Helping Children Heal: A New Approach to Grief in Schools - with Deborah Brown

And at the time my sister and she was six years older than me and a wonderful person and she went immediately into mum mode and attempted to replace the loss of our mum. And the reason I think she did that is because she was the oldest, she was six years older, she was used to looking after us as the younger ones, saw me and my brother as the younger ones even though you know would hit our late late 30s by then. And so I had that new mum in my life and that was quite interesting really when I think about it, really think about what happened to me and the family really. And then in 2015 my sister became quite poorly and I remember being on holiday and I got a text message saying don't panic, I'm in hospital and I'm having a blood transfusion and I just suddenly, whoa hang on you don't get that for nothing.

No, you know, hospitals don't give you a blood transfusion for nothing so I saw it started to worry. And I remember my friend saying don't make any hasty decisions, you know, at the end of the day you're on holiday, relax, she's in the right place, etc, etc. Anyway, fast forward a few months and we went through a really tricky time with us, she was diagnosed with lots of different things. One minute she had pneumonia, then she had sepsis, then she had what they thought was stomach cancer.

Then she had celiac disease and so there were these like really weird diagnosis and none of them really pointed in the direction to what we thought was the matter. And we were starting to worry about that she was getting a bit forgetful, she'd got a bit yellow. So because we knew her really well, we were able to tell when something wasn't quite right. And so I understand that the medical professionals found that difficult, they didn't know what like we did.

But in August of 2015 she became incredibly ill and ended up in a coma in intensive care with liver failure. And so we thought she wasn't going to wake up from that, she was very, very ill and over the period of those few months from the April to the August she lost a significant amount of weight. So we sort of knew something was really wrong. And I think that that's probably, I feel quite strongly now that there's so many people going through so much when a loved one is in hospital, when they're very poorly.

We spent such a lot of time trying to go and see them all the time. We were quite frantic wanting somebody to be with her all the time. I didn't ever want to leave the hospital and it was very difficult. I was working full time at the time as a deputy head teacher and my husband was working full time.

We had two children to look after. They were worried about their anti-angit was awful. And she woke up in September of 2015. And again, that was a really difficult time.

September is one of the busiest when you're in the world of education. It's the worst possible time for you to be off school and I took a day or two off when she woke up. And understandably. And from that day on we were thinking yes, she's going to get well, she didn't wake up for nothing.

It's amazing, thank goodness, all of this. It was quite quickly put on to the liver transplant list. And we did various trips to the hospital for liver transplant in the UK. There's various specialist hospitals.

So the one for my sister was about an hour and a half away from us. So, you know, a fairly short journey, but certainly longer than where she was. Anyway, she had a really difficult time being accepted onto the transplant list because she just was continually losing weight. And was very, very thin really and quite weak as a consequence to all sorts of things that were happening to her.

They're being in a coma or they're not being able to eat well and keep food down. There was all sorts of challenges. And in 2016, August of 2016 my sister died. And so for me, it just felt like losing me mum all over again.

And it's hard to describe to people how that feels. You know, to people who were very much part of my life. They had been instrumental in supporting me with the children. Absolutely loved my children so much.

And actually, interestingly, both of them, when they knew they were going to die, their number one thought was what about the children? What would, you know, make sure you look after the children. Please be there for them all about those sorts of thoughts. And obviously very challenging.

So when my sister died, I was in a real, I found it incredibly difficult in a real deep grief stay. And I didn't know what to do. But what did I do? Do you think everybody kept saying to make it need to be strong now?

You need to be strong for the children. And that massive pressure, it was like carrying the weight of the world on my shoulders every day. I felt heavy, I felt like I was suppressing all of my emotions. And it's a strange thing really.

Two things happened that made me look. One of them was a colleague of mine was looking after me. I'd actually, by a few months after I'd died, I became the head teacher of the school that I was deported to. And that was a fascinating time because of course I was in keeping busy.

I was thinking that keeping busy was the right thing to do. And so what then happened was a friend of mine who was a consultant looking after. What we call in the UK, supervision. So some head teachers have supervision sessions, which I really do think needs to become a thing.

It should just be part of the job that you get supervision with somebody that you can trust to talk about the challenges of the role and challenges in your life that might be getting in the way of the role. And this person doesn't even know actually what how instrumental she was. And she just suddenly said to me, Deb, never mind this and all these targets and things that you should be doing. She said the thing I think that you need to do is start looking for some support for your grief.

You are still a massive grief mode. And she'd recognised that I, she recognised without even knowing about the grief recovery method that I was in keeping busy mode. And possibly keep being strong at the same time, I think a few of them. A few of the grief recovery myths can sort of go hand in hand, can't they?

And so that was a really big sort of war. I'm got somebody else is telling me that I am showing my grief without me realising I wasn't aware of it. Did that feel like a judgment on you or did it feel loving? How did you receive that?

You know, because that's pretty, yeah, I kind of bowled in a work role, right? A colleague to say that. How did you take that? I'm just curious.

Brilliant, you know, it's funny you should say that. I have the deepest respect for this person. And I think because I have the deepest respect for her, right? It immediately took it as a, who does she think she is telling me?

But on reflection, by the time I driven home in tears, you can imagine. Sure. The realisation that that came from a place of love and care hit me. Okay.

She is genuinely wanting me to do well, be well and get well. Yeah. And so that was when I started to look for some sort, you know, what is going on in terms of me, what am I doing for me? And it's incredibly difficult to actually find the right thing out there.

Yes, trust me, I know. Wow. I mean, I started by looking at the stages of grief. To think, you know, are the stages of grief?

Why am I not in the angry stage? Why am I not in the sad stage? And interestingly, since finding the grief of a method, one thing I have realised is I grieved completely differently from my mum and my sister. Yeah.

It was a completely different emotional reaction. When my mum died, I was sad. Yeah. I was absolutely heartbroken, sad.

When my sister died, I was absolutely furious with the world, with the fact that both my mum and my sister had been taken from me. So my reactions were completely different. Yeah. And I think that when and died and my reaction was different, I did notice that my reaction was different.

I was aware of this different reaction. Yeah. I was snappy with people, a friend of mine, we went for a coffee a couple of weeks after I was died. And a friend of mine said, Smith, oh, you're in the anger stage of grief.

And I'll never forget it, because the reason why I remember it so well is I'd been a bit sharp with a member of a lot of light. Somebody had brought me a cold coffee in this coffee shop. And I just said, is there any chance that I can get a hot coffee? Instead of being kind and say, excuse me, would you mind the coffee is not very warm?

Would it be possible? And that would be my usual way, but I was really quite sharp. So it must have taken my friend a bit like, well, what we're going to do here. So she thinks she's being kind to me by saying you're in the anger stage.

And I remember coming out of that meeting thinking, well, I wonder when I'm going to get to the end. When's the end of Matt? Where's the end of my grief? And when am I going to get to it?

And I wanted to press fast forward, because I felt like that's what, you know, if I could press fast forward, and I'm sure that there will be lots of people watching who are grievers, hoping and praying that they can just get over this grief, and hoping and praying that there's a, you know, there's a way, a fast forward, a fix, something that I can do to just not feel this bad. That's how I felt. And the second thing that happened that was really significant is a parent contacted me, going into palliative care. And the realisation that a young person was going to lose a more was huge for me.

And I suddenly realised after 20 odd years in the world of education that, actually, I don't really have the credentials to promise this parent that I'm going to do X, Y and Z. What are the credentials and what do teachers do? Where's the course? Where's the course for teachers to know about this stuff?

And that is what got me moving. Yeah, it's very interesting. I would say that's our, frankly, that's our main demographic of people that come to get this certification, our professionals, where a year or two, three years ago, grief really has entered their life, right? Personally, then they become aware of it a little bit more and see it maybe more and others, and then they go, okay, I don't have the skill set that I need in my profession to help people with grief, right?

And if you're listening, I just want you to know that that doesn't have to be the route. It doesn't have to be the qualifier, right? You can just be a professional and come and trust me, we will help you find grief recovery work to do, right? We will help you find stuff, but you are welcome to get this certification at any time in your career, right?

Hopefully earliest in your career is possible, but Deborah, you know, sadly, that was my case, that was your case. A lot of us get here after we have the significant emotional loss that really makes us start thinking about that. So, you know, that is not surprising, but anyway, back to you. So you're now kind of in a promoted, higher role, and now you're kind of, you see that this parent is really going through a massive grief event, and you're now really feeling ill-equipped to kind of help the kids, those kids are really the school with probably just a really difficult situation.

Absolutely, and I started to think about all of the different bereavements, to be honest at the time, that I had heart-tuned and over 20 years in a career you can imagine, and there was significant amounts of loss and grief, and I didn't realise until the final grief recovery method how many different types of loss there actually are. And it's one of the parts of the course that I love teaching adults to understand the difficulties that some children are having, and yet they're having absolutely no empathetic understanding, there's no validation of their feelings. Often we see in schools a lot of empathy when a person dies in their lives, so for example if a child loses a parent or even a grandparent, they usually is an empathetic understanding, not somewhat of a validation, I think we've got some work to do with that, but certainly, oh no, how are you going to cope type of attitude?

But when a child is in a situation where their parents have separated, we don't seem to get the same empathetic understanding. And yet the difference that the difficulties should say that children are going through when there is a separation is absolutely huge. And that's one of the main reasons I absolutely love delivering help in children with loss. It's an eye-opening course for practitioners.

Without doubt on every single course I've ever delivered, there's always practitioners who are, wow, why don't we all know about this sooner? I use this not in all schools across the country, this should be a national qualification, everyone needs to do it, and of course I completely agree. And that's one of the difficulties isn't it? It's making sure that people understand that this course exists, that it's really important, that it can provide the adult who is attending the course, something for their heart, as well as something for them professionally, when they go back to whatever it is they normally do during the day.

And we talked about teachers because I was one for 25 years, but we also have, I've had a vicar attend, I've had nurses, midwives, police officers, people who work in the funeral service, all sorts of people. And one colleague who actually also was a head teacher said to me, I think that every person who has a child in their life, whether that's at home or in their work, should do this course. That was her feedback and I just thought, yes, she's absolutely spot on, couldn't agree more. Yeah, well, you know me I'm biased, but I agree as well.

I have several friends in public service, so we have friends who are teachers, I have a pretty close friend who's a firefighter, a guy that I coach baseball with on my son's team as a police officer, and the reality is, all of these public servants are dealing with grief on a daily basis. Now we have to extend out what our definition of grief is, right? So, unfortunately some of those roles they are actually dealing with death every day, but a lot of us are, again, dealing with someone's worst day, worst traffic accident, house burns down, you know worst health crisis they've ever had or a loved one has ever had. You know, the list goes on on, and these are all grief events, these are, this is all grief.

And so it really is one of those things where it would just be incredible if we could kind of just spread that awareness and give people more tools at how to help on many levels, right? So no, I couldn't agree more. So let's jump back, if you don't mind, let's jump back, Deborah, to this friend supervisor kind of plays it out there, right? And at first it's kind of like hurtful judge feels judge, but you think about it and you're like, hey this came from a place to love.

What came next in your journey after that? I'm curious. I started to research, so I started to find books. There can't be a grief based book I haven't bought and read.

Okay, yeah. I'm not even kidding. To a point where it got ridiculous. And I was buying my husband's, how many books do you need?

How many books do you need? What have you found the one yet? Right. Remember even saying to him, I haven't found one that that I feel like is the right one yet.

And don't get me wrong, there was some really useful information in some of the books. There really is some good stuff out there. But none of them was giving me something different. I was looking for something different.

I buy this point. What was the stuff? What was the stuff that you would say was kind of general across the board? Like, could you elaborate on what you were looking for that was different?

What were the patterns or similarities you were finding in other books? I think there was a lot on the stages of grief. There's a lot of misinformation out there. Okay.

There really is. And I mean, some of the books I'm going to be honest, I would really like to take off the shelves. I can't really make it. Me too.

Yeah, we won't do that, but I agree with you. I don't know that. But so it got to a point where I've done a lot of research on the stages of grief, realised that they were obviously really misinterpreted. They were always supposed to be for people who were terminally ill.

Their stages of term, you know, how you feel when you terminally ill, not when you are a griever, they were misapplied. I even accept why they were misapplied. Because after the war, when it was a bit of a Kubla Ross, brought out the stages of grief. In the 60s, there was nothing.

Literally absolutely nothing. So people jumped onto that stages of grief idea because so just hadn't come back after the war. People were really desperate for some sort of help. And they looked for a fix, and that's exactly what I was looking for.

I was looking to fix my grief. And I realised that that was challenging. What then happened is by completely, although I don't believe in flukes anymore. But by chance the universe sent me.

A friend of mine had shared that he had taken part in a course called Helping Children with Lox. And I thought, oh, that sounds just like what I've been looking for. And so I contacted Catherine Best, who is, as you know, very supportive, grief director in the UK. And so I contacted her and said, look, I'm really desperate.

These are the reasons why we had a conversation on the telephone. Catherine asked me lots of questions. And the next thing, she is arriving in my skill to deliver Helping Children with Lox, to a group of people. And I advertised this course across the area.

So some of the senior leadership team at the school did the course, and we sort of spread it out. And on that training that Catherine did, I think we had a local councillor. We had various different people from schools. You name it, all sorts of people arrived.

And that's when it started really, because Catherine then said to me, at the end of the course, should you need to consider doing your grief recovery training to become a specialist? She said, it will help you personally after the death of your sister and your mum. But it will also help you help everybody else in your local area. And so I spoke to what was called in the UK, the governing board.

There are the people that sort of you check with, even though you'd had to teach this sort of a checking mechanism. And I went to see them share how I was feeling, share how this course could help me personally, but also help others at school, help their local authority, bloody blood. And the next thing I decided I was going to be doing my training, thankfully the governing board supported me at the time. And I started to deliver Helping Children with Lox every term.

And so within a few years, we'd got through 100 candidates. It was absolutely lovely. The word was spreading in the local area that this course was happening. People started to ring me and ask me for dates when's the next course?

People start. And real quick, Deborah, sorry to interrupt you. But for our listeners who aren't familiar, let me quick define what Deborah's speaking about. So when you get certified in our work, we teach you how to do different formats so you can help grievers in your community.

So there's an eight week format, there's a one-on-one format, where you're working with someone around their own grief, around a loss that they've had, and you work hand in hand with them to help them work through that grief. We also give our trained people a different format, okay? And this format is designed to help parents, teachers, caregivers, custodians, school counselors, and how to educate them and empower them and give them tools to help the children in their care. So it's kind of a lower barrier of entry because you're not actually coming into your own personal work.

So it feels a little bit safer for people who are looking at more of it as an educational course. So it's a great entry into this work. So that's what Deborah is speaking of is the helping children with a loss course that really educates people to help the kids in their kind of sphere. So anyway, go ahead, start to interrupt you.

That's worked out well because the next thing that happened is local head teachers started to ring, actually say locally, some of them are even further away, saying, I've got this young person, this is how they're presenting. We think it's because they are grieving this event, for example. Will you come and support them? And so I started to go out with a few different schools.

And it was just a wonderful experience to be able to go and support some young people. And what we decided, on a few occasions I went to support the young people. But what I said was better is that if they send their team, their pastoral team to me on the helping children with a loss course, then I can train those members of staff up so that you don't need to foal me next time because you've got somebody in your school. Yeah.

And that's what we did. And it was just so great, so great. And lots of people, well, I've still got 100% positive feedback. Everybody loves me.

The good thing, one of the things that is wonderful about helping children with loss for me is very lucky because I have 25 years of working in the education system. And therefore lots of experience of working with children. And so I've got some really good backup stories of what has happened when I have worked with young people. So I can share that and it sort of adds some weight to it.

And Deborah, let me ask you this just because you have so much experience as a teacher. So now that you have these tools and you have some awareness that maybe you didn't have before around grief, what are the main, you touched on divorce, which I totally agree with. We tend to really minimize kids grief around the divorce of their parents. And they have a first, right, the death of that relationship that they have a first row seat to, which is very, very, very difficult for children.

Can you tell me, other losses that you see kids regularly struggling with? Some of the problems in school that you see. of pain is a picture of unresolved grief in the school system, kind of what you see there. What happens to the kids when they have unresolved grief? What kind of grief are you seeing on a regular basis?

Kind of anywhere you want to go with your experience there. There's so many, there's so many and that's why I started to write the series of journals for children because there's just so many different types of loss that schools are trying to cope with and they just don't add the tools, they don't add the skills, they don't know what to give to the children, you know, how do we support these young people who are trying to navigate really, really difficult things. So things like when I love a granny's terminal of a gil, how do we support a young person who has been told that a member of their family is going to die? That's the truth of it.

Now what tends to happen is the practitioner doesn't feel confident enough to be able to support the child who has been told that a member of their family is terminal gil. And so we have this system at the moment and I don't think it's just the UK, I think this is an international issue, where the poor child has got to deal with that. There is no choice, we can't stop it. It once somebody has been told that they're terminal gil, that is what they have been told and they are going to die.

And the difficulty we've got is people don't like the word died, die, death, dying. And so we've been using in the UK for a long time, the term passed away. And of course that completely confuses children. So I've picked on terminal gil but there are so many, I've written journals about when a pet dies, there are so many children trying to cope when a pet dies.

And members of staff don't realise when they say, oh let's just finish these maths questions first and we'll talk about that later. What they don't realise is when that pet has died, that is the number one priority for that child, they are devastated and needs somebody to validate to say it's okay to feel, however you feel, whether that's angry, sad, despondent, furious, there are so many possible emotions that come from that. Instead of saying, oh when are you going to get a new dog, or instead of saying, let's finish this. And then forgetting to go back and speak to the child later.

And what I've not told you yet is we were so lucky because the journals have been seen as a model of good practice here in the UK. We won what's called the creative catalyst brand. All of us in congratulations. In a very UK.

And we, that may meant we were able to take the journals into schools and share with the practitioners what we might do to work with the children with resources in the schools. And with that, what thens happened, apart from the wonderful feedback you can imagine is in almost all schools that have taken part in the in the project have then sent members of staff on the help of children with the last course. So it all comes together really well in that, you know, I'm saying here are some journals. They are very personal to the situation that has happened.

One of the journals is called Kids Healthful Guide When A Love One Has Died by Suicide. So we're not shying away from really difficult topics. Topics that most of the time you know people are like, oh I can't deal with that. But what about the child when that has happened, whether we like it or not, the child has some emotional energy that is stuck.

They don't know whether they're allowed to ask questions. They don't know whether they're allowed to speak about the person who has died. They don't know who to speak to. They don't know whether they should go to school or not go to school.

The children in absolute turmoil when significant events happen in their lives. And so for me there is a massive gap internationally in the resources that children need to be able to write down how they're feeling. How do I feel about what's happened? Who do I go and talk to?

Who is my trusted adult? So in every journal we've talked about trusted adults. Who is my trusted adult that I can go and talk to? One of the children said to me, I need it to write who is my trusted friend as well.

Absolutely. Having a trusted friend is also just as useful. So there's also possibilities. I'm excited to announce our premium in-person certification training.

Individuals who have a desire to help other people with grief and loss join us for a four day event that you will remember forever. This is based on the proven four day certification we've done before. The curriculum is the same but now you're going to get a ton of stories and education and training from Sandy. These are tangible tools that help people in any area of their life.

You're going to get a ton of stories and education and training from me. We will have double the amount of trainers to answer questions you have. I want to help people. I'm missing information this missingly.

I'm an advocate for the grieving process because I know that's like why would you not tell somebody to heal? There's going to be some tears in there and there's going to be some tissues but well I think what will surprise people that are considering this training is if you sat outside of the room when this training is happening you wouldn't believe how much laughter is happening in this training. You wouldn't believe how much joy and hope you can see on people's faces as we're breaking and people are coming out of the room. It's everything.

The thing she was saying made me feel seen and normal and validated and not insane. I saw grief as this really bad dark thing instead of seeing it as the actual healing process. As someone who's been in this field for 15 years now I would have loved to have been trained under these circumstances. It's just such a premier training.

You're going to probably walk away with some like lifelong friends. We did not want to say goodbye to each other at that end of that four days. You're going to be able to help walk them through that and give them that same light bulb that came on in my head. It was trying to transform it up.

It was such a rich time of learning and engaging, listening to people's stories, being present, being focused on who you're talking to is such a big part of the grief recovery work. I had done a lot of things. I had done coaching. I'd been in therapy.

I'd had done a lot of other modalities and they were helpful. But when I did the grief recovery method and when I walked through the method and continued to use the tools life began to have color. I went from being very emotionally disconnected to being very connected. Do not wait.

Seats are filling up. Sign up. You will not regret it. I cannot wait to see you.

Have a great day. Yeah, and I actually wanted to get into that a little bit. And first before I do, I just want to say that Deborah shared the journals with me. She sent me home with them.

I think they're so wonderful. And it's one of those things where it's like, why didn't I think of that? It's like such a beautiful, beautiful tool to help the kids in our care. So I just want to say bravo to you for dreaming that up and executing it in the way you did.

Because it's just incredible. And I wanted to mention that too. Because again, I want our audience if they have kids themselves or they are at a school or they're a teacher. I just want us to really make sure they are aware of all the things that our little ones are dealing with.

So like you mentioned, who's my trusted friend? Well, unfortunately, that change is day to day for some of these kids, right? Because we can have betrayals. We can have gossip.

We can have people who were, thought we were our friends. And the next day they did some really icky things because they're, you know, kids and they make mistakes. And so I think loss of trust really goes unnoticed a lot with adults. And kids are experienced loss of trust often, right?

When you look at bullying, right? Bullying is obviously something we're all trying to be aware of and make sure that kids aren't bullied. Unfortunately, we fail at that. But that's a loss of innocence is how I would look at it for a lot of these kids, right?

Because they don't understand that there are people out in the world that are capable of that. And things can happen to us that we don't want. That's a massive loss of innocence, right? So that is a loss.

You could have, I've seen a lot of kids who their siblings are getting in trouble, right? And they're really scared about what's going to happen to their siblings or their parents are having drug issues or alcoholism, right? Or sexual abuse, right? I mean, there are so many things that our kids are going through on a daily basis and coming to school.

And we expect them to be in the moment at all times and get perfect grades and treat all their fellows perfectly. And it's like grief is not given the attention that it needs to be given. Unresolved grief that happens for these kids on a daily basis is going on whether we like it or not and we need to look at it. So that's why I love your journal because it's a start point to have the kid have some support, right?

It's like, I, this is a really bad example, but I am, I coach on my 12 year old's travel baseball team, right? And I am constantly shocked at the things I need to explain to these kids that I just take for granted, right? Like things that are the most simple things ever to me, I have to realize they're 12th and their life experience does not equate to them knowing how to press this button on the water fountain or, you know, maybe not that, that ridiculous. But you know what I mean?

It's like, I, I'm constantly reminded that I have to show them the way of so many things. But yet in grief, we don't show them the way at all, right? We just, we just go, ah, whatever, I, I dealt with divorce when I was a kid too, they'll figure it out, right? Oh, that's just, you know, it's just, or we minimize or, or again, we have to show them step by step how to do this stuff.

Like you said, giving them permission to feel all the different hundreds of feelings that they have. You know, the list goes on. So anyway, I, I think the journals in conjunction with the helping children with loss. I think it's a beautiful combination.

And really, you know, truthfully, how many, how many schools are even aware of this stuff, right? So bravo to you guys for putting in a place. There's a couple of school systems in Texas. Shout out to, to my Texas school systems.

They have really kind of figured this out. We're hoping other states start really implementing helping children with loss like some of the school systems in Texas have because like you said, it's an epidemic. I mean, unresolved grief is the culprit in so many societal issues that we're dealing with. Yet it's not looked at that way, right? 100%. 100%.

We're nine journals in now. So we've just finished kids helpful guide when a loved one is in prison. And interestingly, every skill that we went to during the what what we called the research and development phase of the project, Astors, are you going to do one about one? A loved one is God to prison.

And the answer to that was, yes, it's on our list, along with another 10, 11, 12, you know, at the list getting longer and longer of the types of experiences that our children are dealing with. We've also just finished kids helpful guide when your mum has died, kids helpful guide when your dad has died. We also have finished kids helpful guide when a loved one is seriously ill because sometimes a loved one is seriously ill and they're not going to die or we don't know whether they're going to die. But it's still a significant grief event and all of all of the journals come from a place of knowing, you know, knowing what those children are trying to deal with, having seen it firsthand for years and years and years and feeling quite cross really that we're in 2025 and we're still no further forward than we were 50 years ago.

It's quite sad when you think how true a statement that actually is and I'm campaigning at the moment to try and get death dying, died, bereavement, loss, grief, on the curriculum here in the UK because you're just crying out for the help, they're desperately in of some support, some resources, some help and so I've been writing letters, I wrote a letter to my local MP November, I've got a follow letter going out tomorrow to find out, you know, what's going on, where are we up to, you know, there's been talks in parliament about it but we want action, we want action, we don't want talks, we want action because our children in the meantime are waiting and I don't feel like children should be waiting for support, I get upset when I say this because at the moment in the UK there's two, some children are waiting two years, is it so not acceptable?

Yeah, yeah, no, I couldn't agree more and you know the other thing that I just, I want us to be aware of right is kids look up to us as their leaders, whether we like it or not and if we don't know how to grieve and complete what is emotionally unfinished in our heart, it's going to be really hard for us to teach them how to do that or to role model that right so it's like Debra you touched on it and that's my go-to as well if I'm not practicing the stuff I've learned through the method is be strong right it's really easy for us to do that when when people tell us hey that that's the heroic thing you're supposed to do is be strong for the kids, unfortunately that equates to them being very confused because intuitively you know their little hearts are broken they're looking to us to read our faces and show emotion because they want to show emotion and yet we we have the stoicism on our faith and that's confusing to them when we're dealing with these really heartbreaking things and then we look robotic in a loop to what what the reality is and what's you know churning in their heart and so that's the other thing I want I want to challenge people to do right I love the journals I love that idea because we need to get the children working in action but it will be a lot better if the adults who are working with them know know what to do as well and have worked through their own grief right because they're going to be more open to having conversations and to and to knowing how to role model this stuff right and so that is sometimes where I find honestly the the roadblock to to get this stuff getting into into places is if we have decision makers and leaders in the community who are have their grief so bottled up and so closed off you know even the the premise of grief recovery or you know looking at this stuff is is is scary to the adults right and and and a lot of the time unfortunately I think these things I think like you touched on why are we know further along than we were 50 years ago honestly I think it's because a lot of the time people adults the decision makers are so terrified to look at their own grief to open the door to this that it gets shut down and and we can't have that right because we we truly can't help our kids unless we have done work ourselves or on this topic we we can't just give them here kids take these tools if we're not willing to use these tools ourselves right I think that's the takeaway that I want people to hear here I think we all know that that's how this works but sometimes we forget about that right it's here's a perfect example I can't tell you how many people you know again sorry I keep coming back to baseball but it's spring here and so I'm in baseball constantly with my kids right and it's like here kids go do 25 push-ups right go do push-ups you got to eat right you got to sleep good you got to be in shape right and meanwhile look guess what the dads look like they're not they haven't done 25 push-ups since 1997 you know it's like we have to go first as the parents we have to lead from the front we have to set the example right the kids our kids are looking to us to do that well how do you eat right dad how how do you stay in shape dad how do you stay emotionally complete with stuff right how do you not how do you not bottle all this stuff up and just you know turn into a ticking time bomb how do you do that dad show me how to do that right and if I don't have the skills and I'm not practicing these these things in my life is my kid really gonna pick them up you know I again I I hope so but I know the result would be better if they were doing it alongside dad who was doing it or mom who's doing it right so I just sorry I'm ranting now Debra bring us back to to to I have a statement a really simple statement that I say about that dysregulated adults cannot support dysregulated children it's impossible and so for me the adult must get regulated and in order to get regulated we have to go through a healing journey and that is not easy and I didn't find going through the grief recovery method easy I didn't find going through my grief recovery method train and easy but I did it because I wanted to heal because I knew that I had made mistakes when it came to the support of my own children's grief when their grandma died and when my sister died their auntie I made huge mistakes and when we were looking after the children and and I they we have open conversations about that now in the house they are now both adults so I had to go through that that healing process I had to get really really tough with myself and so I sort of got sick of my own excuses when you're going to get sick of your excuses and actually take the action that is needed to heal your hurt in order to be able to be there for the children because it's our duty to be as healed as possible so that we don't pass on our our hurts to our children because we will otherwise that absolutely my family I'll be finished with this call it's a really brilliant one when my mum died my son I told my son and he ran away into his bedroom to cry he would not have done that if I hadn't already modelled even before my mum had died hiding my emotions and hiding my tears I passed that on to him that was something that I was really acutely aware of one side started to do all the research and completed the grief recovery method and now I can go back and think whoa what else have you passed on that you don't want the children to have that that is one of one of your methods that you're more passed on to you absolutely yeah we got to stop you're right and again I think people right people are obviously aware in parenting we pass along traits that we don't want to pass along the kids and again it's just no different when when when it comes to grief we pass along the traits that we have picked up about dealing with grief and the problem is frankly that the traits we pick up that society gives us the tools we pick up are crummy right at bare minimum and at worst we we show them how to use alcohol to cover sadness right drugs to cover sadness television gaming anger shopping you know the list goes on but we are absolutely in an attempt to shield ourselves from our own heartbreak our own pain from grief of all sorts not just death but just trying to live on this planet and you know and and and be a human being that that deals and sees and and has sad events happen you know in their life we are showing them how to grief every day right either in a healthy way and a helpful way teaching them how to process it or we're teaching them how to store it and how to find distractions while you accumulate really painful sad energy in your body right and the the list goes on on what that does to the body over time as well and we've had doctors on before we've had doctors get certified and they can attest to that as well right the body does not like being a storage unit for years and years and decades and decades of unresolved grief and emotional pain but yet that's what we teach our kids how to do right when you're going to cry go to your room well pretty soon I look I'm if I'm a little kid learning how to be a big adult if you tell me that if I'm going to cry I'm going to go to my room I'm going to try and go for extra credit and I'll just teach myself not how to not cry right and and and that's look you look at six graders and seventh graders that's that's where they're at because that they're trying to be good adults and we showed them how to do that right stuff your feelings and the minute a feeling comes up find something to make sure that that feeling doesn't come up and it and you know I know Deborah it breaks your heart I can see the passion in your eyes I have I have that that same passion it breaks my heart to have these tools available have them and yet not enough people know about them the decision makers don't know about them and most importantly the kids need these tools they they need a lifeline out there because this world is only getting more complex there's only more things they're dealing with it seems like you're the teacher not me but it's seemingly kids are dealing with more and more stuff they're having the grow up quicker and quicker they're being exposed to stuff that you know frankly kids weren't being exposed to you know 10 20 30 50 years ago like they are now and so they they need a more now than ever absolutely great and we are on a bit of a mission really to get the journals out there don't whether I've shown you but we've also written the adult support guides to go with each journal we have written a guide for the adults so that there's a sort of step by step if your child comes to you with this activity when they are working through their journal independently and they need your support here is a lesson sessionals sort of plan that if you follow it you you will be able to support your child through that particular stage of grief and I say the word stage very loosely I don't actually really like it I don't believe in any stage to do with grief at all when we say the word stage we suggest that there's an end they're not necessarily is so they they're there are there's so many we've done a matching one to each journal I've written 18 books in 18 months wow you've been busy you know busy busy time yeah my brother is the graphic designer and I do have a team of really wonderful grief recovery specialists or teachers to support and check that what we're saying is actually very useful and helpful very cool and where Deborah work and people find you and the work and the journals where where's the best place for them to to look into the work that you're doing so the series of journals is called the lessons in loss series so we can find lessons in loss series on Amazon we can also find it on the website lessons in loss.com okay lessons in loss.com we'll make sure that we link to that site in the show notes show description and any any final words Deborah for for our listeners on anything else you want to to get across I've I've I've really appreciated this conversation and again I just love what you're doing thank you I think my my final message would be that if there are people listening look look at you look at you look in the mirror what is it your harboring what is it that is stopping you from doing the thing that you want to do what's stopping you what's getting in the way you need to be able to complete with that and you can complete with that by finding the grief recovery method and there's so many different specialists now and it's easy to sort of find somebody who who's the right fit for you and that's a good point as well you don't necessarily have to go with the person who's local to you anymore because a lot of grief recovery specialists can work online so find the person who is going to be the right person for you who will be your what we call heart with ears be the person who is your find the person who is your heart with ears and do take that action you we've people have got to start putting themselves first get a bit more selfish put you first because absolutely promise you by putting myself first by making the decisions that I've made leaving and the teacher profession moving on to writing the journals I'm doing what I love I'm doing what I want to do I'm passing on and hopefully to the children and the adults that support them what I think is a desperately needed tool and our set of tools so get you know get clear with what you want and don't don't take anything except the absolute best for you I love that beautifully said Deborah yeah and I will close with this right when we're on a plane and we have the children next to us on the seat and they're going through the emergency procedure right they they ask you to put your oxygen mask on first right that way you know what you're doing and you can then assist your child and and this stuff is no different now again you can put their oxygen mask on within two seconds of you putting yours on which I know you want to do so it you don't have to put off the their help or their care but just know that in a lot of these grief events that we look at and we say our children are grieving a lot of those events guys are grief events for us as well right not always but a lot of the time when we want to help and and I know this sounds unbelievable almost and I want to say this is lovingly as I can but at the grief recovery institute we we regularly get moms you know or dads that want to help that their child with their grief and then we ask well what happened well my wife died my husband died and I really want to help with my child with their grief right but the person that they're forgetting is themselves right the person that they're not interested in getting more tools for is is themselves and we want to help you assist you and and empower you and give you the tools to help the children in your care you're going to be far more effective at helping the children in your care than I would be or Deborah would be as their mom or their dad or their grandma or grandpa or you know again an authority figure in their life a trusted adult like you put it you're going to be that but kids are good they are very intuitive and if they know that you're not complete and you're struggling it's going to be hard for them to trust you to be their guide right if we're unfinished with our stuff so that's I think what we're both getting at Deborah and myself right is yes we want to help the kids but a lot of the time that starts with us first absolutely yeah well Deborah I again I just had such a great time visiting with you in person and I got to you know again thank you for for that journal I I want I want more of them and again I I just wish you nothing but success in again getting getting your work out there and I'm so glad that our paths crossed and and again thank you for your time thank you so much for having me it's been great awesome yeah of course yep and and if you're listening thank you for listening please share this we got to spread the word right share this like subscribe writer review and send this to people if you know teachers in your life administration anybody that's dealing with kids please share this with them because we want to make sure that they know that there are over 40 different life events that kids are experiencing on a daily basis and they're in our schools and they're struggling right and they're not you know we talk about not reaching our potential and not getting the grades we want and it's like so much of that guys is unresolved grief and if we just started helping them with that their present moment skills would get better their grades would get better the way that they treated their fellow classmates would get better the way that they treated their teachers right a lot of the time when we have unresolved grief we are angry right we do lash out at other people when we're hurt there are so many things that we could do if we just look through the lens of hey maybe this child is grieving right so again I know we keep coming back to that but really I knew that was going to be the point of this episode because I know where your heart is at Deborah and I know where mine is too so again share this and thank you and until next time thank you for tuning in to the feel free again podcast have a great evening or day or night or whenever you're listening to this and thanks again