 Welcome to Pukipondas, the podcast where I explore big questions with brilliant people. I'm Pukinightsmith and I'm your host. Today's question is, how should we talk to children about grief and loss? And I'm in conversation with Amanda Saderhelm, an experienced play therapist who enables children to make sense of their feelings and to find a comfortable way to express themselves and their worries through their natural language of play. So hello Pukie, my name's Amanda Saderhelm. I am a child therapist and I help children and teach people how to connect with children through play using story because children connect with difficult experiences through story and play which is their natural language. I'm also the author of a book called Helping Children Co-P with Loss and Change. There we are, thank you, which is a guide, a very practical guide for professionals and for parents helping them navigate how to talk to children about their grief and their losses, whether that's bereavement, changing school, divorce. It covers a whole spectrum of loss for children. And I guess you couldn't have possibly known when you wrote it quite how relevant it was going to be to so many people in this moment in time because I guess obviously there's sadly a lot of bereavement at the moment but also lots of kind of loss and separation. I'm working with lots of people who are saying that there's issues there where children have been kind of parted. Why did you write it? What inspired it? Great question. I wrote before this book, I wrote a picture book called Isaac and the Red Jumper which is a story about a childhood bereavement, a little boy who loses his best friend and when he does his red jumper turns grey and it's through the process of coming to terms with that loss that his jumper turns back to red. That was the inspiration really for looking at how story can help children unpick and tell their own stories and Routledge saw it and said would I write a collection of stories and that really started a conversation about well how do we talk to children really about grief and loss? What is the arc of that conversation? So it was really a very dynamic commission because it was through talking to them that we both really discovered that what was needed was a framework to hang the stories on and to look at loss and grief in the broader context so really it evolved, it was an evolution, it was a conversation that began with a picture book and grew out of that really. So what does that framework look like? Can you explain that a little bit? So for me the context is loss, whatever that is and however we define it, produces change and it's that equation really that needs to be held in a therapeutic context, in an educational context and to recognize that whatever the loss is it will produce a change for a child and it's not looking at them in isolation it's looking at them together and that through looking at the change we then look at what needs to be resolved and it's coming to terms with the resolution aspects of the change that produces the resilience. So there are four parts to the framework really, one is to identify the loss itself and to name it you know to really to name it for the child as well to identify the change that produces and as you say separation is a key part of all of this looking at what that separation means for the child it produces huge anxiety, massive anxiety, I'm seeing a lot of that at the moment and that automatically and it does for adults as well it brings up issues that have been perhaps unresolved from the past or even from the present you know whatever the relationship, whatever relationship is being looked at and then only then can we look at resilience so for me it is a and it's fluid as well it's not a rigid step system but it's helpful to have that framework to then place story within so story usually comes within the change element the change part of the framework when you're looking at change you're looking at story because that's narrative that's picture that's imagination that's creativity that's where you open it up how you open it up how you open up that conversation and what kind of change does it refer to when you're talking about change I mean change is a kind of big word encompasses many things what what kind of thing we're looking at there if we're looking at divorce let's say it can often mean huge change in terms of lifestyle it can mean a child moving or losing a home gaining another but actually the change aspect is the transition it's learning to navigate that transition from something that maybe not necessarily but maybe secure a secure base home may not be but whatever it is it's familiar however uncomfortable or comfortable that is it's familiar so the change is the loss of ritual loss of routine loss of familiarity and actually those things are quite common in all aspects of change if a for instance of a teacher you know the children returning to school they may find not all their teachers are there we don't know how many of those have died you know have had to move into a different location can't go back to school so the change there will be again around familiarity and that will automatically trigger well routine I always go and do certain things with my teacher and I can't do that anymore so that it's about then the change would be I've got to now build a new relationship with a new person which can bring up other losses around well if I am in a family environment where you know mom and dad or whatever the structure is of that family if they've separated that's going to trigger separation anxiety so then the change that's like a chain reaction but it's always around ritual re-establishing ritual re-establishing routine transition that's that's always in the mix there with change so how do we go about helping children to kind of work through that process of kind of managing that change and and yeah re-establishing routine and ritual you talked already a bit about you know officer's story and play and that's your very much your error isn't it mean yeah how tell me how what do you do how do you make it work I think the first thing we need to do is to recognize and accept and this isn't always easy to do that children aren't adults so they don't and they don't therefore process things in the same way so the first thing I always say is don't confront a child who's grieving and ask them directly how they're feeling that question itself can be quite confrontational quite invasive and it can make a child shut down and withdraw and that can make them isolated and then you're into another sort of spiral so don't ask them how are you no that can be a very confronting question and actually I've seen young children sort of in five six-year-olds when they are confronted with the question so how do you feel about you know the fact that you know daddy's just died or mommy's just died and you can see them physically recoiling from the person as if to say I don't know what you mean and and literally their brains cannot you know compute cannot understand cannot process that question it's too big it's too what's the word I'm looking for rational really it's not in their language so the second thing is to communicate in a language that children understand which is which is play and to introduce early on a recent something creative and use that as a prompt that's your conversational prompt okay so rather than it being a question that you you and I might say to each other well you know how do you feel about that but you know Amanda what what's what might be going on for you there we could then matter about that and and unpick it together um children unpick things in what we call the safe distance of a metaphor of the story that's how they will open up their their world and their stories and their and their feelings so we we then that's when we provide them with a a resource like story to it's almost like opening a door you know when you when you introduce that you are literally metaphorically opening a door for a child you're saying come in sit down get comfortable on the beanbag together and we will we'll go on this this journey together you you're alongside them and I think when I read when I read stories to children I I tend to I like to get alongside them physically so that they can feel that presence you know obviously it's the space will depend on on that particular child but um so you get alongside them and you read the story together or you you you play together what I mean what does that process kind of look like would you say we're going to sit and read a story about X now or I mean how would you literally manage that situation um I think it's helpful to think about it um I three things I do when I'm thinking about this is one is it's the three R's really you create a ritual uh you read and you reflect so for the child it's about an invitation um you know why don't we sit down the beanbag together and read a story and of course you will have thought it through beforehand what that story is going to be unless it's a story time where you're going to create a story and that's that's a different thing that we can talk about separately but if it's a book that you're reading um I like to think it through beforehand what that child might want to to read about if the issue is anger let's just pick that because it's a very very common reaction I will select a book that um is about that about a character who is very very angry once the child sits down I will then read the story you know literally I'm holding the book I'm turning the pages go very slowly um allowing space and time for the child to actually imagine because there's a lot of imagination going on in the storytelling that they are that character if they the minute they start to um point and say oh you know um yeah Marvin the sheep is getting very cross about that you know oh yeah I yeah I get that you're in that's when the child has decided that they are going to engage and really then it's a process of just carrying that through to the end and then using that story to um ask ask questions you know so have you have you do you feel that you know that might be something you can relate to and just test the water but the rule is usually if a child is talking about the character in the book rather than personalizing going I feel like that yeah stay stay with the metaphor stay with that so be led by yeah the the frame of reference that they're they're kind of using and would you stick with those characters so if you've had Marvin the sheep would you then refer to that sheep in other wider conversations or just whilst you're literally reading that book just while you're reading the book um you could you could return to Marvin um in a later session or a conversation in an interaction you know as a reflection and say remember remember Marvin and and see what that uh prompts but usually it the child will remember and will go yeah I do remember that and then at some point it'll be I remember yeah the I then comes back in and that's important it is because that's the point at which I realized that the child has bridged that gap between um usually shock and some kind of recognition that the experience they've had yeah how it's affecting them um so it's not sorry gone no no i was just going to say is that part of uh the kind of grief process I mean do you see a typical movement through through a process or what does that look like um I think in the very early stages of a bereavement where someone's actually died um young children tend to almost do what we call puddle jumping they they can jump in and out of their grief very quickly and they're the arc of their grieving process does not mirror the the familiar ones that you know like the five stages of grief the Kubler-Ross model um children's grief is very different in that they they can be very sad um one moment and then the next moment they can be very um joyful and that can make I've seen adults get very distressed about that you know why why is why is Sammy suddenly skipping around the garden it's the funeral today why why they're doing that well they're doing it because they can't actually process the feelings um that they're actually feeling so what I see is a delayed reaction okay and I think it can be very tempting sometimes to think oh they're children are fine they're fine they're not having any bad reaction they're okay yeah usually it just means it's become it's gone underground and it will be an external pressure or event at school that will suddenly trigger them and then they'll be having a meltdown and then the question is why are they having a meltdown what's good what what's happened to actually it's the loss that's just become very real for them yeah so it's been kind of held and then suddenly something sort of triggered that response if a child is doing that kind of puddle jumping that you describe should they be encouraged to actually sit with the more difficult feelings or should we embrace if they want to laugh and smile and jump around um we we should be led by them so I think the I was it's interesting I was talking to a father yesterday whose wife um had died leaving for young children and yeah I know wow it was yeah very hard and he he said you know the thing is the difficult thing is is when they need me the floor and be with hi or it can happen when I'm putting them to bed it doesn't happen on a schedule when I think I'm available and I'm going to now spend some time with my children talking about you know losing their mum and I hear that a lot and it's very difficult to do in a busy a busy house or in a busy school but it's it's really important that we give children the message that yes we can respond to them when they need us so if they are joyful accept that they are having a joyful moment because it may not last for very long and then they will be in the depths of their sadness and despair and we need to sit with them with that as well yeah I'm wondering like that father that you mentioned how it doesn't feel for that adult around the child or children if they're doing that jumping in and out of that grief because there's the adult's grief to consider as well isn't there absolutely and how yeah what what would you advise there I mean if you're an adult who is grieving and your child is grieving very differently than you how can you be the adult that they need it's a great question and there's no there's no slick answer to that I think it's it is a literally a moment by moment experience and a compassionate response as well to the fact that we're not always going to get it right there may be times when the adult can't always be the adult but the key I think for the children is to know that you're in it together okay that whatever the response is going to be it is never their fault it's not it's not something they've done wrong and I think with with grief there's a lot of guilt that can that can creep in and it can get quite corrosive if it's not just called out you know there's no there's and shame that can come very quickly with from that too um I think that's the point at which you sink to your knees you just literally sink to your knees and you say I'm going to put everything aside I I know I should be doing something else but actually we are just going to sit here together for 10 minutes and that 10 minutes will probably save hours of time because the child will feel held and heard and actually it might help the adult too to realise that it's about the connection to the the feeling um and I think often when I talk to parents about their own grief response it it usually has a resonance a deep resonance for them with previous losses uh and so you know you touch one you you start to touch the others so very quickly it's like a piece of elastic that that starts to get you know get get tired and then suddenly it snaps um and that's the point at which to think well actually as an adult do I need what support do I need to put in place for myself is it is it something creative is it something um you know where I need to talk it out um doing I mean I've heard you talk of a lot about you know having support around you having the right level of support and I think like something I recognise you know it's really important to have uh grown up support as well not you know serve for the children too and do you think that as an adult who is involved with a child's grief so maybe you're their parent or carer and so you're deeply involved with it or perhaps you just know them and the person who's died you've known them a long time you might be their teacher or support staff or or someone who's involved and you might be feeling this grief too do you need to be kind of you know strong and brave and supportive or is it okay to really sink into that grief and really feel it with the child I think it's that's a really great question I think there are two parts to that um yes it's important to sink in but not too far to the point where um the adult part of you almost takes over and because overshadows if you like the child because they won't be able to understand that necessarily so you have to hold yourself and in holding yourself allow the real the raw part of you to just come through enough so that there's a there's a connection there but not to the point where you're using that time to just go oh you know I'm off loading because really I finding this very very difficult but also it's um I refer to it in my book there's a quote it's it's learning to bear the unbearable and we we learn to bear the unbearable by creating small enough rituals for ourselves so that when those moments occur we don't get so overwhelmed by them but and it can be really challenging to sink in but it can also sometimes be very tempting to do that it's just learning where you can sink in but not to the point where you can't get up again you know yeah um so is it okay to cry with the child I think it's I yes personally think it is important to do that to do that for the child to see um that it's okay to do that you know that's it's sort of permission led um and they see they see mommy and daddy expressing their feelings and kind of normalizing that response rather than it being you know we've got to keep it all in the bottle and smile our way through it and be stoic I think that's the the sort of um that's that's more difficult and it's harder because the message can then be that you know it's not okay it's not okay I should vote yeah I was gonna say I think sometimes children are better at it than than we are and I think maybe the sort of natural response that children have to bereavement is is perhaps in some ways healthier than the way that we learn through our lifetimes and how we might feel we should do this as a grown-up I I don't know maybe that's not right but um yeah I remember when my um children were littler so they're 10 now but when I think how long ago it would have been but we lost a very close family friend who they'd known since they were tiny and um when he died um it was a time when I was still very much learning to feel um so I had you know long history of finding feeling difficult um but my children were amazing in their response and I tried always to create an environment where they could feel even if I found it hard but I remember very vividly um very soon after Richard died Lyra sitting on my knee um and just saying to me mommy I think maybe we need to have a good cry about this and it was a very kind of you know she's very articulate about it yeah and I remember thinking with her you know and just saying I think maybe you're right actually and we did and it was it felt so much better I think for both of us that we did that but I just remember this very earnest little child I think we need to have a good cry yeah yeah I I remember I think that's that's beautiful that you were able to take take your lead from from her um I remember when my um one of my goddaughters came to stay just after I'd recovered from from cancer and this is this is many many years ago and I was washing her hair and I was you know combing it out and um she said uh you know I I know that you've been you've been really really really really poorly and she just lost someone someone else in her family to cancer and I just knew she was basically using code to say are you going to die you know um and I just said I'm I'm not going anywhere you know I'm here for you it's okay um and the hug you know the hug got got tighter and got tighter and tighter so sometimes it's just saying something small um just catching it catching the um the moment um and that's all that's needed you know then they can skip off again and um and carry on um yeah lots of little moments um do you think that there is a kind of a right way in a wrong way to do this are there things that we should be kind of catching ourselves and definitely kind of not doing um or should we be kind of more intuitive and um I feel strongly that one thing we should be doing is recognizing that that grief is real and it exists for children and I think I'm concerned about this as the children return to school in September that there will be a pressure on them to learn um academically but there there needs to be I believe a period of time where there's lots of space and lots of reflection so that um they've got the headspace to be able to do that I think grief can sometimes be very invisible and it's about making it more visible um and I don't see that enough in schools and we know the stats you know the stats are that one child in every classroom is bereaved and that was before covid you know now we've got higher numbers um of that you know what is it 46 000 people have died so that's you know 46 000 families who've had some kind of um bereavement um yeah I'd like to see I'd like to see all schools having um not just a bereavement policy because I think bereavement policies can be about management they can be about letting people know about um deaths and and but not necessarily putting in place the the support that the children and staff need um in order to cope with that I mean I had a case recently where I was contacted by a school um little boy had had died he drowned and uh he was eight eight years old and the um the school absolutely devastated and it affected everybody in that school it wasn't just the family it was everyone needed to have some way of uh being able to to cope with and express that grief and the shocking thing was that that particular school didn't have a bereavement policy and they didn't have any support in place at all they were literally doing it from the ground up so yes I would like to see um therapeutic storytelling introduced in all schools so that there is a story time approach to bereavement um because I think that's as important as as just making sure that you've ticked the boxes and let everybody know about who knows what and and where everybody's uh is everybody on the same page are people going to the funeral or not that's all very important but um as important is the the sort of the response the emotional response to that putting that support in place and you use um play as well storytelling to explore how does that play out if you like um well playing playing out is is really telling stories just through different mediums so in addition to the story I use uh painting and drawing um music and sand you know the the play therapy kit has all these different mediums in them the little miniature objects and figures that are used to tell to tell stories um and really when a child comes into the room they are because it's a child-centered approach they will select they will self-select the medium that they want to work with um my job really is to facilitate that is to be able to um be quiet enough um so that they can use the medium to tell me the story that they are acting out perhaps in their behavior somewhere else um so yes I would say drawing and painting are two of the most useful mediums um but but they are really just mediums it's about the relationship really and the trust and the rapport that that I build with them in the room and that's that's something again that I think I'd like to see that uh being duplicated as well because it's a model that um I mean not everybody can have play therapy not every school can have a play therapist but what is possible is to use the the reflective um tools that can be that are used in play therapy those can be used in the schools as well and particularly during this time I was going to say I mean yeah every every school is going to have children about whom they're concerned whether there's been a bereavement or another form of loss or separation um and so I think many people will be looking to step up but there's a fear there isn't there because you know someone like yourself who's got many many years of training and expertise in this versus say a a teaching assistant who has got a really strong relationship with a child but hasn't been trained in this and is it okay for them to do this uh no would be my short answer to that um for two reasons one is I think if you've not had the the therapeutic training you it's very difficult to know what you're holding and what you're potentially unpacking uh instantly and from the very best of intentions but if you are unpacking a child's uh emotional experience without that it can be quite dangerous because you're you you may be leaving the child unheld um and you yourself may also then you know you've got to then deal with that experience so um I think it would be safer um if teaching assistants could have supervision so that they had a place to go and take and process themselves um but I see this a lot and without that supervision in place it's not a safe environment to be doing that no so that's the key issue the supervision I think supervision is key yes I think if schools are going to introduce um um this this kind of tool then I think they they do need to provide regular supervision for those for those um support staff definitely and what do you think is the role of the support staff or the the class teachers or anyone really who might have that you know good positive relationship with the child and really wants to help where maybe they are in an environment where there isn't access to um someone like yourself what should they be doing what's the best thing they can do um I think there are two things I think one is they can learn how to use reflection as a tool in a way that's safe um that's that's manageable that's that can be done in the playground it can be done in the classroom um that doesn't unpack things too much um the second thing is I think to put in place a uh a resource like storytelling that is actually a very containing experience it allows that it gives the teacher a framework really to say actually you know at this time we are going to spend 15 to 20 minutes um together the child then has the expectation that they know they can hold that until that point um and it allows the the teacher or the learnings the teaching assistant to plan you know to build it around their own their own routine um yeah to sort of to plan and that can be a you know I've seen it work really well with groups not just with classes not just with individuals I think there's something I did a a group um piece of group work for a for a primary school um around transition and you know the uh the exercise was to build a rocket yeah we're going to build a rocket ship together um and we did it over a period of weeks and what was interesting was how the children connected with each other during that experience it wasn't just about building the rocket it was it was about how they learned to be with each other as well so the story whatever you're doing can be can be done in a group so the story doesn't necessarily have to be kind of specifically about grief and loss it can be it's about others building other skills as well or I mean yeah thought behind the rocket um it was for children who were struggling to have social peer relationships and they were there were different challenges for each one but but the common ground was that they found it difficult to build to have friendships um so when they started that group uh I think it was a six-week group there was a lot of silence you know nobody wanted to take part no one wanted to go first but as soon as I introduced the idea that we're going to build this rocket ship together and there was a bunch of crafting resources in the middle and they could you know use these um each week there was a task for them to complete so that we'd get a little bit further towards the end of the building the rocket ship um it was fascinating because they slowly came out of their little shells you know they started to dare I think dare themselves to pick up and sometimes it would be you know well today I'm going to choose coloured paper um whereas you know I've not done that before um and can you pass me the glue can we share the glue can we stick things together can we make it can we build something together and and that was yeah it was fascinating really and is that about the group kind of coming together because they're doing you know they've got a shared goal or is that about creating a safe environment or is it a mixture of those things or something else uh I think it's a mixture of all of those things I think what was really critical was knowing that each week at certain time they were going to be decamping to the the PE cupboard you know and that they would be spending that half an hour 40 minutes together that might be an important thing for people to be aware of then as well if that having yeah that discrete time and and and perhaps some sort of structured idea about what might happen in that but knowing that at this time that's when we will create or play or explore um I think I think so and uh it was secure yeah it was a it was a safe bounded space uh no one was going to come in at that time and say you've got to come to a lesson it was it was their time uh I know it sounds like a luxury probably but it was it was essential it was essential time time out for them uh and they were working very hard in that room you know anyone perhaps looking from the outside may have thought oh they're just building a parachute or they're building a rocket but actually they were they were learning to build their own parachutes and rockets in there um and through the the shared experience of confronting their own obstacles so it was very difficult I remember for one little girl particularly to ask for help um you know she she her uh family were very fragmented and her mom she's a single mom and it was just the two of them together she'd become very um very attached to her mom uh and and it was hard for her to trust anyone else in the room um but slowly we did a little checking drawing which is something I do a lot with with groups and with with children and with adults is draw a a picture of how you're feeling each day on a paper plate and it doesn't have to be it's not about creating art it's about a representation of how you feel and uh this little girl her name wasn't Daisy I'm going to call her Daisy her name wasn't Daisy but Daisy made these drawings and to the point where on the final session she came into the room very quietly went over and took her paper plate off the pile and grabbed the pencils and started you know I didn't have to say now we're going to do the check-in she was ready she built that in a confidence to know that that was her plate that was her plate she put her feelings on there um so yeah how do you end then because you've built that lovely relationship and and that trust and that safety and then it ends I mean how does that work oh it's heartbreaking uh for me to often say goodbye and I think the ending is almost as important as the beginning because the ending can be often a reflection of some broken endings you know that have happened before um so I try to build in time to prepare for that ending to say early on okay in two weeks time we are going to be ending this and let's think about what we need to prepare for that ending yeah and just by asking the question and putting it in the room I don't always get a response but what has happened is that the idea has been ceded and is out there um and then we can play with that yeah so when you I think you asked a question about is there a right and a wrong way of doing anything I would say to that um no there isn't but whatever comes up that feels uncomfortable unbearable really grainy and scratchy use that put that into the the play the creativity make it part of conversation what if it's something really hard I mean is there anything that we should be kind of hiding or shielding our kids from I think probably hiding or shielding so what you mean a bit a little bit more about hiding shielding that's the therapist and you coming out so say for example I am um working with a child and uh daddy has died and I know that daddy has died because mommy murdered daddy is that something that the child needs to know well at some point yes the child is going to need to know that it it's a tricky one I think in terms of shielding and hiding I I think the more we hide the more secrets we create the lack of trust starts to creep in very quickly um and that bothers me because I can I spend a lot of time with secrets hot you know being witness if you like to the fallout from those secrets so I would my tendency is to always say be as truthful as you can but always test that what you're about to say or share isn't going to cause harm to your child see there's a level of honesty that I think always has to be present but if you think that honesty is is going to cause um it harm then then don't yeah but don't hide I think the hiding it is something that I think always comes back to bite really I guess because a child who yeah in that like that example I shared or if uh someone has died by suicide for example that that is a truth that's not going to go away I guess isn't it and if they exactly have the chance to explore it safely they will I I guess still learn this at some point somehow maybe when they're not in such a safe situation yeah that's a good example because I I know um of a family who a very young family actually as in the parents were in their 20s and the father um committed suicide he hanged himself and uh their daughter was two at the time now in that situation she was clearly too young to share that information with it was it wasn't appropriate for her to know that but what is I think important is to not hide um hide those facts from her forever you know at some point that needs to be a conversation so I think it's about finding the appropriate time to have the open and honest conversation and I think to make that as child friendly as possible so again just dipping into a you know a toolkit or um something that's child friendly so that you can start to just start to have the conversation you don't have to have the whole conversation it's just a little bit at a time um see where see where it goes and will that naturally come up at some point so in that example where the child are young I mean will they just start asking questions one day or do we need to I think they will start asking questions and it's you know where's daddy as soon as that um becomes very real for them in that they cannot and of course they will be feeling that loss and that absence before that so that's another piece to bear in mind of how how we talk about that loss because the child will be picking it up but as soon as yes there is a where why haven't I got a daddy you know where's my daddy yeah that's the time to start having the conversation and does this look different for children with um special or additional needs um yes and no um I was just I've been I've been thinking a lot about that that particular question actually and I think I've had children with special needs in my in my practice who've um I'm just thinking of one particular little boy actually whose whose dad um was killed very suddenly uh they went on holiday and um he had a car accident and the next day he wasn't there um and actually for this particular child what was very helpful uh was having safety of not talking about it directly for quite a long time um that I noticed that that was that that was a difference I think what I'm trying to say there was there was a difference there he didn't want to talk about it directly for quite a long time um needed that safety of cover of of play of the of the the tools um and it was only actually towards the end of his therapy that he he did want to talk about it and did mention his dad so yes I think I think it is it is it is different slightly different and was that just about the that process just maybe took a little bit longer or the what do you think was going on for that child um I think every all children are different there isn't sort of a you know a one one size fits all but I think in his particular case his mother was Chinese and his father was Irish and there was a there was a very challenging cultural uh conflict going on with both with both sort of families and I think that made it doubly difficult for him to locate himself after his dad died um he somehow found it almost there was a double loss there he'd not just lost his dad he'd lost access to his his other family part of his family um but yeah he and yet he was also a child I remember who wrote fascinatingly a lot of stories using my I use a little template um divide the page up into six blocks and he filled those blocks out every week there was a new story so a lot of useful data there in terms of that was what he he needed to to process yeah you you it must be hard doing what you do you're you're working with people in these hardest moments it's I mean why do you do it what what inspired you to to do this um I taught a painting class at primary school um it was a class call what color is your rainbow and I went into this group of children and um they all painted rainbows and what struck me afterwards was how that they're all completely completely different there wasn't a single rainbow that looked like nothing actually there were no obvious rainbows that was the first thing that I've learned I noticed and the second thing was that we had a gallery we had like a little exhibition of these paintings on the floor and I imagined that each child would just sort of say well that's my that's my rainbow but actually what came out was a flood of stories about their own personal lives and there was one child whose rainbow was a wardrobe and I said well tell me tell me about your wardrobe and he then described uh in some detail you know how he'd been shot in a cupboard um at home and couldn't get out um so I I came away thinking goodness you know this is a very powerful medium for self-expression and when I reported back to the the head teacher she said we haven't we've not had anything like this in the school and it was really the recognition that children if you give them the right mediums if you give them access they do communicate how they feel and it was that and I thought I want to do this professionally I want to learn how to do this um you know to help as many children as I can use their voice I think it was maybe the element of the voices were there the stories were there they just didn't have a way out um yeah they didn't have a didn't have an outlet and once I saw that I saw the potential and thought right it's uh I'm going to retrain so I did wow so it's all about finding a way for a child to find their voice yes yes I'd I'd grown up I'd spent 12 years of my life living um in Africa and I'd witnessed a lot of obviously a lot of racism and oppression and uh what struck me uh and what I had to learn to do myself was to find my voice and I saw how damaging it was to not have a voice and to feel disempowered from having a voice and I think that early experience really stayed with me and yeah made made a huge impact I thought I don't yeah don't want to carry that around so I think that was also an early influence for me about fine power voice yeah that how you so do you use yourself kind of art or other kind of creative means for expressing how you feel or is that something something that you do in your own life as well as in your kind of professional life uh yes I paint so painting is my thing uh I find writing is great for expressing certain things um but actually the engine for me is the juice comes from the creative output so painting has always been something I've I've I've done um um not I would say to create any particular great work of art but it's more about the expressive nature of it I get to sort of bypass a lot of my you know intellectual brain uh and and then that's become I become playful I suppose that's that's how I play in the sampert is is in the paint box and get messy get very very messy really oh yeah oh yeah oh yeah you know pour paint into paint jars and I do that with the children as well you know pour it on the ground and have a have a big covering on the floor and do that because it's it's tactile it's it's how we connect I think with the soulful aspects you know the the really the wounds that we have that we all have uh that we carry around and I think touching those all the time is what yeah keeps it keeps it real so it's about the the process though the painting as in the process of painting or making or creating rather than what you create yes it's the check it's what I call the check-in so it's the checking in with myself um I don't mean the the ego part of me but the the sort of more soulful part of my myself where I may be carrying those grainy um unbearable bits and those need to be expressed and I think I've seen I've seen families do do that as well do that kind of work and it's a very connecting experience yeah it can be hard for adults they can't it who haven't maybe been used to expressing themselves creatively and often when I suggest to people the use of any form of creative activity really then they say well they don't know how or they're not very good at it or you know you get a lot of barriers in the way don't you I mean what oh yeah um I just I just say give it a give it a try keep it as simple keep it as simple as possible I think very often I don't know whether you found this but when people are confronted by a blank page or you just say well here's a box of crayons they go I'm gonna do that you know because I don't want you to see how terrible I am at drawing um so I might go first I might say well you know why don't we have a go together um and that can that can often be I mean do you is it something you you say you use that in your work as well I often suggest creative tools yeah I do I encourage any form of creativity just because I think that it can be so powerful and like you said really I think it's it's a shortcut so for me actually I I use poetry a lot so I encourage people to use poetry and that's because it's something I found personally really powerful um but I'm I wouldn't you know I've written hundreds of poems and written a book about using poetry but I wouldn't say I'm a good poet I just mind it a great medium you know and I think in in a way actually encouraging people to write really bad poetry process like for you really yeah and also sometimes I think about other people's interpretation of what you've done whether that's something you've you've drawn or or written or otherwise created it's interesting to see what other people see in it sometimes I think and that can be an interesting part of the process too but that that is you're right that's fascinating and actually when someone's drawn something to hold it up and say actually what you see or what they see and get that noticing going on of wow I hadn't noticed there was something like that in there yeah it can be very powerful yeah I love that idea of writing bad poetry I might have to use that yeah right I'll send you I'll send you my of my poetry book and it's got loads of prompts so should you wish to write your own bad poetry uh then uh yeah many for it yeah I had some questions in via twitter from various people who who wanted to pick your brains so I don't get to ask all the questions are you happy for me to do a bit of a quick fire with you on yeah don't you so first of all um any advice for children aged seven to eleven who become fixated on death to the point that it's the main topic of conversation and they're convinced everyone or everything is going to die soon yes that that's that's about fear of losing uh the person closest to you separation anxiety and I would say the key there is the how to move the conversation away from from death is is through comfort is through reassurance is through a ritual create a ritual that you can do uh every day uh with that child uh because it's really they're just expressing a fear of losing of losing you what kind of ritual you've mentioned rituals a few times what does a ritual a ritual can be anything from um reading a story together to going for a walk um I know some children who that and they don't have to do it with both parents if they're both parents are there it can be or brother or sister go for a walk together um play a game play a puzzle um not watching tv not on the ipad get away from the technology um it can be making pancakes together uh I've got a great recipe for banana banana pancakes that I share a lot and that is something that's fun that has an outcome that's contained in the time limit and they can be enjoyed together at the end of it they can eat it together um so there's got to be a fun element to it as well as something that's quite boundaryed with time yeah okay and it's something that you would do many times a routine or a ritual rather or you'd do it once or oh I think I think because yeah build it it build it as a as a ritual so Friday afternoon we're going to make pancakes together and actually you could then extend that and say I'd like you to come up with a with a recipe for pancakes so is there anything you particularly like to make yeah and I'm just wondering here um about just applying for my own uh when my therapist uh said to me uh one time a long time ago I was I struggled with Christmas historically a lot and I remember him saying you've got your own family now and you need to create your own rituals around Christmas so rather getting then getting hung up on all the things that you worry about the past it's time to create new ones um to almost like supplant the the tricky stuff I guess and is that true when we've lost someone if there might be certain times when we would have been doing something with the person who's died for example should we kind of try and find something else that we would do to almost replace that is that the right thing to do or I think um yes in a way but I think what needs to happen before there needs to be a little bridge from the old ritual to the new one and that's usually when people use things like memory boxes and create albums of pictures they go through lots of pictures and it's almost like they need to put that part of the story of that person away and have something real that they can show for it before they can go and build a new ritual over there yeah um so if the maybe the ritual was always about taking a walk together maybe you can take that walk together and plant a little tree somewhere so that you've got that space that you can always go back to maybe have a picnic something like that um you I wouldn't suggest going straight to the new ritual because that might be a little bit jarring so almost close that chapter first before you then open another one that makes sense that makes a lot of sense um oh this is a tough one my daughter's best friend's mum died by suicide in December if I'm slightly sad or upset my daughter is convinced I'm going to do the same I've talked to her about the difference between sadness and mental illness and reassure her but do you have any advice oh that is really tough um I think it's very similar to all the different circumstances but a similar response to the the first question it's about providing just absolutely tons of reassurance until the the child starts to feel safer and we do that through partly through ritual but partly through reflection as well just reflecting about I hear you I hear you're sad I hear that you're that you're angry that you're anxious that you're feeling lonely um and you know ultimately we can't fix this we we can't give the um the unqualified assurance sometimes which is what children want all we can do is say I'm here for you I hear you I understand and sometimes that that is enough to hold the unbearable part of in this particular case a suicide which has its own particular um I think the grief that goes with suicide is quite unique actually um yeah because so hard yeah absolutely and I think that's that's hard children do generalize don't they in that way and the idea here that because my best friend's mum died by suicide that if my mum feels sad maybe she'll do that or you see it other times don't you wear well um perhaps a child suffers a couple of losses in quick succession and then therefore they worry that everybody will will leave them or die and yeah that can be very hard can't it to manage it can I would recommend giving uh that child a buying them a uh a drawing book that's filled with empty pages and sitting with them and doing that drawing check-in and encourage them to do it every single day that that's part oh yeah yeah yeah because it's like um it's like a cycle you know it will eventually um where it's wear itself out to the point where they will finish the end of the book and go right okay that's that's sort of done they need space to work something out work that fear through um talking about it isn't always the best the best way just hear it I hear you I hear you're scared we're going to do this together and actually sit and do it with them do a drawing together and then close the book okay we're going to put that to one side and come back to it tomorrow I see so there's a time and a space for it but actually yes be in all of our life all of the time it can't be because otherwise it will become more consuming and I think if you don't give children that that thing um whatever that thing is then it will spill out and become the topic of conversation at every meal time at every bedtime because really what they want you to do is to hear them is to say I've got this yeah I've got this so the book functions as that sort of container yeah that makes yeah that makes really good sense yeah and and then as I say it started off with we're going to do this together in fact mommy is also going to have her own drawing book and I'm going to do it with you and you sit down together and you do the drawings in your own books and then you close it and that's when the puddle jumping happens it'll be okay yeah done that now I can go off and use some energy to run around the garden or play a game or do something do something different knowing that they're going to return to the book the following day the book because actually the book functions as a safety object it's a transitional object for them so the person who's died has gone but what is coming in its place is this transitional object which then they can use um until they're ready to to close that book and move on and you may need to sorry no no they may need to have more more than one book and I was just going to say do you talk to them about what they draw do you just let them draw and then let it go I I tend to say to give that the opportunity to talk about the drawing yes and I think you can tune in use your intuition here you'll know pretty quickly whether they want to go there or not sometimes I've tried that and then I've been met with I'm closing the book now you don't even get the chance because the child's closed the book that they know they don't want to do that but I would just ask them a question you know say gosh that looks very interesting would you like to tell me about what's in there today what have you drawn today would you like to talk about what you've drawn today if they shut the book we respect that yeah we do and we know we'll come back to it tomorrow so maybe and that's the great thing to end with you know we're closing the book for now we're putting our books away and we'll come back to them tomorrow and we'll open it again tomorrow and that opening and closing is an important learning I think for children in being able to access the opening and closing of their own grief in that it doesn't have to be completely open all the time because that's exhausting grief is I mean I don't know about you but I know when I've been grieving it's physically exhausting to do it you can't do it all the time um that gives everybody a bit of a break yeah if that makes sense it does it makes perfect sense absolutely and I think maybe there's times when we need to revisit that more aren't there when we're coming up to kind of anniversaries or milestones or that kind of thing perhaps that's when we get the book back out if even if we haven't for a little while um there's a great question here big question it might be a whole whole another chat but um very topical right now what is your advice about teaching about loss and bereavement including coping strategies to children as whole classes via PSHE or tutor time I think that'll be on a lot of people's minds as they prepare for the return to September in both primary and secondary I think that that is a whole other chapter it's a whole contained chapter itself but I think I would I would suggest that that's the point at which to uh teach the the framework you know give give the framework and the context uh you know loss change builds resolution and resilience I think that that would be helpful for um for teachers yeah to understand for themselves and to apply that to themselves they are kept safe and supported um as they go into um you know a classroom with children where there's going to be a lot of loss and grief um and and again to yeah teach teach therapeutic story time telling that's so important so important as well or just for little ones I mean would you use it I would yeah there is a way to use it in secondary um you would just change the story okay I I've seen that taught in secondary schools where the the questions are more interactive and more dynamic and focused around asking something direct like so what do you see as the obstacle in this story can you relate that obstacle to yourself and if so in what way what would you like the outcome to be so you would very much have a direct approach with a with a teenage aura and you know an older audience whereas with a younger group it's it's all about the metaphor yeah and do you think it's important that this is on our curriculums as we go back or I do I think it should be part of the the transition and the return um that this is that yeah given given given equal time uh for children to to have to be able to process in a language that they understand yeah yeah it worries me that they're going to be pushed back too soon into learning yeah that worries me too and I think some of what you've talked about how we manage to learn and contain um and know that you know there are times when the book is kind of literary or metaphorically open and times when it's shut learning to do that whether that's because we've had um you know a death or a loss of some kind or whether it's just that we've got quite a lot going on in our heads right now and we need to know when we can have time for that worry and when not I think that's going to be quite an important part of the process of getting ready for learning isn't it and it is and I read somewhere this morning that you know there are there are some children who actually they do want to get back to learning they don't want to be talking about the difficult experiences that they've had in lockdown which to me says there's even more of a need for that yeah I was going to say that's that's what it says to me as well that's like okay this kid really needs to talk about this yeah exactly because it's that is going underground and and we don't want that so yeah yeah I mean and we we we all do that don't we I mean my uh my best friend Joey texted me last night I'm really struggling with my anxiety at the moment my best friend Joey texted me last night going how are you and I replied fine and he went you want to talk about it yeah that's that's what we do yeah but oh yeah so what what yeah I mean we I'm aware of time and we need to we need to draw to a close but what do you think are the right things you know I work with lots and lots and lots of people who are really worried about how the wider return to school is going to go and what they need to do for the children what are the most important things they can be doing do you think so three things the three Rs ritual build a ritual a time uh reading reflection ritual reading and reflection they do those three things within a open and closed book environment there is a chance that the the children will feel a sense of containment and safety and and will have a way of a space to express how they feel and for reading you could put in doesn't have to be reading it needs to be a a medium of of play or creativity that's in the child's language that they understand yeah I happen to think that reading is a great an accessible tool to use in a school in this context for for unpacking what I call the invisible backpack you know the invisible backpack of worries and anxieties and stressors because it's a framework that can be used easily and also it means that that teachers and assistants don't have to invent the wheel all the time yeah I mean there are there are tons as you know of exercises in my book about things that can be done in the classroom environment and outside of it and that those are all really useful um but I think if you want something that's that's quicker that's quick it reading reading a short little book is is always going to be something you can grab off a shelf and just take that child aside and spend that that 15 minutes with them and use reflection during that time and you're working on a new resource at the moment aren't you that was how with this conversation got triggered so tell us about that yes so the the uh the how to talk to children about grief and loss is um is a course I'm uh creating for online training purposes for online learning so the book itself can be used uh obviously you can you can use the exercises but I wanted to do something that was going to probably be video based partly as well and we'll have downloads with worksheets and the exercises that are interactive so that teachers can do that um online and learn that online uh because the I think COVID has shown us that that we need to have a very strong community sense of community when we're talking about this so I think yeah how to talk to children about grief and loss will be will be an online learning resource as well yeah so we'll watch this space and look forward to sharing that in the in the new yeah what thought would you like to leave everyone with Amanda um a thought of hopefulness really I think that um grief and loss can be very heavy to talk about um serious serious subject I think that within every grief with every within any grief story there is some kind of lesson or spec of hope and I think it's about finding that that continue what I call a continuing bond uh with yourself and with the person who you've lost and it's about finding that sense of connection so I would hope yes that that through doing this kind of work um having these conversations that we can stay connected to ourselves because that's how we we stay and process things