Counselling For Grieving Parents

Introduction:
There can be no more devastating loss than the death of a child. This experience which a parent faces is the worst possible grief. In the natural order of life children are supposed to outlive the parents that is the reason death of a child is like no other. A psychologist truly said,
   "When Your child dies, Your life changes irrevocably, Life gets different. You are different."
Grieving parents say that their grief is a life long process, a long, painful process in which they try to give some meaning to their lives without the child. Most parents describe their feeling as "A hole in the heart that will never heal. "
The loss of a child is the loss of the innocence and the loss of the future hopes and dreams.

The Process Of Grief:
Grief is a natural process that the parents will go through after the death of their child and it cannot be bypassed, instead it is important to be allowed to happen. The age of the child at the time of the death does not effect the feelings of loss and devastation even if the child dies in utero or may be of age 19 years.
Everyone goes through the process in a different way and it may depend upon their beliefs, culture, family history etc. Also it depends upon how the child died. Some losses may not be visible such as miscarriages, while some experiences may be more traumatic like a sudden unexpected accident which may even involve more than one child at the same time.

Types Of Loss:

1. Miscarriage effects about 25% of woman who get pregnant during their lifetime. The pregnancy loss experience can be very devastating for the couples more so if they were trying to conceive for a very long time and this good news and hope gets shattered so soon.
2. Stillbirths that occur in about 1% of pregnancies leaves a feeling of disorientation and despair.Most stillbirths occur at or near term and parents have already prepared the nursery to welcome the baby and this loss leads to a very traumatic and devastating experience.  
3. Sudden Infant Death Syndrome is one of the most frequent cause of death of children less than one year of age. The parents are just learning to know their new baby and spending time with the child when all of a sudden with no apparent reason the child dies. It causes a profounf sense of loss in the family. 
4. Approximately 2000 children are reported to be missing every day.These kidnappings and cases of missing children causes parents almost unbearable pain. Not knowing where the child is? if he is still alive or dead creates confusions and sense of disbelief. The parents may continue waiting and searching for the child and the hope never goes away until the live or dead child is found.
5. Each day 46 children are diagnosed with cancer in USA and 35% of those die. Cancer is one of the number one killer disease in children. The grief for the parents starts from the day the diagnosis is made and continues during the long treatment procedures and the feeling of pain the child is going through due to the illness is all very difficult for the parents. 

Managing The Process Of Grief:

Every one has a different way to cope up with the loss and the process of grief but here are a few tips that help parents go through it more smoothly.

1. Accepting the reality of the loss: When someone dies and more so for a child there is always a sense that it has not happened. The parents don't want to believe the reality of losing their child. In order to accept the reality the parents must be allowed to talk about the circumstances of the child's death and take part in the funeral process. 
2. Working through the Pain of Loss: The parents after loosing a child may experience the symptoms of depression, extreme sadness, crying and hopelessness, Some people try to control these emotions and try to avoid the feeling of pain but it is important to allow the parents to feel the pain, express the emotions and it may be helpful to be with someone who already know the pain of loosing a child. 
3. Adjusting to the Environment: Caring for a child takes a lot of time and energy. the parents are around their children almost most of the time. When a child dies there is a great change in the environment. The place of responsibility for a parent changes into an emptiness. This adaption to loss can be gradually adjusted by changing the daily schedules and engaging in some other useful activity keeping oneself busy. 
4. Emotionally relocating and Moving on with Life: This task is one of the most difficult one to accomplish. Many parents say they could never come back to their normal past lives but it is necessary to keep moving on with life. In some cases the parents have a feeling that they will lose another child too and that there is a feeling of being stuck in life at the point when the loss occurred. It is important for parents to know that it is normal for them to have an ongoing relationship with their dead child through the memories and mental life. 

A Father's Grief:

Although both the mother and the father grieves for the loss of a child they both grieve differently and father is expected to be strong and to be more on the practical aspect of death than the emotional aspect. Such expectation places an extra burden on men and prevents them from their right to grieve. It is important that a father's grief should be understood by the partner, the other family members, friends as well as the mental health professionals. 

     When is it my turn to cry? I’m not sure society or my upbringing will allow me a time to

      really cry, unafraid of the reaction and repercussion that might follow. I must be strong, I

      must support my wife, because I am a man. I must be the cornerstone of our family because

      society says so, my family says so, and, until I can reverse my learned nature, I say so” (A father         in DeFrain, J., L. Ernst, D. Jakub, and J. Taylor, J. 1991, 112).