Helping Pre-adolescents and Adolescents

The period of adolescence is a period of loss and change in many ways, for example, adolescents gain freedom from parents on one hand and on the other hand they lose some of the support they had from the parents. Death adds more losses such as loss of security, of control and of a family member. This leads to life changes. Death also brings about a loss of “sameness with other adolescents”. The adolescent is no lon­ger the same as his or her friends who may not have experienced such a loss. They may have to take more responsibility at home, taking the role of the dead parent for example. The responsibilities make the adolescents “grow up” too soon, this again makes them different from their peers. It is not healthy to take on all the roles of the dead parent because they are still children in transition, but sometimes there have no choice. The adolescents are still dependent on their parents for support, security, understanding and guidance.

Adolescents can get angry if not told personally about the oc­currence of death. Therefore they need to be told about the loss as soon as possible by the surviving parent or someone close to the fam­ily or close to the adolescent. They experience the same emotions as other children and adults, that is, emotions of guilt, sadness, loneliness and confusion. However, the adolescents may deny or play down grief and try to hide their emotions lest their peers think they are weak or strange. Lack of expression of emotions may result in acting out be­haviors like aggression, minor delinquency, and withdrawal, truancy from home and school, showing suicidal tendencies, exemplary or poor school performance.

Adolescents need to be given time to express their feelings in whatever way. They may not want to talk about the death when oth­ers are talking about it but they have to be encouraged to talk when they are ready. Other ways of expressing emotions such as involve­ment in physical activity, writing, keeping a diary or a journal, or illustrating their feelings, need to be encouraged. Talking about death by using words like “death” or “died” helps one to come to terms with reality.

What We Should Not Say to Adolescents

Many times we think we know what the grieving person feels or thinks and we go ahead to say what is on our minds according to our assess­ment or what is generally said. Some of the things we say may hurt the person who is already hurting a lot. Below are some of the things we should avoid saying.

• “I understand”, “I know how you feel.” We do not understand neither do we not know how they feel because we don’t know what is going on within them. We do not know the questions or thoughts experienced by the particular adolescent. The pain can be so over whelming, so consuming, so numbing, so unrelenting and so completely personal to the individual. How can anyone compare their loss with another’s? Or their pain with yours?

• “Do not cry; be strong.” The person is already struggling with overwhelming feelings, do not make them struggle more by making them feel weak and guilty. Expression of emotion is a healthy sign of grief and must be encouraged at all times.

• “You do not have to talk about details.” Most people want to talk about how their loved one died. Talking about details moves one from denial into acceptance and into the mourning process.

In the African setting where grief is a group process, it is easy not to give those grieving time to work through their grief alone. We all need to grieve and we need to have moments alone to do so. It is important to allow the person those alone moments as long as you know they are not going to harm themselves.

We mostly concentrate on adults and spend little or no time with children and adolescents. In addition to having some time alone and with chosen friends, to grieve, ado­lescents have to be involved in what is going on i.e. preparing the program, planning what to be done and getting involved in any other activities that are going on. Involvement helps them accept the reality of what has taken place. If they do not work through grief at the time, problems arise later. Let us not forget the children and adolescents as we focus on the adults.