Kids are going to go through ups and downs with their friends for all of their school days. Friends come and go and while some friends move away, they can still be pen pals. It’s different when a friend passes on and goes through cremation services in Alachua, FL. Contact can completely get cut off and that’s very hard on a child who loved someone dearly. While your child might have lost an older family member, when they lose a friend, or someone close to their age, it’s a whole different story. Here are a few things you can do to help them through their grieving process.
Encourage Them To Vent
Not every child is going to want to talk about their feelings, but every child is going to have emotions. Encourage your child to vent in whatever way they feel best about. Some children might cry and want you to hold them. Others might just want to tell stories about their friends and bring up memories. Let you child lead and vent in whatever way they see fit. They need to get their feelings out, it’s important.
Answer What You Can
Questions about death can be uncomfortable and downright hard to address, but when your child loses a friend, they will likely have them. They might ask you what happens when someone dies or they might be scared that they themselves might pass away since it happened to their friend. There are some things you can’t answer, but reassure them that you will find answers together or that it’s okay that the two of you don’t know everything about death.
Support Their Grief
Your child always needs you, but now, they need you more than ever. You can support them in lots of different ways. Try to keep them on a schedule so they are able to get the sleep they need and the nutrients they have to have to nourish their bodies. Grieving takes a lot of energy and you are going to want to give them as much as they can get to get through this. Be there to hug them when they are sad and take them to the memorial service if you are invited and they want to go.
Consider Professional Aid
Not every child will need further help with the grieving process, but if you aren’t sure what to do to help your child, you may want to enlist professionals to help you give them what they need. Talk to the cremation providers in the area to get recommendations for counselors that specialize in grief and also work with children. There may even be support groups or other programs in your area that you can tape into to help your child through this hard time.
There’s never anything easy about death, but you are going to want to help your child through their friend’s Cremation services in Alachua, FL in whatever way you can. You never want your child to be in pain, but grieving is necessary.