Years ago, at the end of a busy day, a parent asked me if Jessie* had been okay. I replied she’d been “quiet”, which summed up Jessie’s morose outlook on the world. The mother then informed me that Jessie’s father had just died. I gulped because I, as class teacher, had not even been told her father was ill.
Wanting to now help Jessie through the next few months, I asked a friend who worked with bereaved children for help. She gave me “the grid”. It had time scales in the first column and likely behaviours and feelings bereaved children might show in the others. Here, for the first time, I saw an outline of the bereavement process, the developmental issues to be considered and support I could offer.
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