You may think of grief as an emotion that only comes as a result of a major disruption like pandemics, wars, moving house, divorce, death, etc. However, grief can arise when any plans for the future are cancelled or significantly changed.
Grief is, put simply, the pain that accompanies loss. So any sorrow over the past, disappointment in the present, or uncertainty about the future that you or your child may feel can be a part of an experience of grief.
With this in mind, it may be helpful to remember that your child’s behaviors at those times could be grieving behaviors. You may be familiar with the five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, despair, acceptance.
All of those stages are designed to help your child meet their needs (experience, connection, power) and adapt to a reality they didn’t want. You may also be aware that those stages don’t necessarily happen in any particular order, and that they can repeat themselves.
Armed with this knowledge, it will be easier to understand when your child displays a BIG reaction to being told that a planned event has been canceled or that they can’t go to something they were excited about.
Those are tough situations for kids, as you may remember from all the cancellations during the pandemic!
But fear not. Rather than regression or immaturity, your child is simply having a natural experience of grief:
- failing to understand that they still cannot see anyone (denial);
- feeling angry when you remind them of this reality (anger);
- testing to see if they can maybe still attend somehow (bargaining);
- or even acting moody and finding it hard to appreciate any silver linings or offers for the future (despair).
So, what can you do to help your child through their grief (and move toward the final stage of acceptance)? SAY WHAT YOU SEE.
For example, if your child was really looking forward to attending an end-of-year school party, you can SAY WHAT YOU SEE the child saying, thinking, or feeling:
SWYS: “You are really sad that you can’t go. You’ve been looking forward to it since we got the announcement!”
Child: “You’re being mean! I CAN go. I can wash my hands a lot.”
SWYS: “You wish you could go! You know the point is to keep everyone healthy, so you’re thinking of ways that you could still go and keep people safe. You were really excited about it!”
BOUNDARY: “And unfortunately, the only way to make sure everyone stays safe and healthy is for you to stay home.”
Child: “That’s stupid!”
SWYS: “You really hate it!”
CAN DO: “Must be something you can do to let out all your anger, frustration, and disappointment. Hmm, it’ll need to be something really big to handle all that!”
An extra challenge for you in facilitating your child’s expressions of disappointment is the fact that with a special event like that, there is probably nothing you can do to “make up for it.” The best you can do is host a smaller party or let your child play with a select few classroom friends later, but you and your child both know that special events like end-of-year school parties can’t really be recreated.
It can be especially hard to help your child work through disappointment when you feel like you have no way to make it better (and even harder if you’re sad about the loss, too).
Fortunately, kids don’t need you to make it better for them. Instead, you can act as their life coach and help them learn how to work through disappointment on their own.
One way to scaffold their ability to cope with grief is to grant their wishes in fantasy.
It may sound counter-intuitive — spending time thinking about something you can’t have will help you get over it? But research shows that even when you can’t have something you want, savoring the wonderful experience it would’ve brought can help you move on.
When you explore the details of children’s wishes with them — what things they were excited about, what plans they had, what friends they were going to see, etc. — they really get that you understand. They feel like you are taking their feelings seriously.
The more you understand, the less they need to make their point. And that means no escalation.
It could sound like this:
SWYS: “You were really excited about that end-of-year party! It was going to be a fun way to celebrate with your friends after working hard all year.”
Child: “Yeah, we were gonna play games. Now I won’t see any of them again until next year!”
SWYS: “Next year is a long way away! You love playing games with your friends. Sounds like you were going to play some games you like.”
Child: “We were going to do a race. I was practicing.”
SWYS: “You were practicing for the race! You might even have won! That would feel so good. You like to win.”
Child: “Yeah, and then after the games there would be cake.”
SWYS: “You love cake! You probably know the flavor.”
Child: “Probably vanilla. But I wish it were chocolate.”
SWYS: “Chocolate is your favorite. You would love it if you got to see your friends, run in that race, and then eat chocolate cake. That would be such a fun party! A great way to say goodbye to your friends.”
Child: “Yeah… maybe I will be able to see them this summer. And then we could…”
When a child’s wants are validated, they feel heard, understood, and know that you care about what’s important to them. Often this kind of validation is enough to help kids inch toward adapting in the now and look for new possibilities in the future, like imagining a time this summer when they can see their friends again.
In addition to helping them handle disappointment, envisioning their wishes coming true in the future can help them wait.
If your child has been sick for a long time or if your family has experienced another kind of major disruption, your child will not be the only one experiencing grief. Luckily, you can use this same approach with yourself — validating your experience of loss and granting your own wishes in fantasy.
Just make sure to use 2nd person pronouns, so that it feels like an external validation of your feelings. For example, try saying this out loud to yourself:
SWYS for YOU: “You are really struggling to get things done with your child at home! You miss your usual routine. You don’t like having everything disrupted! You just wish it would be easy.”
If you nodded, it’s a sign that you are grieving as well. So this is your cue to give yourself and your child some extra compassion as you work through your grief.
You can validate each others’ wants and help grant each others’ wishes in fantasy. Maybe you can even make the chocolate cake part come true now. 😉
You can find out more about our simple 3-part coaching approach in our book, SAY WHAT YOU SEE® for Parents and Teachers. You can buy it here, or if you just can’t wait, you can read it online here for free!
Or if videos are more your speed, you can check out our online Basic Coaching Skills Course. It’s full of clips that you can watch at your own pace to learn how to step from controlling to coaching your child and gain more hugs, more respect, and more cooperation as a result.
You can find more tips to make working/staying at home with kids easier here:
4 thoughts on “Big Reactions To Cancellations”
Thank you once again for great information that you make very easy to use!
Sandra,
Great to hear from you again! Betsy wrote this in 2020 knowing parents would need some pretty specific info to get through all of the lock-downs. Glad you found it easy to use.
This is just remarkable, & so valuable for teachers & child care providers as well. Thank you for providing this information. I have a feeling it will come in very handy.
Judy,
Thanks so much for taking the time to comment!
Remarkable is a great word for the new perspectives Language of Listening® provides and the results it produces. If you apply Betsy’s suggestions and see remarkable results of your own, please let us know.
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