Marissa: This week, I’d like to discuss a topic that gets too little attention: how parents can approach and console a child when they are feeling real grief and pain. The teenage years are stereotypically dramatic and difficult. Any parent who has a teen, or has had one, knows that sometimes it seems the action and tragedy never stop. However, there might come a time in your teen’s life when a true disaster occurs

It’s times like these that parents are truly tested. When the circumstances are out of their control, they can feel helpless and defeated. The truth is, your teen does not expect you to be able to make the situation all better, although they can benefit greatly from your support and compassion.

One of the most important things you can do to help your child with her grief is not to downplay the crisis. Some situations that could fall under this category are: the end of a significant relationship, the death of a family member or friend, serious illness, or something that is ultimately life-changing.

It is not helpful to continually remind your child that her pain will pass. It’s a nice sentiment, but your child could be experiencing pain to this degree for the first time in her life. Telling her it won’t matter so much in the years to come will make her feel belittled and misunderstood.

Sitting down and really talking to your child is the best way to help her deal with her grief. Treat her as an equal human being. Remind her that it’s OK to cry – that it’s a healthy step in the grieving process.

Sometimes, your child may want to pull away when she is grieving. Knowing how much alone time is beneficial and how much is harmful is hard to decide. You don’t want to smother them, but at the same time, you want to make sure they are making steps toward recovering.

Depending on the situation, therapy or counseling may be beneficial. If you feel your child should seek help, you can call your doctor and ask their advice. Most doctors will refer you to a therapist they feel will help you.

Above all else, let your child know that they will grow from the pain and the experience. Share with them times when you felt the same. Though you cannot fix everything, being there for them will help immensely.

Wes: Recent events in Iraq and the Gulf Coast suggest that Marissa is wise to revisit this topic. The stages of grief first suggested by Elisabeth Kubler Ross in her 1969 book “On Death and Dying” are still useful in understanding grief. In fact, they have been applied to nearly every sort of loss one can imagine, from divorce to failure in school or business. I think you can see them playing out in our national recovery from Iraq, Katrina and Rita, as well as our personal losses. Here are the stages:

¢ Denial: Refusing to accept the reality of the situation or minimizing its seriousness. This is most common when the teen or a loved one is very ill or has had a serious injury and refuses to accept the likely medical outcome. It can even take on a delusional quality when one denies, usually for only a brief time, that someone has died. There are numerous other examples: believing one’s team can recover from a string of terrible losses to win the championship; believing that parents divorced for months or even years will reunite; denying that one’s own big mistakes are the reason for a bad outcome, etc.

¢ Anger: Lashing out at the upsetting circumstance, those who represent it or even no one in particular. Sometimes this is anger at one’s self when one has to face the consequences of bad decisions or their own human failings.

¢ Bargaining: The best example I see of bargaining is when young people are breaking up. The dumped partner will promise to do anything to make things right. In divorce, teenagers will sometimes beg parents to stay together and promise to be a better son or daughter if they do. The classic example is the person begging God to cure the terminally ill patient in return for unfailing allegiance or a series of good works.

¢ Depression: This is the beginning of coming to grips with the terrible news. It is the realization that denial, anger and bargaining aren’t going to change the outcome and that the person will have to face the pain and hurt that go with that situation.

¢ Acceptance: This is the final stage, in which one begins to recover from the depression, imagining a future in which they can come to terms with the loss.

All this sounds really clean and straightforward, but it isn’t. In fact, it is best not to consider these as distinct stages, but rather as themes that may cycle more than once in response to any given event. The more serious the loss or terrible news, the more likely you are to revisit each theme.

Parents can help grieving kids by understanding both the stages and the ways in which they cycle. Moreover, Marissa is correct: It isn’t good to minimize or try to shorten the process. I find in my work that simply telling a story about my own lost loves, the death of my father or some other painful event is more useful to connect and illustrate important points. In these examples, I do not end the story by saying anything resembling “eventually, I got over it.” I just let that be obvious.

In fact, it is better in such situations to simply leave the end of the story something like, “: and honestly, it really sucked. But as I look back on it, I learned something about myself (or life, death, love, etc.).” The point here is to suggest that life delivers terrible things and we survive them, without making that survival seem cheap or our teen’s grief a sign of weakness or excess drama.

The most significant function of grief is the way it gets us through the crisis and back to a position of hope – helping put the painful event into a much larger life context. I remember the first thing my then-4-year-old daughter said when she saw the World Trade Center burning on 9-11: “Well Daddy, maybe they can put the buildings back up.”

Next week: A follow-up question on the problem of drinking at school functions.

– Dr. Wes Crenshaw is a board-certified family psychologist and director of the Family Therapy Institute Midwest. Marissa Ballard is a Lawrence High School senior. Opinions and advice given here are not meant as a substitute for psychological evaluation or therapy services. Send your questions about adolescent issues to doubletake@ljworld.com. All correspondence is strictly confidential.