E 227 Helping Teens Cope with Grief: Practical Strategies and Tips

Former School Counselor & Teen Anxiety Expert Cynthia Coufal explores teen grief with author Clarissa Moll, who lost her husband in a hiking accident and co-wrote "Hurt, Help, Hope" with her grieving teenage daughter. Learn why euphemisms hurt more than help, what grieving teens actually want from friends and family, and how to prepare children for discussions about death. Moll shares research showing 50% of teen grief support drops after 3 months and offers practical ways to maintain meaningful connections with grieving students.

Key Topics:
0:00 Introduction
2:15 Clarissa's personal loss
4:30 How to talk honestly about death with kids
8:45 Why teens need normal treatment while grieving
12:20 Supporting grieving students in school
15:40 Preparing for grief at milestones
18:55 Building grief companionship
Resources mentioned:

Beyond the Darkness: A Gentle Guide for Living with Grief

Hurt, Help, Hope: A Real Conversation About Teen Grief

Christianity Today's Surprised by Grief podcast

Clarissa's Website

 Struggling with anxiety in your family? If anxiety is causing tension, fights, or disconnect in your home, you don’t have to face it alone. I help parents bring more peace, confidence, and connection to their families. Let’s talk—schedule a free consultation today or email me: ccoufal@cynthiacoufalcoaching.com

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Transcript

Hi, everyone. I'm so glad that you are joining us today for the teen anxiety maze. And today I have a guest for you, Clarissa mall, and she is an award winning. She is a writer and podcaster, and she has helped bereaved people find flourishing after loss. And grief is something that we haven't talked a lot about on this podcast, so it's definitely a topic that I wanted you to know more about.

And Clarissa's writing appears in Christianity Today, The Gospel Coalition, and Relevant, Modern Loss, Grief Digest, and more. And she co hosted Christianity's Today's Surprised by Grief podcast. And she produces Christianity's Today flagship new podcast, The Bulletin. She her debut book was Beyond the Darkness, a gentle guide for living with grief and thriving after loss.

And it was a best selling book that was released in [00:01:00] 2022. And she is also the author of Beyond the Darkness Devotional. And she wrote a book with her daughter, which I think is so fun, called Hurt, Help, Hope, A Real Conversation About Teen Grief. and life after loss and hope. And she also wrote hope comes to stay.

So I will share all sorts of things about how to find these books and the things that she's involved with in the show notes. But Clarissa, welcome to the program. Thanks so much for having me, Cynthia. Yes. And tell us tell us about how did you get into this I think you have a story of your own grief in your life, and I'm guessing that that's what brought you to wanting to share how to, to navigate grief, but tell us about that.

Clarissa: Sure. Yeah, I never expected that I would become a bereavement advocate. It's certainly not something that [00:02:00] anyone would ever wish to do, but the story of my life has made it such that I have a well of experience now from which to draw in 2019, my husband, Rob fell to his death. On a hiking trip during our family vacation.

And that loss was a sudden one. It left me a young widow with four young children to raise alone. And over the last five years, I've tried to figure out what that means. I've looked for resources to help me. Not just survive, but thrive again, because I believe that a flourishing life after loss isn't just a possibility.

It's a probability. If we seek that out, research tells us as much and I've also looked for resources for my children. You know, there are great picture books out there to talk about feelings. But it's really hard to talk about death and grief and loss. And we know from research that one of the most important things is to treat those subjects honestly, [00:03:00] with real language, answering real questions.

And so that's what I've endeavored to do ever since to produce content, to produce resources for. Parents for teenagers, for children for youth leaders and teachers content that is going to help them as they navigate this most difficult of experiences. One that now I have firsthand experience from which to speak.

Cynthia: Well, I know that it is a difficult topic and I always felt like if my kids had questions about anything and they asked me the question that I was to answer it truthfully, even if it was like, Oh, no, I don't want to answer this question. And so I'm glad that you're saying that we should be truthful about it.

I remember my parents used to try to hide death from me and I'm sure it was. Probably for many reasons. I think one that we maybe a long, longer ago thought that it [00:04:00] wasn't good for kids to talk about death or be around death, but also I think my parents were just really uncomfortable with the emotions that would come with it and didn't know how to, how to tell me in a way or how to talk to me in a way.

So do you, in some of your writings, then do you like actually tell parents how or, or youth workers or people who work with young people, how to talk about death? Yeah. 

Clarissa: Yeah, I appreciate you saying that about your parents because I think that's a very common experience beginning in the mid to late 20th century, and now into the 21st century, we saw culture, particularly Western culture, become pretty squeamish about talking about death.

It's funny, the Victorians didn't want to. To talk about sex and 21st century Americans don't want to talk about death. There are always taboo subjects in culture. And so because of that, we actually don't have language to be able to have those kinds of conversations with our children and even [00:05:00] amongst ourselves as adults.

And so part of our work in writing this hurt, help, hope book together my daughter and I wanted to give students the language so that they can initiate those conversations because a lot of the adults in their lives may still be thinking a lot of those things that your parents thought that my parents thought that you did.

Death was a hard topic to talk about with kids that we should use euphemisms to soften the blow when the reality is that we've discovered through a lot of research that honest conversations are the pathway to To flourishing, not just for the person who is grieving the direct loss of someone that they love, but it's good preparation because, you know, death and taxes.

Those are the two things that are undeniable. We will meet them all. And and I believe that we can be prepared when death arrives at our doorstep, perhaps not for the great weight and burden of [00:06:00] grief that will come after. But we can engage with the topic in advance so that we have. Some kind of language, a rudimentary framework from which to work to order our feelings, to understand our bodies, to ask the big questions about life and spirituality that often crop up after we lose someone that we love.

Cynthia: I was a school counselor for 25 years and many parents would call me when there was a death in the family and they would, they always had the question, you know, how much do I tell them? Do I, if they don't want to go to the funeral, do I let them stay home if they do want to go? Do I let them go? You know, like there was all these questions like that.

And I always told. The parents hoping that I was saying the right thing is that if your child is requesting something, I request to go, I request not to go that whatever, like to let their child lead that in a way. [00:07:00] Because it was what they were really wanting, you know, even if the parent was like, well, they say they want to go, but I think it'll be too hard.

I was like, if they're saying they want to, I think that's, that's the answer. Would you say that too? 

Clarissa: Yeah, there's certainly a dimension of child led wisdom that needs to be involved in these kinds of conversations about death and grief and loss. Our kids have an innate sense of that. Of what feels comfortable to them and what doesn't and part of being a good adult around a grieving child around a grieving teen is to honor that, especially when we're dealing with teenagers to honor that emerging wisdom that's coming with adolescence, you know, one leg in childhood, one leg in adulthood.

That's an important bridge building moment for the adults in their lives to listen. Truly listen without agenda and and to receive what they hear from students. I think there are also two really helpful guiding questions that [00:08:00] actually a grief counselor shared with me years ago. She said two good questions to ask her.

What do my Children need to know and what do they want to know? And that's where our guidance as adults in the lives of grieving children is really important because it's not just a child centric approach that is appropriate when we're dealing with grief and loss. We're still the adults in the room.

We're still the leaders. We're still the gatekeepers for those students under our care for those children in our home. And so those two questions are really helpful. Well, my child may not want to know that grandma died of cancer. But is that an important fact to share with my child? Does my child need to know that to be able to process this loss appropriate and inappropriately and in a healthy way?

You know, if my child needs to know something, but doesn't want to know it, how do I share that content in a way that's age appropriate? That's a [00:09:00] part of a continuing conversation. These are the kinds of questions that adults in the lives of teenagers and grieving children need to ask. And it's an ongoing conversation.

It's not a one and done, you know, if you remember very awkward, clammy hand conversation with a parent about the birds and the bees when you were a teenager. You just hoped it would be over and that you'd never have to talk about it again, right? And we don't want to have those kinds of conversations when it comes to death and grief.

We want these to be ongoing conversations. And so maybe it's little, little morsels of content, a little bit at a time as our student is able to comprehend and receive in those conversations. And of course. You don't have to have someone die in your circle of community to begin those conversations. In fact, it's better for your student to have those conversations, those beginning conversations [00:10:00] long before they're ever needed so that they have some kind of understanding framework when they encounter the death of a loved one later on.

I 

Cynthia: was wondering about that too. I have three grandkids now and. Two of them are two and one's almost three. So he's talking about a lot of things. And we didn't, I mean, I know he won't understand death necessarily, but one time we were walking to the park and we walked across the street and there was this bird that was, that had been smashed by a car.

And he was like, what is that? And I said, well, that was a bird that was alive, but then a car ran over it and now it's dead. And now it got smashed, you know, so we had like this conversation and I don't know if any of it really, but I thought, well, this is a time to talk about, like sometimes these kinds of things happen and it was alive, but now it's not alive anymore because You know, of this thing that happened.

And so I, I thought, yeah, we, it would probably be good for him to at least [00:11:00] know, Oh, something like that could happen. Or, you know, this something can be alive and then it could not be alive. And I know that it will take. a two year old many times of an older in age and experience to really understand any of that.

But I do think that sounds like a good idea to be talking about this stuff and just like things that we see in the world or maybe you know, when we're part of communities, people die. in our community every day. Usually if you're in a very big community and you could even bring up, I would guess, you know, that, Oh, that person died.

Remember they, we saw them here, but now they're not here anymore. So it's like talking about it in an everyday kind of way. 

Clarissa: Yeah. And nature is a beautiful picture, especially for younger children. And we don't have to start with the roadkill. We can start with ants. I mean, you know, we can graduate up to that place.

We can talk about the leaves in the autumn that, that dry out and [00:12:00] crumple up and turn into dust. That's what our bodies do. You know, our bodies return to dust and we can have those kind of very basic conversations with our Children. We don't see funeral processions very often in our culture anymore.

You know, it used to be as I was growing up, you'd see the hearse coming through town, the lights behind it flashing. You'd have a conversation about where those people were going and what they were doing. We don't have those. And so in many ways, parents have to be a little bit more intentional. So When you're driving past a cemetery, you can make note.

This is a place where people place the bodies of their loved ones after they have died as a way of being able to go and visit them to remember them. You know, parents are going to have to do a little bit more work sometimes because our culture has kind of wiped itself clean of many things having to do with death.

And I would say replaced it with death as entertainment for kids, [00:13:00] violent video games, movies, all of these things. Our children are interacting with content. That has to do with death, but it's not necessarily through a lens. That's going to train their heads and their hearts and their hands, I would say in service to others when that moment comes where they have to interact with death for real.

Cynthia: Yeah. Oh, that totally makes sense. I hadn't even thought about that, that it's. Like almost, yeah, entertainment. People are not really thinking about what is, what that really means that somebody died, especially in a movie. If it's the bad guy, you don't care about it. And then it's like, Oh, but that's like somebody's life.

And yeah, that w I hadn't even thought about how all of that, like they get so many messages about death that we're not even really thinking about as a message. So that would be good to know too. So In the in the book where you and your daughter wrote kind of together, and is it mostly [00:14:00] her, like how, what her grief journey was like?

Is it kind of like yours versus hers? Or, I mean, how does that book go? 

Clarissa: So we've structured Hurt, Help, Hope into different. Categories of questions Fiona and I were very collaborative in our writing. She is the very best writing partner. And perhaps that's because she's a combination of two amazing things.

She has lived experience from which to draw, and she's also a really good writer. And so we. Came up with a whole bunch of questions. What are the questions I asked after dad died? What are the questions you asked after dad died? What are the questions that we find teenagers are asking after their person dies?

What are the questions we find youth leaders, school chaplains therapists, hospice volunteers are asking or are receiving from teenagers? Let's put them all together. Let's organize them into categories and create what we believe is a handbook for students with a [00:15:00] combination of practical support and a dimension of spirituality that we think is so important because it's so important.

Death makes us ask a lot of deep soul based questions. And especially as you're a student and you're wrestling with who you are and who you're becoming, we wanted to honor the sanctity of the deeper kind of why questions that students ask that are a lot harder to answer than those kind of concrete questions they would ask when they were younger.

Cynthia: So 

Clarissa: Fiona and I wrote together. We would ask the questions to each other. We would answer collaboratively and we cover everything. We are honest. We talk about everything from the way our diet and our sleep habits change after someone that we love dies. We talk about our impulses toward intimacy.

Toward addictive behaviors. We talk about the questions of emotion. Am I [00:16:00] depressed or is this grief? What do I do when I don't have friends who want to hang out with me anymore? Why do I feel so different? Why do I look different? Where is my person? All of these are the kind of questions that we know students are asking.

We've asked them ourselves. And And even though we understand that students bring their own wisdom to the grieving process, we also realize that all of us have a lot of questions. And we hope that this creates a conversation where we can ask and answer questions where students feel invited into that conversation about loss and what it means to live after The funeral is over.

Cynthia: Yeah. Oh my gosh. That's so good. And you know, one of the things you mentioned about like my friends not paying attention to me or like, I'm not, you know, I'm feeling alone. I think that I have even experienced this and I don't like I, my whole life has been in the mental health. profession. [00:17:00] And so big emotions don't scare me.

I'm not afraid of people being sad or crying or whatever, which I think a lot of people are afraid of that. But I still, like, if I have a close friend who loses somebody, I hesitate about going to see them or reaching out to them and part of me is like, Oh, I don't want to remind them, which of course there's no such thing as that because they're never not reminded that that person passed away or died.

But there is that hesitation. And then I'm also like, I just don't want to say the wrong things or I just don't want to do the wrong things. So is this. a fear I should, that people should have? Like what is, what as a person who's actually gone through like really intimate death to you and what your daughter thinks, what are, what should people be doing and what would maybe be something good to do and maybe something that they shouldn't do?

Clarissa: Well, I think your impulse is [00:18:00] so normal that impulse to fix something and then realize you can't fix it at all because grief is something we can't fix. It's not a wound that we can heal, you know, put neosporin on and a bandaid and send you back into the game. It doesn't work like that. And I think we are built as creators.

There's this. Fixers. We are creative people. We like to build cities and make art. And it makes sense that when we run up against something that is broken, we want to fix it. The difficulty is that this is something that is unfixable. And so I think there's that impulse to come near. And then when we realize the weight of what we are interacting with, we draw away.

Yeah. And so You know, I think the give and take there is a very normal one. And, and there can come a lot of shame with that. When you are the person who wants to be supportive and you don't know how you're worried about the words that you have of consolation, that they're going [00:19:00] to be insufficient. And I always tell folks, we are fumbling to create a language here.

We don't have it from our culture. So we're learning together. And. It takes a lot of grace. It takes a lot of grace on the grieving person's part to receive the fumbling words of kindness from someone. And it takes a lot of bravery from that supportive person to offer it. But I think your impulse to be present is always the very best impulse.

We know from students that the support that they receive after a loved one dies, is Drops off very quickly. In fact, more than 50 percent of students said that the support they received dropped off after three months that many of them found themselves to be very much alone after their loved one died.

They didn't comment in studies about the bad things people said, or the terrible meals they brought. Day. Talked about [00:20:00] loneliness over and over again. We see in studies of bereavement. And so I think for most folks, that can be a word of relief that it doesn't matter how bad my tater tot casserole was, whether they liked it or not.

Whether I remembered to send a card on the anniversary date of their person's death, or I sent it a month later, it's the presence piece that is a gift. And, you know, sometimes that means showing up and saying, I don't know what to say, but I want to be with you. Can I be with you to say, I'm sorry. I love you.

And those are the only words you say, 

Cynthia: can I hold 

Clarissa: your hand? Can I give you a hug or for a teenager? Can I treat you normally? Because that is the biggest thing we found with teenagers. There were two things that teenagers said in a large study done by the New York life foundation. On bereavement, and students said gestures of care were the number one thing that made them feel [00:21:00] like they were remembered.

And the second thing was being treated like they were normal. I think oftentimes we treat grieving people like they're porcelain objects. We want to bubble wrap them. We're afraid that we should touch them or come near to them. Perhaps we're worried that some of it will rub off on us. But most students just want to feel like regular people.

And so in as much as you're able to engage in real conversation about school, about their interests, about sports, those are the things that really go a long way as you walk with a student who's grieving. 

Cynthia: Hmm. That's that's so good. And I and such a good reminder of that. And I know when we dealt with grief in school with different so many different situations that would happen.

There were, you know, a lot of teachers would say, I don't, I don't know what to do. I don't know what to say. And I would, I used to say to him, just, you know, I mean, if they're, if the student is just crying, just sitting there and just [00:22:00] allowing them to cry. And, you know, every once in a while you can say, you know, is there anything you'd like me to do?

Is there anything that you need? And just being that person that, that sits with them. I remember when I was in my counseling program, they would tell us that if you give If someone is crying and if an adult is crying and you give them a Kleenex, you know, they're like, oh, okay, you know, thanks. That helps me or whatever.

But they said if you give a teen or a child a Kleenex, it's like the sign that you want them to stop crying. And I, yeah, and I remember I never offer a Kleenex to kids who are crying in my office because I didn't, I mean, if they said I need a Kleenex, I always had them. Sure, you can have as many as you want, but I didn't offer it to them because I, I just, that always just resonated with me that I never want them to stop crying if that's what they need to do.

And so I would just [00:23:00] sit and wait. Until they were ready to talk about it, and I just, I don't know where that, I mean that was just something a professor said, so I don't even know any, any studies about it, but I, I can see, like if, I would see other adults offer Kleenexes to kids, and you could almost see that they were like, oh, this means I need to, you know.

Or this means I need to, you know, stop doing this. And so I never wanted to give that message. So you, did you ever hear that in any of your studies or did any kids ever say anything about that? I 

Clarissa: haven't, but it makes sense. We, when your child is little, you give them a wet wipe to clean their face when they've got chocolate on it.

You give them a tissue when they've got a runny nose. So. For children, it makes sense that tissues equal cleaning up. And that's certainly the wrong message that we, that we would want to send to students. 

Cynthia: Yeah. Cause we want them to feel their feelings. I know my My, the thing that I work on the most is anxiety, but I also talk about, [00:24:00] don't say to your kids, don't worry, or don't, you know, don't worry about it or stop worrying about that because it's the same thing.

It's stopping that emotion and it isn't, it's a natural emotion. We're supposed to feel all of the emotions at some point. And I think talking to our kids about being sad and it's okay to be sad. and what to do about being sad and to not stay in sadness. So do you have any tips for like, of course, you're going to feel the sadness.

We want you to feel through all of the grief that you need to feel. But then how do you know when it's time to start moving in the next direction where you're going to start thriving or healing or flourishing after this death? 

Clarissa: Well, that's a really good question. And I think for teenagers, that's particularly unique because they're not done growing yet.

They're still smack dab in the biggest part of developmental change. We know from research that students will regrieve, that is experience their grief, a fresh and a new at different [00:25:00] developmental milestones, whether that is the beginning of menstruation or going to prom or graduation, any of those kinds of things can trigger a really fresh understanding of their loss and make it feel very raw again.

And so when we talk with teenagers about grief, we want to avoid the words. Healing and recovery because it's not honest about the trajectory of their experience with grief. Instead, we want to teach them to companion their grief to to recognize it as something that walks beside them and will come to prom with them, perhaps, and maybe dance on the dance floor with them.

And that will be overwhelming or maybe at prom grief will sit in the corner. And be very quiet that you don't even notice it's there and so that you can feel a full sense of joy. We never know where grief is going to be in proximity with us. But as we are attentive to ourselves, as we offer ourselves self [00:26:00] compassion, we can learn That companionship so that we can take our grief wherever life calls us to go.

And so when I think about the trajectory for students, I think of it as a trajectory of wisdom, not moving from pain to healing, but from the new rawness, that unknownness of experiencing grief for the first time to saying, Hey grief, my old friend. Here you are again. I think about my daughter Fiona when she was headed into her high school graduation and we anticipated that loss.

We knew that dad would not be there to walk with her as she walked out of that auditorium with her diploma in hand. He wouldn't be there to stand and cheer as she walked across the stage. And we were able to anticipate that. 

Cynthia: And 

Clarissa: in doing that, we acknowledged grief's presence in the room. But we also were able to acknowledge the fullness of [00:27:00] life.

You know, you talk about the fullness of all of the emotions and how they're important for us to feel them. And I think about that for students in terms of a classroom, you know, if your heart had a classroom, who is the voice that's speaking loudest in the classroom? And yeah, I'm a former teacher, and I know that sometimes the loudest voices are those voices who desperately need to be heard.

And so we give them space to be heard. But sometimes it's okay for you to say to grief, Hey grief. You've had a chance to talk now it's time to sit down because I have all of these other emotions, the hopefulness of graduation, the excitement of the day, the bittersweetness of leaving my friends. And I want to be able to feel and hear all of those voices as well.

And I think that is relationship building. That's learning to companion grief. And. It's amazing. Students are super good at friendships. They're super adept at understanding how [00:28:00] relationships work. And so I think that picture can be really helpful for them as they think about what it means to move from that very raw newness of grief into living with grief as they grow older.

Cynthia: I love that. Well, and what you're saying are the exact steps that I talked to my clients about with worry, like expect to worry. Of course, you're going to be worried on the first day of school. Of course, you're going to be worried when you take your driver's test. Of course, you're going to be worried when you ask that special person on a date because you don't know what the outcome is going to be.

But when you expect it, then it doesn't take you by surprise. And it doesn't take control because you are expecting it. You have the control over it. And so if they're expecting to grieve or feel grief or feel sadness in these special occasions, Then they feel like they're They have some control over it's not a surprise that they're feeling sad at that time So I love that because that's exactly what I teach as well When it comes to worry and I would [00:29:00] guess we could say that about all of our uncomfortable emotions There isn't any of them that are wrong or bad And when, when they come up inside of us, they feel uncomfortable and we don't like how it feels, but to be, of course, I'm feeling angry right now, this just happened.

Of course, I'm feeling frustrated or of course, I'm annoyed or, you know, whatever it is that this is just part of being a human. In this world. And those are the things that are going to happen. So, well, tell us well, I'm going to put your information in the show notes so people can find your books and listen to the podcast on, I, it sounds like the podcast you had about grief is a former podcast, but of course, still up there for people to listen to the episodes.

Clarissa: That's right. It was a limited series. series run that sort of tells the story of that first year of loss. And there are particular episodes that deal specifically with children. So I, it's a helpful resource. If you're looking for something that is sort of in the moment or [00:30:00] reflecting on what it means to lose a loved one and, and to parent or guide a child through that process.

Cynthia: Oh, that's perfect. And then the book that you wrote with your daughter would be helpful for people if they want to know like how, what kind of questions teens may come up with. And I'm guessing when you did the questions, you also answered it so people can kind of have an idea of if I get this question, here's something I could say about it.

So that sounds wonderful for all people who work with young people, even if they don't have children. And Is there anything else that you, you know, I guess people could reach out to you and tell them, tell you their stories or ask you some questions by email or go to your website. And I will have that information too.

Yeah, I 

Clarissa: always love to hear from readers and to to witness other people's stories. You know, one of the things that I think is A hidden gift in grief is that in as much as we often feel very alone, isolated in our loss, no one can understand what I'm going through. There is a [00:31:00] beautiful universality to the community that you find in grief.

And so you may have lost a friend or a grandparent. You may have lost a sibling or a child. And I can't understand all of those particularities of that loss, but together we can. Link arms and walk forward toward flourishing, understanding that there are some things about grief that are so universal that bind us together in a way that offers a real comfort and I think encouragement as we take those first faltering steps forward.

Cynthia: Hmm. I think that's so beautiful. Well, thank you so much for being with us. I love that we got to talk about this topic in a, in a way that I think feels comfortable and safe. And it's such an important topic to talk about. And so thank you for being with us. Thank you for having me. Sure.