Applying Preventative Care …

2. Begin Family Check–Ins

Each day, ask, “What was the best part of your day?” and “What was the hardest part of your day?”

My kids like to ask everyone to point to the emotion face that they felt today on the emotions chart, so you might consider doing that too!

This seems like a simple process, but especially during stressful seasons, these regular and expected check-ins become a built–In family debrief.

When you have conversations about the challenging, worrying, difficult, parts of the day, it keeps those moments from being stored and unprocessed in the brain which can lead to them becoming a “block” on the Grief Tower.

Ask questions like,

• “What made that so hard?”

• “What do you wish would have happened differently?”

• “What do you hope tomorrow looks like?”

3. Process the blocks

Processing the blocks on the Grief Tower can happen in a number of different ways.

Here are ideas for various ages:

For toddlers and young children, tell them their story.

You can either talk about them personally or create a character that is like them and tell a story that parallels theirs.

Pause routinely to ask “How did he/she/you feel?”

Storying allows them to process their emotions by putting themselves back in that time and place.

If they don’t want to talk about how they themselves feel, using the narration of character can help them to open up.

• Example, “There was a little boy who lived in Indonesia. He loved living there and played outside with his friends every day. One day, his parents found out that they were going to have to go back to America and only had five days to say goodbye. They told the boy that they needed to start packing their things quickly. How did that boy feel when he was packing his things? Then, they flew to America and had to stay inside the house for TWO WEEKS! How did he feel being stuck inside?They thought they would go back to Indonesia in just a couple of months, but now it has been seven months and they are STILL in America. How is that little boy feeling right now?

For ages 5 and up, use art processing.

You can create your own ideas, but here are a few to get you started.

• Paint a picture of how your insides feel right now

• Sculpt something with play-dough that you are excited about and something that you are nervous or worried about

• Perform a skit with your siblings about something difficult that has happened in the past year

• Draw a picture of a fun/happy thing from the last week and a picture of something that was hard / sad for you this past week

For teenagers, give the gift of a Safe Space.

Create a safe space for your teen to process with autonomy by giving them something specifically for the purpose of processing their grief.

You might consider doing this for the adults in the family as well!

Along with the gift explain, “We’ve been through so much in the past year and we are learning how important it is to process through it instead of pushing it down and moving forward.

• We know you like ____, so we’ve gotten this for you specifically for you to use while you think through and process the last year.

  We are here if you’d like to process out loud at any point.”

Safe Space Gift Ideas:

• New art supplies for the one who processes through creativity

• A cookbook for the one who cooks when under stress

• A nice journal for the one who processes through writing

• New running shoes for the one who goes for a run to process

• A cozy blanket for the tactile one who need comfort to process

• A set of legos or model airplane kit for the one who needs to process while building

• Seeds and gardening tools for the one who needs to get their hands dirty while they process