Archive for July, 2010

WHEN A CHILD DIES. FOOTSTEPS OF A GRIEVING FAMILY. PUBLISHED BY VERITAS (2008)

Sunday, July 25th, 2010

As part of my counselling training I did considerable research

on grief and bereavement for my thesis. Some of the material

I read was entirely academic, explaining the feelings of grief,

and the tasks of grieving; others had a more human touch

and were a celebration of the deceased. When I wrote my

thesis I combined the two, but it still had a largely academic

bias, and would have been of limited help to those suffering

loss. This account is neither of these two approaches. It is not

about Cathal. It is about our experience of losing him. It is

about the brutality of sudden death. It is not embellished in

any way, and it is not an exercise in self-pity.

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toxic shame

Sunday, July 25th, 2010

Mark Brandenburg offers good advice on how to protect our children from our shame. He advises us to know our history of shame, and how it may be triggered by our children. Being on guard for these triggers helps us to avoid responding to them. Be aware of your child’s reaction to shame, and reconnect as quickly as possible with him or her, because your children want a loving relationship with you. Be patient in this, because your child may feel hurt and be unwilling to immediately engage with you.   Explain what shaming is to them and this will help them process what has happened to them. If you find yourself shaming your child, don’t beat yourself up. See yourself as human and imperfect, and as a person who is entitled to kindness from yourself.

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toxic or unhealthy shame

Monday, July 19th, 2010

Finally, parents should learn to give their child unconditional love, in so far as this is humanly possible. The more conditions we attach, the more we shame our children. The more we use conditional phrases, (such as ‘good boys/girls never answer back their mother/father’, ‘children should be seen and not heard’, ‘you should be ashamed of yourself for doing that’, ‘you are a stupid boy/girl, etc), the more likely we are to shame our children. Parents must allow their child to develop at his own pace, and not expect to be pleased all the time. A child will instinctively know if a needy parent craves being pleased, and ultimately this will fill him with shame and rage. Shamed parents are needy parents, because their needs were not fulfilled when they were children.

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when a child dies (continued). published by Veritas (2008)

Monday, July 19th, 2010

The sudden death of a child creates chaos in a family, and

the family must struggle through this chaos before beginning

their grieving process. We experienced this chaos on Sunday

18 February 1990 when our youngest child, Cathal, was

killed on the road outside our house. He was only thirteen,

still innocent, full of fun, a kind and caring child. For some

time I have considered writing an account of how we dealt

with the chaotic situation we found ourselves in, and how we

coped with the overwhelming sense of loss, especially in the

early days. It is only now, after a long period of training to be

a counseller, that I can contemplate such an undertaking.

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When a Child Dies. Footsteps of a Grieving Family. Published by Veritas (2008)

Monday, July 12th, 2010

As previously promised I will now serialise my book on the death of our child, Cathal, who died 0n 18th February 1990.

Introduction

In talking about the death of a child, I wish to be as

inclusive as possible. Pre-natal and post-natal children,

miscarried children, children who die in the womb, stillbirths, children who die soon after birth, pre-teen and

teenagers, and adult children of all ages are relevant to the

context of this book. To lose a child is one of the most

devastating ordeals a family can suffer. Our children have said

that they cannot imagine how painful it is for Mary and

me, as parents, to have lost our child. Breda, one of our

daughters, cannot find words to express how sad she is for us

that we were to ‘fall in love, carry a baby for nine months,

give birth, and then lose that person you created together. To

have him snatched away years before his time’. That may be

so, and there is no point in trying to compare the severity of

grief, but having read the anguish that my surviving children

suffered, I can only conclude that the pain of siblings is far

more severe than what we may imagine.

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Toxic Shame. Prevention is better than the cure (part 2)

Monday, July 12th, 2010

 

Children can be quite aggressive. This aggression is an inbuilt human condition, which may be called upon in later life, for example, to defend oneself. It is important for the parent not to feel threatened by their child’s aggressive impulses.  This does not mean that they are encouraging aggression, but are neutralising it by allowing it in their role as parents. In the same way the child should be allowed to experience and express ordinary feelings such as jealousy, rage, sexuality, defiance and so on. If the parents have been allowed these feelings when they were children, then they will accept them from their own children. This will allow their children to internalise them. If they are forbidden they foster toxic shame. It is normal to be jealous if appropriate[1], it is normal to feel rage if the occasion demands it[2], sexual feelings, too, are normal.[3] 

Another way of looking at it is that the child must learn the good and the shadow side of being human. Otherwise, to prevent core shame the child will split off the good, and conceal the bad or shadow. This will prevent the child from having a holistic view of himself. He will be shamed by the shadow or the bad side. He will only love the good side, and so will not really love himself. We must love our whole self, the good and the shadow. Otherwise we are not truly human, and, as I said previously, core shame dehumanises.

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unhealthy shame

Monday, July 5th, 2010

One of the key aspects in preventing toxic shame and rage is allowing your child to detach. As I have already mentioned, much has been written on attachment to the primary carer. Failure to detach and move to autonomy breeds core shame. It is important for the parent to allow such detachment and not to feel threatened by it. The child should instinctively feel this detachment, and should be able to depend on his parents as separate entities, and not as part of himself.  This means that the parents have good boundaries, and so the child is able to build his own boundaries for adult life.

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grief – death of a child

Monday, July 5th, 2010

To conclude this set of posts, I would like to say that there are many ways of helping yourself to grieve. Writing a letter to the deceased is a good one, keeping a journal to record your thoughts and feelings is another, painting or drawing is also an excellent way of expressing emotions. You don’t have to be an artist, by the way. Colour is the main ingredient. Your instinct will tell you what colour to use. Poetry is also a very good way to vent grief. I would like to conclude with one of my own grief poems

 Cathal

 The Lights of Christmas make me sad,

For they remind me of my dead child

Who was a light in my life

And who passed from me

Like a candle

Quenched by the cruel fingers of fate.

Oh, how I hate to think of it.

That child reminded me

Of me

When I was young and carefree,

Wild, quiet,

Full of mischief and of glee,

Blushing with the bashfulness of innocence.

He was to me

Myself.

Six Christmases have come and gone

With each the easing of my pain,

But all the same, the memories remain,

And live within me,

And I see him every day.

I always fear that somehow

In the distance of time

Since he was placed in the cold earth,

Alone,

Waiting for me to come

And join him in eternal sleep,

That I will forget the sound of his voice.

And every day I listen carefully

To ensure that it remains with me.

For the voice is the sign of the spirit,

It is the essence of the inner soul.

And his voice was soft as silk,

Like the music of the rain in spring

It falls upon my hardened heart.

And no! I will not forget

As long as breath remains within me

That lovely sound,

Which echoed in our lives

For thirteen short summers

Before it died.

 I composed this poem as I drove into the town of Thurles on Friday 20th of December 1996, almost 7 years after Cathal’s death. I had celebrated the end of term with my staff, and was in a happy mood. Then without warning the bright Christmas lights of Thurles reminded me of the darkness that had descended upon our household in February 1990, following a joyful Christmas, when Cathal had presented us with a lovely fruit bowl. It must have taken him a long time to save that much money from his frugal pocket money. I feel my tears anew as I contemplate his generosity. And I still remember the soft sound of his voice.

having finished my posts on grief, my future posts on grief will be a serialising of my book ‘When a Child Dies’, which I hope will help those unfortunate people who have lost a child

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