People who face the challenge of dealing directly with death and loss often find strengths within themselves that they never knew existed. They may discover that they are truly up to the challenge. They may realize that personal growth can change their perspectives about death and add meaning to their lives. Having witnessed this personal growth in ourselves, friends, loved ones, and students, we developed a commitment to education about death and loss. Our combined history and professional experiences convinced us that this topic is so important it must be shared and explored.
The first step in helping children cope with death and loss is to create a welcoming and open environment where children's feelings and questions are accepted-where death is not a hidden topic. When you feel afraid or incompetent to respond to children's feelings, children quickly learn not to express these feelings openly. If you answer their questions with whispers or with anger, children learn not to ask them. Although not always able to explain their reactions, children are quick to realize when they are making adults uncomfortable. When adults are uncomfortable, children typically don't feel free to explore concepts in their normally expressive and questioning manner.
Ina given condition in which a middle-school child aged 12 to 14 is killed by a fire, is in fact a one of the crucial and sensitive periods for people who had been around that innocent victim. Particularly, the child was so popular among all students not excluding that fact her other siblings also students of the same school. The school is in shock and the children are deeply disturbed. Being a psychologist I am required to find out how an intervention can be applied to the children, and staff. For this purpose, flowing are the steps I will take to tackle the given situation:
The importance and effort of the planning phase to deal with given situation are often underestimated by school psychologists.
