Activities to Teach the Five Stages of Grief to Youth

Dr. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross identified the five stages of grief that are a natural part of the process for all of us.

Though many people think children are too fragile to handle dealing with grief, understanding the five stages can help them be ready for their own losses---be it a cherished pet, a grandparent or a sibling. Use these concepts when designing activities to teach these stages.

The Five Stages of Grief

• Each of the five stages happens each time somebody grieves. They generally happen in order, although backsliding is common. A graph of progress will look more like a serrated knife at an angle than a straight line.

  The stages are Denial/Isolation ("I can't believe it!"), Anger ("Why did this have to happen to me?"), Bargaining ("If that kid I hit survives surgery I'll never drink again.", Depression ("It doesn't matter anyway, nothing does." and Acceptance ("I'll be okay and I'm stronger for the experience").

Vocabulary Based Lessons (Knowing)

• In these lessons, the focus is on understanding the definition of the words that label the five stages of grief. Activities might range from simple worksheets to matching drills to games like hangman and Pictionary.

  Once students demonstrate reasonable knowledge of definitions, you can add resonance to the understanding by placing them in the context of grieving. Students might do sentence work including the word in context.

  These lessons are best used for younger students, or as introductory lessons in a unit for older students.

Activity Based Lessons (Doing)

• These lessons are based on applying knowledge of the five stages, either academically or personally. Students might arrange cards of the five stages in order or draw pictures of people experiencing one of the stages of grief.

  Role playing exercises are an excellent part of these lessons. Students might perform a play where each personifies a stage or a single student demonstrates all five stages of grief.

  These activities are most appropriate for intermediate level classrooms, but can be modified for younger or older students.

Empathy Based Lessons (Understanding)

• In this final group of lessons, students will try to understand how it feels to experience stages of grief and how to help others experiencing those stages. Students might write a journal entry about a time they experienced grief, pointing out where and when the five stages took place. Even young students have experienced enough loss to be able to participate.

  Once students have rooted the idea in their own experience, they can learn to recognize the stages in others. Interviewing activities and creative writing are excellent examples of this kind of lesson.

  Older students will get the most out of these lessons, but if kept simple even the youngest children will get something out of them.