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Helping Children Deal With Loss
Through the Journaling Process

As an adult, you may want to work in your own journal. Keeping a journal will provide you with an opportunity to record your own feelings, thoughts and memories of your loved one. This simple technique is one of the most empowering and healing acts you can do for yourself. In your journal write about your anger, guilt, confusion, resentment, your sadness, your loss, your fear, your feelings about your family and your loved one. Keeping a journal creates tremendous modeling resource for your child. Modeling desired behavior is a powerful teaching tool, creating a journal also creates a connection to your loved one. The journaling process, like grief, is not linear. The going back and revisiting is an important step in being able to accept and go forward with your life. Keeping a journal provides you and your child with a cherished piece of memorabilia that you may want to revisit periodically.

Remember children are experiencing life just as you are. They are not in a “getting ready” phase. They are living it just as you are. Because disease and death are a part of those real life experiences they will inevitably touch your children and your family in some way. Coping with the loss of a loved one is one of the most difficult challenges adults and children will ever face. To understand the grieving process and to be guided through the stages of grief by the loving gentle hands of a caring, compassionate adult empowers our children. We are teaching our children important coping skills that will serve them well the rest of their lives. Keeping a journal is a simple but powerful tool for those who facing issues of the heart.

A caregiver of her parents for nearly a decade and parent of four. Ms. Zotovich has drawn on her experience as a veteran caregiver, her counseling background and her literacy expertise to create Journalkeepers.com and Good Grief For Kids and My Memory Maker, journals that encourage children to express their feelings.

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