Helping Children with Loss & Grief, Cole James and Guest Catherine Best, Masters in Autism and Neurodiverse Conditions

Maybe we won't but just you know don't want to put you on the spot. But again nothing brings me more joy than hearing British people talk like they're Americans. So we'll figure that out later. But again I'm so glad you're here and really I want to kind of give you the floor.

But I would love to hear a little bit before I do that. Let's let's I'd love to hear your background on how you got into again just I want to hear your background professionally working with children what that looks like when you kind of bridged the gap and found the method when you know when you started integrating it all that stuff. But if we could let's start first at when did you first kind of get into the work with children. So my background started off an education when I left school.

I didn't believe I was clever enough to be a teacher. So I went down a different route which in in the UK used to be called a nursery nurse. And you could be a nursery nurse. You could be a nanny or you could work in schools and sports children.

So that was kind of the way I went. So I started working in schools as a nursery nurse for years. And then I decided that I could do it. And I did want to pursue a different career.

So I then kind of looked at different root options. I then trained to be a primary school teacher, which is from kind of four to 12 years. And at that point I also took a role at a college. So alongside my role teaching children age kind of in that kind of four to 12 bracket.

I was also teaching at our local college young people 16 to 18 courses like early years kind of your kindergarten style courses. People who wanted to be teachers, people who wanted to work in schools and in everything to do with education and youth work. And so I did those things in parallel for a number of years then moved from the college up to university. And I was then teaching people on roots into teacher training.

And a youth work and kind of early years can have gotten workers, but at degree level. And as I entered that world and every day I had, and I'm not going to say just young people because some of the people in my in my classroom at university was, you know, the rule was 18 to 80. So they weren't all just young people coming straight fresh from college there were people who may be worked in the industry who'd who'd done this role themselves for many years. And the thing that I felt was always the gap was the emotional development and the emotional support of the children and young people that my students were working with.

And we did our best to teach the kind of background of behavior and emotions, but there was nothing practical. Okay, great. And I would love to get a little bit more clarification on that. So the gap between the students you're teaching and you're teaching them to one day go on and work with children.

And in that you're identifying the gap that they have in terms of interacting with the children and their care on that on that daily basis. Is that right? That's right. Yeah.

So and potentially some of these people, the type of degree they were doing, they were working as well as doing that degree. They'd be working in a school or any youth work setting or in a children's hospital, maybe four days a week and then they would come to us at university one day a week to get the knowledge side to take them to that next level to give them that better qualifications so they could get a better job or maybe a higher grade of job. And all the time we're teaching the very practical stuff, but I'm hearing and no from personal experience. There's nothing in there about what to do with what to say if what to say to a child who comes to you and says, my grandma's a really sick or my dad's leaving at the weekend or you know and and I don't mind admitting for many years as a teacher my focus was on getting those children to attain.

You know, my grandma's sick. I'm really sorry to hear that, but you know what you've got some. Because I must to do here and it's it's nearly recess nearly playtime and we need to kind of so can we and I realized when I came to teach this that actually we needed to be far better at this because I was never going to get those children to achieve and attain and potentially even attend. If we didn't find a way of dealing with whatever the emotional side was so that we could then clear the path for the learning and and all the other right.

So that's fascinating right. So what I'm hearing you say is essentially yeah we want them to to to raise to these intellectual achievements and of course education is about helping them increase their brain power and their and their knowledge and their wisdom and all that good stuff. But we're actually getting in the way of achieving that goal by basically pretending like they're not emotional beings much of the school day right and we're focusing so much on the intellect and we're not empowering teachers to help navigate the emotional which is we know. And me specifically and you as a parents we know that they are navigating most of their day emotionally and then we're we're over here like no but you need to learn intellectually too and again that is important but by nature you know children are very emotional in nature and they're navigating all those kind of things.

If you're a teacher with them you quite possibly have more time in their day than their parents do you know it's not like they're turning off their emotional nature for those eight hours that they're with you and you're so you're already you're already identifying this kind of gap in in the in the educational system with teachers. So anyway please continue but I love this so far. I think the thing you just touched on there as well about the fact that children certainly in the in the place of education actually spend more of their wakey hours with their teacher than they do their parents because those children who go to school the biggest part of the day there's only a small part left for homework some fun times and a meal you know and it's bedtime so actually that that person who has them for the day has them more of their waking hours than anybody else whatever their role.

And I think the other problem is that very often I certainly felt like okay so if I if I don't know what to say I'm not going to say anything because I'm scared that I'm going to open this kind of worms that I'm not there with her clothes and we've still only got 10 minutes and and so there's that element as well of because I don't have the tools I'm not going to even try. Because my focus is on getting these children to to tick the boxes and achieve everything they need to and I think that was the one of the key turning points for me certainly later on when when I kind of then discovered this work so kind of moving backwards a little I'm kind of then in a point where I am teaching all these wonderful adults to take all these amazing roles with with children. And I then experienced a series of significant losses in a very short period of time I was on my honeymoon I had recently remarried we had gone on honeymoon we my husband and I had taken this amazing trip it was two weeks on a ship no phone no internet nothing nothing to distract it was amazing but in that two week period what I was going to do is I was going to do that.

One of my very best friends who was ill when I left on the trip who was potentially showing signs of getting better the day before I left died suddenly the day after I left leaving behind a husband and and two amazing boys. My family member and her partner was was killed in a road traffic accident. And so although they'd recently separated there was still that connection of a relationship that was still there and they also had two very small children. And then there was a young man who I taught in in reception at the age of five who I discovered had taken his own life at the age of 22 all in that two week period and I came back to that and I was full of the joys of honey moon and amazing times and all of a sudden it was like no I have to be somebody different and I don't mind to admit to go really struggled.

I didn't attend the funeral for two of those people because I wasn't I wasn't in the country so that I found that really difficult to cope with because I to me that's a part of your chance to say goodbye and talk to friends and kind of come together I'd miss that. I was back for the the funeral of the young man and it was just lovely to be there but it broke my heart being in a room full of I would say over half the young people were there were people I taught who've never grown up and we're all stood there breaking their hearts at losing one of the best friends. And I sat there thinking do you know what I still don't have the tools I taught I knew I've known for the last few years that this is a gap and I still don't know what to say or do. And so at that point that was kind of my kind of that was my charging point that was the point where I thought I have to find something there was very little for the families right behind there's very little support there are some great telephone services there are some great kind of organizations who will talk to people but what I wanted was something concrete from the people on the inside.

Either for the family members themselves or for those who potentially spent most of the waking day with those children or young people and so yeah that drove me what yeah no I love it and you know and we've all been in that position right if we don't have a lot of tools and information and knowledge around the topic of grief we are so terrified to say anything so maybe it's better that we avoid that person at the market or in the parking lot right or maybe we we we shift the conversation. We're talking about the conversation very quickly with the student in our class who is who's reaching out to us to communicate something emotionally but it's like we don't know what to say we don't we don't know how to intervene we may make things worse if we say the wrong thing we may have an angry parent you know wanting a conference with us if we if we don't know what to do out a handle it so I would imagine and you can correct me if I'm wrong Catherine but I'd imagine that the vast majority of well intention teachers out there don't go to the market and I'm not going to do that.

I'm not going to go there because they don't know what to say and they don't know how to interact and there was nothing in their training to do that so anyway I know I'm kind of reiterating where you are but so we're at this point you've kind of hit this this crux of of your career of really already being aware of this gap but now because of your own loss and tragedies it's kind of at this at this really boiling point in terms of you're looking for something else so so please continue. So my background then tells me I need to research so I did the kind of educational thing I did the head thing and I started to look at research and papers and organizations and and everywhere I look never quite was what I wanted it was all very academic and I knew that stuff I don't need to learn about the academic elements of brain development and emotions I taught that stuff what I was looking for was something really really practical and useful.

Something that I could use every time I needed it and that others could tip and my dream at that point was if I could find something this could be something that could be built into that teacher training degree that youth work degree that police you know what you know in this country now if you want to be a police officer you go to university there's there's learning to be done if we could if I could find something to build into that then potentially all these people would have that. To keep if you like that they could use so kind of fast forward I'm still looking and searching and a period of time later I was at an education show big national event hundreds and hundreds of stands and I was walking through this event I'd taken my students for the day so it was their benefit I was just kind of you know tried to be in charge and keep them all together and make sure everybody got on the bus home that kind of thing even though they were all adults and I walk past this stand.

And I just remember looking and there was just a sign that said would you like to help children deal with loss and I that was it I thought that's it that's what I've been looking for and so I spoke to the person on the stand who was you know a member of the grief recovery institute and they said to me this is a program we have for children and young people it's not just for small people. It's for all children of all ages and it's to give the people who care for them either the parents or the relatives or somebody who cares for them in a in a more custodial role like a teacher or a youth worker or a sports coach it's to give them the tools of what to say and more importantly what not to say when the child is having a tough time and and again they said to me this is not just bereavement this is divorce this is falling out with friends.

And at school this is changing schools moving house and and that was another moment for me oh my goodness me this is so much bigger than bereavement this is everything else this ticks the box amazing we it's not just about death it can be used for every single thing that I know a young person has to deal with. And so. Yeah it sounds like it was tailor made for what you were looking for and before we go on please remember where you're going to go next but I just for the audience I want to just touch on just a core concept of ours which is and we teach us in our in our certification program we teach us in our personal work programs we teach it across the board. But essentially when we come into this world right and i'm going to get get through this pretty quick but when we get through this world we kind of have these three parts we kind of the spirit the soul we have the intellect and then we have the emotion right.

And as a baby and a toddler all of these things are firing right and and we're working and operating from all these places and through grade school you I think you call it primary school here in the States we call it elementary school. But you can watch if you watch a kindergarten on the playground and then you go and watch you know second graders on the playground you can see this being cut out of them and and what is being cut out of them is their access and availability to expressing emotions. And their access to the spirit to the intuition whatever you want to call it they are also being told to kind of distrust that I could give you a bunch of examples but we don't have time. What is gear what is school all geared to do to help them enhance their intellect again i'm not saying that's a bad thing but we're we're beating out of them these other beautiful products of their little. beings right you know what you were talking about Catherine is when you initially researched topics on this what you found is a bunch of intellectual things around grief my dad I love it he has this one story where.

He went one time because he was in the grief world and and he goes hey these people are going to you know they're going to do a talk on grief and you and they go in there and it's all these kind of big brain PhDs and. All they want to debate is the definition of grief versus the definition of bereavement right they they want to get into the like. The nitty gritty weeds of these things but what they had no tools with were practical tools that would actually help grivers so in other words they had way too much intellect but no emotional capacity. Or I should say emotional tools at how to actually.

Effectively help grieving people and he said after 10 minutes of this kind of ego driven intellectual prowess showing off nonsense he just walked out of the room he's like I got no time for this and. What you'll find is what Catherine has found is when you research the topic of grief I actually have a YouTube video this coming out shortly. When you research this topic you'll find no shortage of people that are stuck here that that are really making this stuff complex and very intellectual which is irrelevant both to our children and us as adults to when it comes to dealing with an emotional. event which is grief grief does not take place here. That's why I don't even love the term mental health when it comes to grief because grief is in the body grief is emotional in nature.

And if you miss that then you miss everything so anyway please continue Catherine I just wanted to clarify that a little bit. No I agree and that's kind of what I said before you know in my classroom I was like no no we need to finish this work and everything will be okay and you just need to carry on it was all intellect there was no. It's all it's all hey let me help you move from here to here because I don't know what to do so let's just get you back up here we've been up here for. You know every time I catch you down here let's get you up here and again this isn't to beat up teachers we love teachers I love teachers it's just about equipping you and empowering you with more tools so you can meet the child where they're at because that's incredibly frustrating and confusing to a child who goes I love this teacher you know.

And I feel safe with this teacher and so I'm going to tell this teacher what's going on with me emotionally well well well why is the teacher trying to shift me off of that why are we having to navigate back to here. And again I'm not saying that you we can we can constantly be working from here in a daily school I mean I know you guys got a curriculum and you got stuff to do. But again if if the default is always moving them up to here that's what we're teaching them to do just alongside the geometry and just alongside the history lessons we're teaching them the minute that I go to here and communicate from here someone that's a big person is trying to get me up to here they're smart they know that well right they think they're training to be adults so what are they recording in their little hearts.

Oh anytime I express motion I better go back to into it right so anyway go ahead. Now I love that and that's kind of I will carry on where is going in a minute but you made me think then about that realization I had when I learned about the tools and I learn how to use them that what I very quickly realized is that I could spend even just 30 seconds or a minute dealing with this which meant that young person then could carry on with their day so I was it was when when. You know for for the for the child and for the teacher it's a win the child gets to express what they need to express but then because they've been able to do that they have been able to clear some of that stuff which then allows them to carry on with the day and focus and do whatever it is else that the surprise of you doing so I think that's one of the key fears for teachers and for professionals parents not so much because it's like well I've got all day for my child I will spend as long as this takes to help them.

I can get where they need to be but for a professional perspective there's the element of how much of my time is this going to take up and how much am I going to have to do and so you know I know we can talk about this later but that's the key thing it doesn't it's about language and communication and it can be done really quickly and smoothly and just inserted into every conversation it's not about taking that child away from their activity and finding a special room and having big conversations. It's just about the language you use there and then that helps them shift to hear deal with whatever and then they can get on with the day so that's that's one of the things that you know I love I love about this work so so moving on the kind of talking the the exhibition about the grave recovery method and the health should we lost program and so I realize very quickly although I had this kind of idea that maybe they could come and teach all my students it was like this is not practical.

And so the the presentation was well why don't you try to be a set if I agree for recovery method specialist and then you can help all the students you want all the children you want you can help other people and I thought oh my goodness me this is it this this will make all the difference so of course life always puts obstacles in your way and at the time the job I had it's like well you can't take time off it's no time in school time and you're ready allowed to take leave in certain times and And so I went to the person who knows everything about everything I went to my dad and I said dad I found this amazing thing and I love it and I'm so passionate about it and I just don't know how to make it work and he said okay let's have a chat and at the time I don't mind show people I just got married I was we were we were kind of looking at we were moving house and it just wasn't financially a practical time for me to kind of look at something new.

And my dad said to me to know what he said if this is something you passed about let's look about he said I will help you to do the training if I can. So I looked at the dates online and I found that the next training was an hour from me and it was the first day of my allowed to take annual summer leave. I thought this is meant to be I'm supposed to be doing this and I'm not really that kind of person that's like but everything just seemed. So so my dad helped me financially so I could undertake the training and I did what all daughters do and said dad I'll pay you back and promise you'll get you'll get this and I went and did the four day training I went and did the four day certification training and a location about an hour away from my home.

And I just remember it was so overwhelming and exciting and wonderful and amazing all scooped into one bowl of four days. It was it's definitely for anybody's considering it's a rollercoaster it's it's kind of it's emotional and it's wonderful. And I remember just coming out of those four days and I went home first people I went to see was my mom and dad and I said oh it's absolutely fantastic. And my mom said you look like you've been at a spa for four days not on the training she said I was really worried when I spoke to you two days ago you sounded exhausted I said yeah because that's the beauty of the method.

You know when you come out of the end of this for a personal perspective because I wasn't a griever I didn't go and do this because I needed any help myself. I was not not sorry. We're going to help other people I was going to teach my students and I remember sitting there and that conversation happening in a world where all believers in this room are like I'm not a griever I don't know what I'm going to do here. Right.

I mean you even have to make something up because I'm not quite sure why I'm here. Boy did I realize how wrong I was by the time I'd finished a few more hours in that room and it was it was absolutely life changing. Well and let me ask you this Catherine because you've mentioned earlier you're on your you're on your honeymoon cruise right and you've had all of these losses in the timeline. What how many how long had had how many years or months had passed between the honeymoon and you attending that that certification roughly just just over a year.

So a year. Yeah, I just over just over about about a year actually my my honeymoon was the summer of 2012 and I trained in the summer of 2013. Okay great so for the audience let me let me break something down for you okay so Catherine is headed to a grief recovery certification training and you know we don't put it out there to publicly but news flash I'm going to get let you guys in on a little inside secret when you go through the certification training we're going to have you do some personal work because we can't help other people unless we know what it is like to do this work ourselves. So that's a secret right I've it's it's out of the bag but.

But I want to stop and mention what Catherine just said right she's going to this training she she knows that she's going to do personal work but she does not think she has any personal work well 10 minutes ago in this conversation we know she has had many grief events in her life right now we just figured out okay that was roughly a year ago this is a very important point that I want to touch on in my experience the reason Catherine doesn't think she has any grief to work on is because one year passed. Between all of that loss that we would all agree clearly as grief okay but one year passed and therefore Catherine has no grief anymore where would she get such an idea right i'll tell you where from society because we we keep promoting these myths about grief like time is going to heal it so.

You know so we wait a year and then we just assume time is healed it and then what what grief work are we're going to do after the training you're certainly aware of this and this is why we we we're so passionate about trying to educate people is. The grief the unresolved feelings around all those losses and all those people you lost during that your honeymoon that didn't magically all just dissipate and go into the ether because 12 months of time passed right there is work we still need to do around our grief otherwise we just keep holding on to it right so i'm sure after. So i'm sure after the training you understood right as most of us do coming out of the training there is no shortage of grief to work on. And luckily now we have actual tools to do it so anyway please continue I just want to clear that clarify that for the audience is all of us out there most of us are going to say we don't have any grief to work on right most people only think they qualify for grief work if they're like within six months of a loss right that's the only time they think they can do any work and then after that we've either convinced ourselves or find.

Or we're still hurt so hurting but we're comparing our our insides other people outside so we go underground with our grief now we don't even want to admit we're grief so you know there there's a lot of. Miss information and and things that rob us of an opportunity to work on things we definitely need to work on just because of that information out there so anyway please continue Catherine so so as I say you know I kind of did did the four days and and and it was like my world have been turned upside down. I had always been looking for that toolkit but I had a toolkit and some and and so it was then a case of how how am I going to make this work how do I get this where I need it to be so from a very practical perspective I then thought right who needs to know about this who needs to know about the work with children and people.

And so I decided to put together my first group of of participants for the helping children with loss program and you know we were always I think we it's lovely in the Institute when we take talking to people about doing this and we say hey you know don't don't push this for yourself as the first time you're doing it you know don't talk to the professionals don't don't get teachers in your group don't get social workers don't get therapists you know getting. Friends that you people you know have children who who are going to get something out of this and real quick the reason that we ask and suggest people do that is because if you get too many professionals in a room they're going to want to intellectualize the work they're going to want to debate the work they want to show off all their other tools intellectually which will be emotionally unhelpful for everyone in the room again this isn't to bash on people with degrees but we we've really.

We really need people to understand there is a massive difference in how we operate when we're operating emotionally and how we operate when we're when we're operating intellectually so that's why we recommend don't put a bunch of people in there that are coming from the intellectual operating because again it can be done but it's a lot easier if I'm doing a personal workshop with 10 people that are working from here versus if I have a workshop and I've had this where I have like 10. Aerospace engineers okay they just live here more they're more comfortable here so I should be getting paid overtime because moving them from here to here is it can be difficult right so anyway go go ahead so you're on your your first group you get my list together and the problem is the problem is with my list is that everybody I know is a teacher a youth worker an educator so I thought you know what I had to put it on the table.

I thought these people they had to have some of them in the group and I did but I made it really clear to them right at the beginning that I wanted them to listen to everything they were listening to from their heart not their head. The problems we have to solve that we wanted to solve in the work that we do are emotional problems not intellectual problems and that until we dealt with them emotionally we were never going to be able to help with all the other stuff that comes with it. So that's that they were through the program and it was wonderful the problem I had was people kept saying all my friend wants to come I've told her about this is nothing like this. And so very quickly I realized that this wasn't going to be something I was going to be struggling to get people to attend because actually because it was different because it's practical.

You know from a from an education perspective every single other course I'd ever been on in my life and I had been on a lot it was always very very kind of intellectual but also there was also lots came with it so for example I would go on a training for a day and then I'd spend three weeks trying to make resources or trying to find time to do so that I could implement it in what I was doing every day. So what I love about the help until we lost program and they all loved is the fact that this is a toolkit that you keep here that you carry around with you all day every day whether it's to have a chance conversation with a child on the playground or a child of your own or a child that you're sitting at a birthday party with or whatever the scenario. You don't need resources you don't need a special room you don't need anything other than your heart and a conversation and emotionally honest conversation with with that young person and I think that was and still is one of the massively key selling points of this training if you like that we are giving people the tools.

But there's nothing they have to do to be able to start years again I know from from doing this program I don't know how many times over the last while we're away now 14 years 13 years no 11 trying to count 11 years I've been doing this just over just over 10 years 11 years and the numerous times I've done this every year in those years the hundreds of people I've taken through this program that's the fact that they love that they come to the first session. They learn about the helping children with lost program and the grief recovery method and those thoughts and ideas that are behind it and let you say the way society expects us to behave and how that isn't helping and how we have to change that and almost immediately from the first session they're coming back to session two saying oh my goodness me this week this is what happened and this is what I was able to say or this is what I was able to do I already feel like I'm making a difference.

I'm making a difference I already feel like I'm changing the way I think the way I speak and that to me is massive. Absolutely massive yeah wow I love it I you know you know me Catherine we spent a lot of time on calls together so you've already heard my rants but one of my major rants about living in 2024 is how much we love to over complicate everything now we've over complicated. Mental health and therapy in my opinion I'm coaching my kids baseball we've over complicated baseball just for just you know Catherine baseball is a sport we play here in America. And you know we've over we've over a complicated education we've made it we've over complicated just you know one person talking to another person and helping them out right we need outsource even that and and that's what I love about our method our method will never be over.

Complicated will never create $15 words just so we can create $15 words I like I like working with people with the emotional vocabulary they have because that keeps them here right versus my $15 word which takes them up here which is not helpful for them right and so you you hit the nail on the head. This work meets people where they are which is human beings have a really having a really normal and natural human experience which is maybe sadness around some events that just happened for them or someone that they just lost right in a world that teaches them how to acquire things but never for a minute really stops and says here's what you do when you lose something or someone right. So anyway you have this new you have this new toolbox you have this new set of tools I want I want to keep hearing more from you.

So so it just it was it was like this amazing kind of I can't really describe it you know in my head I was like right so I've got to get one group together and then I want to gain momentum and I want to keep doing this and before I finished my first group I had a queue of people saying hey we've heard about this course my friends doing this course with you can I come. So I have my second group so you know just as an aside there I'm kind of looking at this thinking okay so how how can I get this out and bearing in mind at this point it's just it's just going crazy and I'm encouraging as many people as possible to tell as many people as possible and I live in an area where it isn't people don't have a great deal of of disposable income people don't have a lot of money suspend most of the people I was going to spend most of the people I was coming across were doing this out of their own pockets so they may work in a school of similar but the school is going oh we've got budget for this this is not on our radar we don't we don't need this.

But the staff or the people who were working in those establishments whether it be football coaching schools kindergarten they realize the need so they were coming and saying hey I'm going to do this myself out of my own pocket so I've always been really keen to keep it very cost effective because I would rather have 10 people in that class over and over and over again and charge a smaller amount than then then kind of run that for 10 people a year. I wanted of always wanted to kind of keep it very cost effective and manageable but that also meant on the other side that I was able to go back to my dad before Christmas of that year and say hey dad I'm going to say something I've never said to you before I'm going to pay you back which was massive for me. He had had that belief in me that I was going to do this so I'm like hey dad this is amazing and he said okay so how can we grow this further what can you do.

So in this process I had set up a nonprofit so that I could use the skills that I have to help as many people as possible so that then was my focus very much around the help of children with loss program and one thing I kind of want to say here as well is within the kind of the teachers and the youth workers I was also talking to parents and grandparents it isn't just an educational thing this you know and I sometimes find that if there's two parents go through a difficult time it might be an answer or an uncle or a grandparent that comes and says you know I need to help my family you know this is what's happening there they're in the middle of it I'm I want to be able to make a difference and I think the other thing as well is that the help of my parents is not going to be a good example. So the problem is that the help in children with loss program the title can be a bit misguiding because we have to remember that children of all ages you know my youngest child is 32 I use these tools all day every day when I have communication with all of my children including my eldest because the whole point of this program is to give us better communication tools with children and young children.

And as a parent your child will always be your child no matter how old they are you know I've worked with parents whose children are in the the 20s the late 20s so many young people now because of the way things have changed over the last few years maybe had to return home during COVID and never really moved away again maybe didn't get the job they wanted after university and I've had to go back to the family home maybe you've had a relationship breakdown in the 20s and then you know I'm going to be able to do that. So 30s and now financially have had to move back in with parents and I'm talking to all these parents who are going oh my goodness me my child and I we don't get on like we used to well and let me let me let me stay on that point for a second. So unresolved grief and grief in general can often come from unmet hopes dreams and expectations for the future.

So I remember when I was growing up my parents were of a different generation so when I heard them talk about the good old days or I heard them talk about how their lives unfolded right I was excited and I just had as a child this hope dream and expectation that my my reality my my adulthood would play out as there's that they you know and I remember you know we call them the good old days right well think about think about our 20 year olds right now. Think about the millennials think about Gen Z right think about the college debt right think about them even attempting ever to afford a home right the hopes dreams and expectations for the future are being unmet by our youth. They were they were sold by us their parents or you know my parents they were sold a bunch of hopes dreams and expectations again this isn't to beat up on parents either this is just how society plays out my job though is to point out that a lot of our young people are grieving emotionally for the unmet hopes dreams and expectations of the future because they they had a different road map given to them by well well intention well loving meaningful people this is how it's going to be.

People this is how it's going to play out and when our lives don't play out that way that's a that's a grieving event now are you going to hear this on any other podcast that you listen to this week no right but if you talk to Catherine or you talk to us and you're a young person or you're a parent of a young person we're going to make sure that this is on your radar. Because it's really important for you to know that you know again i'm not single in Catherine's 32 year old out but and i don't know where he's at but a lot of our young people again are trying to navigate this world that is a different world. And it's hard to navigate if we're unfinished with the ideas that we thought we're going to be right it's hard to get can like until we can get emotionally complete with that it's very hard to leave room for the hopes that that this these generations do have you know the things that can be.

You know the things that can be better for these generations that that that weren't the best for past generations right so anyway I just want to stay on that for a second but again Catherine please continue. Now so and it's kind of exactly what you've just said you know if you ask any parent whose child is of any age and I would also you know ask yours and my parents this question who doesn't want to communicate better with their children it doesn't matter how old they are. And this is what I was hearing all the time you know I don't know how to help them I don't know what to say I don't know what I can do what we seem to do right now is argue and fall out because they haven't a tough time and and I I don't have any way of helping them and so these tools are so universal. And so when people look at the help in children with lost program I don't want them to look and think oh my child's left school now or you know my child isn't small anymore because your child will always be your child and sometimes every parent if they're totally honest will admit that they need a little help navigating some of this stuff and and to me if we can give parents better communication tools and there's nothing in this work that is rocket science is the cause of this.

There's nothing in this that people are going to go oh my goodness me I have never heard that before what they're going to say is oh my goodness me I never thought about it that way before I never sat and looked at it like this and I didn't realize that actually if I do this then do this then do this we both my child and I or the child and my care and I have a much better outcome. Yep it's funny we're not too simple. Yep and just very little quick history lesson right we do we develop the grief recovery method for adults and we had been doing the grief recovery method and perfecting the method for adults for decades before my father and Russell Friedman wrote when children grief and this program that Catherine's talking about comes out of the book when children grief. Shout out to that book definitely pick up a copy if you know a child period full stop just go go order that book somewhere Amazon or from us or it doesn't matter but the point is is in our work with adults and in our actions interactions with children we we realized pretty quickly children are actually pretty good at dealing with grief us big people get in the way of them trying to process their grief so really as lovingly as I can say this.

Really helping children with loss and that program is all about helping us as adults get out of our own way at allowing them to emotionally communicate what they're already trying to emotionally communicate to us right and so there's no like mysterious big change over between. The work we do with children and the work we do with adults okay none of our work again is complex because it doesn't need to be it shouldn't be now we can help people find all the all the different feelings that they have around different hurt we can really help them explore very thoroughly all the different events and the and the memories and so I'm not trying to say that this this goes very deep much deeper than most other things I would argue but still in a way that is excellent. It's just a little bit more accessible and simple for the for the person going through it.

Would you agree with that Catherine? Absolutely and I think as well you know when I think about kind of my vision when I left the training on what I wanted to achieve it was focused on on children and people on the health and children with loss program. What I then kind of found from that was these these professionals and parents or relatives that were coming through the program were coming and saying things like oh my goodness me you know it's so amazing from week one I've always changed I've changed my language and but then bike about week two so they're saying you know I think I have some stuff myself. Now of course we know that when we speak to somebody you know if a parent is telling you that they're worried about their child because their relationship has broken down and the family home is breaking up and that child is their focus is on their child.

They're their focus is on helping my child dealing with and giving me some tools to help them but I love the fact that in the process they then come to realize very gently that actually they do need help and the great thing is about our work is that we have the grief recovery method program. Therefore, then when they are ready to do that it's a perfect fit you know but I know as a parent and you're a parent the ultimate immediately if your child's hurting you're going to give to them first but in all this way we can have keep reminding people that there is a program for them to if they realize that they have things they need to sort out within their life we can help with that too. Yeah I love it if you if you if you come motivated to help your children who could fault you for that great job you know well done being being the the mom of bear that wants to help or the daddy bear that wants to help that's great but absolutely like because we'll get this call this is a heartbreaking call.

You know I want to help my child and and and their father died right and in the conversation we also understand that that they are a widow they were married to the father right and mom so focused on helping the children who could blame her and so absolutely we will help give you the tools to help your children your heart is in a thousand pieces to about losing your husband so the work can't stop with our children it has to continue with our hearts everyone been. So I think that's a great thing to do with your children is to get benefits by that model including your children in fact I would almost say if you just purely help your children but you keep all of that backpack full of grief around the death of your husband there's a possibility that when those children are adults we're going to be working on some grief work they're doing on their parent who who went from the parent to the griever for the rest of their lives and that is a sad sad scenario and I it breaks my heart.

That I work with people on a regular basis I work with kids adult you know they work kids when they're when they had a loss of a parent. But they're adults working with me and they're working on the loss of their other their other parent who was still there alive physically but was a shell of their former self for from the rest of their life you know or or. Yeah I mean it's that dramatic at times right and we don't want that for anyone so the point is great if you want to help your child with a loss a loss is occurred but more times than not you're also a griever around whatever loss event happened not all the time but very often right and so anyway I'm glad you brought that up Catherine. We kind of have that thought don't we that if you imagine this program the helping children with loss program as it is if you imagine I always think to myself if I could replace seven hours of my life at high school and I'm going to pick math because I wasn't particularly good and I hated it and even as a teacher I used to have to check things before I taught them you know definitely seven hours of some of my.

Later education that I could have easily swapped out for seven hours of the griever recovery method if I had had those tools as a young person if the people who were teaching me in school her and and my parents are amazing people don't get me wrong my mom and dad did a great job you know I cannot fall and they did but there were things they said along the way that weren't. Now I realize when all was the best things to say you know like first full relationship you know when my heart was breaking and I was falling apart and I went and said you know the love of my life it goes about 15 at the time 16 the love of my life has ended our relationship and I never got a full love again and my dad kept it said well I never like to many way and he did smell a bit funny and I was like not what I needed I just I needed somebody to go.

Hey, you know what don't be sad let's talk let's talk about what's going on with you tell me why tell me what's going on share your heart with me and I think to myself if I had had those tools as a 16 year old living formal education moving into my adult education how much different my life and other people's life could be you know when we talk to people not just about the help of children with us program but the method you know I say to people just just give me seven hours of your time seven hours to to remove some of that weight those rocks those stones those boulders in your backpack so that you can move forward in life lighter and more joyous and to find more joy and things and again with children if we if we in in all areas of of a childhood parent and professional can give those tools to young people because the help in children with lost program is not only about teaching a child how to deal with what's going on with them now it's also about helping them to get on with next week next year so they we are not only helping with the situation but we're giving them an inbuilt toolkit so the next time and I kind of like to use example of a young person maybe a little bit older who is having a really bad morning at school let's use school for example because no matter whether the your child or the in-education every child has to go to school or be educated in some way so you've got this young person who is just a boiling point because something has happened and they're just ready to break a door or throw a chair and now they're in the bathroom trying to calm down if they had those inbuilt tools to take themselves through this process to use use the tools they have to see more clearly what's happened that morning you know how they can deal with that and be able to give themself a conversation internally if you like to kind of bring themselves to different persons so they could walk out the door and bring that level down that's what we want for every child and I really think that we still have a lot of work to do in helping people understand how powerful that is for the child themselves not just the people on the outside helping them but teaching a child that for themself a toolkit to deal with whatever's going on in life so that they have a better outcome at the time not three days later or an hour later when they get to talk something yeah I amen I think that I think our children I think we could all probably agree our children need us now more than ever to be the leaders to educate ourselves to give them the tools to empower them and like you just said to empower them to to be able to know what to do when when sad feelings occur when when grief hits when trauma when loss happens they really need us and we're kind of at the end of our time here but I want to close with this and then give you the kind of final word but one thing that struck you struck me in our conversation was all the all the teachers out there all the school administrators all the parents all the all the grandparents our whole goal is just to share information with you it's not to critique this whatever you're doing because we know most of the stuff you're doing is amazing we in this little cross section of information we want to share with you about how to help kids emotionally when it comes to grief and loss and when we say grief and loss you can think pretty much most things that children are dealing with emotionally right so don't think it's just about death it's about moving it's about changing schools it's about friends that were once friends that are now mean to them it's about girls being mean to each other it's about boys being you know it's it's basically all these emotional events that happen aren't in our childhood that's what we were talking about giving you more tools that how to help them navigate those things right this will this stuff will be used every day with you if you interact with children every day you will know how to interact differently with you like with my kids I am so grateful I have these tools I use them minute by minute with my children I use them on my 10 year old baseball team I help coach I use this on the 11 year old baseball team that I help coach luckily I got some other great coaches but the kids all waved to me when I show up at practice right and the reason isn't because I'm like this cool special guy the reason is is I know how to communicate with them emotionally and I know most of the stuff we're dealing with at 9 and 10 and 11 year old baseball is not critiquing their swing it's how to help them deal with things emotionally how to help them manage and work through their emotions when they strike out and they lose the game or you know when they don't get that starting position that that they had a hope that they were going to get right I know that's what really my job coaching is is helping them emotionally at 9 or 10 it's not the technical intellectual nuances of their swing right we're worrying about that later okay but I have a special bond with those kids on that team because I have these tools that's all that's the only thing that separates me from the other coaches all of the coaches are great I'm friends with them all they're all well in tension I just have other tools at how to communicate with children on emotional level and I'm grateful for that right and wouldn't that be cool if we all could have those tools when we interact with our children whether you're a teacher whether you're an administrator whether you're a your a grandparent or a mom or a dad like these tools will enhance your life and they will benefit your child the the thing that kind of broke my heart that I also loved is the fact that you told me all of these people were paying out a pocket to be here like again paying out a pocket to have more to skills at how to help the children in their care how admirable is that the other thing that made me a little bummed out is and I'm sure if you're a school administrator listening to this you're you're probably complaining but there are budgets there's money right and and the fact that you know shout out to your dad I wish I could have met him in person he just sounds like such a marvelous guy shout out to him to help fund this for you at first your school should have funded it for you your your school your school should have identified immediately we have a we have a someone on our staff that wants to get more skills and fill a gap because we're massively underserving our children emotionally because we don't know we're doing and this guy is trying to go get trained in this to bring it back to us cut cut or a check to be here that's what should have played out but props to your father for being that person for you and props to these other people that you had worked with early on that we're self-funding themselves to be here because we didn't have it in the budget now if I went line item by line item in school budgets I would find a bunch of absurdity I don't care if it's the UK or America or South America I would find a bunch of absurdity when we need to be training people at how to meet and help and assist children in emotional things they are navigating on a daily basis okay that doesn't mean we're trying to replace parents or you know grandparents at all and sometimes the interaction like you said Catherine may just be a minute of you knowing what to do and then that child feels heard here here's a tip for for everyone listening in every interaction in the next couple of weeks with a child in your care just see just put in your mind when they're talking what are they trying to get me to hear is this an emotional communication or an intellectual communication what you'll find is nine out of ten times it's going to be an emotional communication and depending on kind of who you are naturally you may or not may not be hearing them communicate emotionally but if you can make sure they feel heard things are going to move in a better direction with whatever else you're trying to get with them on for the rest of the day whether that's math or just them doing chores or you know whatever it is if you can hear them emotionally they're not going to have to spend the next 45 minutes doing stuff to try and get your attention that they're trying to communicate to you emotionally I hope that makes sense if it doesn't come talk to us we'd be happy to talk to you we'd be happy to share more about what we do because again it's all geared towards helping children so Catherine let me turn it over to you and closing anything you want to cover and then we'll wrap but it's just been a pleasure having you here oh let me say this one last thing real quick so I had heard about Catherine best and she was this this gal from the UK that got our training and then she came over to talk at one of our first conferences okay and I remember looking over at my wife Ashley and saying who is this because she was going to take this work and she was going to change the world with this work and she did a presentation on the work she did there in the UK with helping children with loss and I told Ash and I told the team I said just let her do whatever she wants to with this program because that's that's what I've been waiting for you know in terms of this program so I want to just publicly thank you for all the work you've poured in to modifying it to enhancing it and I know we're just getting started but I just wanted to put that out there that I want to thank you honestly because you your heart has been there every step of the way and what you're doing with that program and where we're going to go with that program is a huge thanks to you okay thank you and you know that I do really appreciate you giving me that autonomy to be able to make the changes and to keep moving this program forward and and I can't ever thank you enough for that I think just the last thing I'd like to say to people is don't wait people say all the time I don't think I need this now there's nothing going on right now you know or I think my child is okay well you know I hear from from educators and sports coaches and things like people like that all the time say well we haven't had a death or we haven't had in such a it's not it's so much broader like you say it's about friendship breakups it's about moving classes it's about moving home it's about parents not getting on as well as they used to it's everything and why are we waiting you know if you want to be a first-aider because you want to be there to help somebody when they have a trip or a fall or you know this is emotional first aid we we learning these tools so that we can be there at the moment when needed we don't look at somebody who has a fall it breaks a leg because oh I think I'll get my first aid qualification next week I think I'll train to help people we don't we need it before and that's so much better have the toolkit to be ready hopefully with all the love in my heart I will say that potentially I always hope the conversations you are having are not too difficult but we all know that at some point that child or a child that we know is going to have a difficult time and there does need to be somebody there so I would say don't wait and let that person be you you be the person and if everybody around you isn't interested in doing it and you are then go for it just like I did just just go for it and get the tools for yourself and then when you've done that you can share it with everybody else and potentially between us all we will keep this growing and we will keep giving more people the tools so that potentially every child has somebody to talk to who is actually like I said hearing them not just listening but actually hearing what they're saying to us love it I am so I am so glad that you found your way to this work and I want to thank you on behalf of my father and Russell Friedman and all those that came before me I want to thank you for all the people you have helped that none of us will ever get to meet right that's the whole goal of this is to to get this across the world frankly and you're a huge part in doing that so anyway thank you for watching to all those if you want to get in contact with Catherine or me just go to griefrecoverymethod.com make sure you get a copy of the book when children grieve and then I also want to just do a quick shout out to our amazing thousands of certified grief recovery specialists who have this wonderful format that Catherine has talked about so if you go to our website there's an area called our programs and and down like third or fourth program down is going to be helping children with loss you can click on that you can find a practitioner in your area that does this work you can find people that do this program online but we have the best people who are highly trained highly professional and more importantly than all of that they're not up here they are down here and they're going to know how to operate with you in a really effective way to to pass along these tools and these skills so I just wanted to shout out to all the specialists out there doing this format because it is it is more needed than ever right and I think we both agree on that Catherine so Catherine you have a wonderful rest of your evening so over here in the morning for me right now but I appreciate you I love you and again thanks for being on the field free again podcast and I can't wait to I think the next one we're going to do together is when we're both there in the UK in person we're going to do another episode and I really look forward to that too my friend thank you so much Carl love you too all right you take care thank you