there and, you know, send the text that says, don't text me back. I just want you to know, I'm here. I'm with you. You know, we get through grief. We get through it breath by breath. And so just to be there and encourage them to be gentle with themselves. No expectations, and just really trusting that just as your body can heal a broken bone, it knows how to heal a broken heart. So trust the grief process as, you are there and you're just present with each other that grief. Grief, kind of just the healing. It will happen as you surrender to the process and trust the process, leaning into support to help you carry the load. And through friends and family and support groups and even private counselors, we get through it together.

>> Dr. Jessica Peck: The book is called When Grief Comes Home A gentle guide for living through loss while supporting your child. And if this is you and you've experienced loss, know that I hold you in my heart today and I pray for you. And I pray that the Lord will bless you and keep you and make his face to shine upon you even in that grief journey. Get a copy of the book if you know someone who's going through grief and help learn how to grieve well with them. Thank you so much for joining us today, and we'll see you right here again tomorrow. Jeff Chamblee The views and opinions expressed in this broadcast may not necessarily reflect those of the American Family Association or American Family Radio.