Grieving for and accepting a child's death can have a tremendous impact on parents.
When older people die, their friends and family members reminisce about how they may have lived their lives. They may even miss the departed, too. When children die, however, the natural order of the past, present and future seem to have turned tables. Parents expect to be the ones to pass away first, leaving their youngsters to carry their names into the coming years. For their children to die before them makes parents feel that innocence and part of their future has been lost. Accepting the death of a child is an intense, extremely challenging, agonizing task that takes a lot of time.
Instructions
1. Keep a daily journal. Although pouring out your sadness and grief, even anger, to your spouse, friend or relative can be refreshing, writing down additional thoughts and feelings allows you to reflect on yourself and try to find strategies for dealing with the painful emotions. Seeing your life in print helps you brainstorm new ideas that may help you find closure.
2. Create a list of mutual interests. From singing a favorite song to reading that book your child loved, immersing yourself with enjoyable activities once shared between you and your little one assists you in coping with your loss. Dedicating songs through a prayer service with family or establishing a memorial can help you come to terms with the pain and agony of losing your youngster. If you have other children, helping them express and share their grief can also help you.
3. Design an exercise routine. Exerting yourself in a healthy workout serves as a way to release the hidden negative energies from your system. You will not only help yourself acknowledge your child's death, but you will also keep your body fit and strong.
4. Go to church. If you consider yourself a spiritual person, attending a church or a religious study group may help you to find strength in your faith and refocus your mind and heart toward the blessings of life and death. For people who are neither religious nor regular churchgoers, attending a bereavement group like the Compassionate Friends may help with the grieving process.
5. Seek counseling. If everything else fails, talking to a third-party psychiatrist or a support group can help you. Depression, under the circumstances, is a normal feeling that should be accepted rather than ignored.
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