Grief Counseling in Elementary Schools

Providing grief therapy in elementary schools can be challenging. Coping with grief is difficult for people of all ages, but it can be particularly confusing for children and can affect their lives far in the future. Counselors can use a variety of activities and strategies to help elementary children through the grief process.

Make a Collage

• A child may have difficulty talking about the person who has died. One way to facilitate expression of feelings is to encourage the child to make a collage that represents memories of the person. The child can bring photos from home, draw pictures that represent different memories or cut out pictures from magazines that trigger memories. Provide the child with a sheet of construction paper or poster board and allow him or her the freedom to arrange the pictures as desired. When the collage is complete, ask the child to describe the pictures.

Sentence Completion Activities

• Sentence completion activities are useful for children who are having difficulty expressing their thoughts and feelings. Counselors can download sentence completion worksheets or purchase them in bookstores, but you can also create them. Sentences to be completed might include, for example, "My favorite memory of ___ is" or "I feel really mad because." Children can complete the sentences independently or counselors can read the statements and then record the answers of younger children. Let children know that their feelings are normal, even if they are negative.

Anagram Activities

• Anagrams are simple games that can prompt expression of thoughts and feelings about grief. Children can write vertically, or counselors can write for them, the name of the loved one who has died. The child then uses each letter of the loved one's name to describe the person. For example, if the child's father died, he or she could write "D - daring, devoted A - always there, awesome D - dog lover."

Grief Group

• If a local tragedy has resulted in multiple students requiring grief counseling, grief groups can be beneficial. Groups should be divided by age, no more than two grade levels per group. Groups generally have 6 to 10 members, although younger ages may benefit from smaller group sizes. Allow the children to take turns sharing thoughts and feelings without pressuring them to speak. Children benefit from hearing that other children feel the same way they do. Consider conducting a group project similar to the ones listed above.