Tea at Trianon: Guidelines for Helping Grieving Children

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Wednesday, April 18, 2018

Guidelines for Helping Grieving Children

From Vitas Healthcare:

A hundred years ago death was much more a natural part of a child’s experience. Grandparents often lived with families, so children witnessed them growing older and dying. Modern medicine has made strides in reducing infant and child mortality and has prolonged life expectancy for the elderly, so children witness fewer deaths. More and more elderly die in nursing homes and hospitals, outside the home environment. The exclusion of death from children’s lives requires us to teach them explicitly about death and grief.

In Mourning and Melancholia, Sigmund Freud outlined his belief that young children did not have the capacity to mourn. He believed that only as a child developed into an adolescent did he/she acquire the ego capacity to grieve. More contemporary research has concluded that children do in fact have the capacity to experience and express grief, but it is often more intermittent and drawn out over a longer period of time than with adult grief.[i]

The grieving process helps people heal from their pain. Pain is a natural reaction when we lose someone close, and children are capable of accepting painful reality directly and openly. When adults try to protect children from the pain of loss, it is usually themselves they are trying to protect. The most important thing to remember in helping children cope with the death of a loved one is to allow them to express their grief in their own way and in their own time. It is important not to pressure children to resume their normal activities if they are not ready.

Children tend to have “grief bursts” followed by play and normal activities. Children may not be able to succinctly verbalize what they are feeling and instead may demonstrate their feelings through their behavior and play. They may laugh or play at a time that feels inappropriate to an adult. (Read more.)