Death is a difficult process everyone is going to have to deal with throughout life. For teenagers, death can especially be rough since many teenagers might not have had to deal with it before. Follow this advice if you have a teen currently dealing with grief.
Talking About It
Whether it be a friend or family member, sometimes those grieving feel like they want to talk to others about how they feel about that person passing away. Parents should make sure that they always keep an open attitude towards their children, reminding them that they will always keep an open ear whenever they want to talk about anything going on in their life.
Sometimes teenagers don’t want to fully open up to their parents and that’s ok. Caring parents should work with their teenagers to talk about counseling services and covering any service that a teenager would like. This shouldn’t be forced on teens though as everyone doesn’t necessarily feel the same about opening up to a stranger.
Space
For many, the grieving process means having space to cry and process their own feelings without having someone intrude. Parents can help respect the space of their teens by not going into their room if requested not to do so and simply dropping off important supplies like food outside their door if that teen doesn’t want to go out.
Make sure that you also talk to others living in your home if they don’t fully understand what your teen is going through during this tough time. Without doing this, someone might be intruding on that teen’s personal space without knowing that they don’t want that to happen at that time.
Personal Duties
A teenager can have a lot on their plate at the same time like balancing high school classes with a part-time job. Grief can make it very difficult to focus on these tasks during a period in which those tasks don’t feel important at all.
For these types of personal duties, see if you can work with your teen and some of their leaders to come up with a compromise. This can include doing work later or making up extra hours once that teen can go back into work.
Make sure that you also lessen up on some personal chores that you might have your teen doing around the house.
Friends
Depending on how your teen is, they might not feel like doing their personal duties at the time but they still want to hang out with their friends. This can be very normal during the grieving process.
The reason this is normal is that teenagers might heavily rely on their friends as a support group or just feel like they get a sense of normalcy when hanging out with them. You don’t need to remove unsafe restrictions when your teen hangs out with their friends during grieving but just make sure that you’re allowing your teens to express themselves with others in the way they like to.
Honor
It can be difficult to grieve and move on for those that have had a deceased person play a big role in their lives. As parents, you can help move your teen through the grieving process by honoring the dead.
This can be done by talking to your teen about why that person was special to them and what they liked to do together. You’ll then maybe create a party or a new tradition in which you can engage in those activities in a way that person would love if they were still around.
Over time, this can create happiness as your teen will remember how much that person meant to them.