Grief (Part 1) with Lionheart Shelly Skinner and Lauren Breen

PASSION:  Building a community where grief is seen as a healthy and positive response to death and life challenges.
PURPOSE: Empowering bereaved children and families to navigate their grief journey through education, peer-support, strength-building and resilience through Lionheart Camp for Kids (a not-for-profit organisation).

We’re talking about grief through the expertise of local bereavement organisation Lionheart Camp for Kids.  This is part one of our conversation. 

We cover:
What does Lionheart do?
What is grief?
How can we support someone experiencing grief?
Stages of grief - what's normal?
Lionheart Camp for Kids - creating space and connection
Education program for schools and teachers - the first space for connection
Skills for managing grief and loss
How children might reflect their grief
Questions children have when a parent dies
How to talk to children about death 

Joining us around the warm table are Shelly Skinner and Professor Lauren Breen.

Shelly is the Founder and CEO of Lionheart. She’s a social worker who has worked in hospitals within WA and the UK in the fields of oncology, palliative care, acquired brain injury, spinal injury and emergency medicine. 

Lauren is on the Board of Lionheart and she is a registered psychologist and a professor in the School of Population Health at Curtin University where she researches grief across the lifespan.

"You might never experience true love, but you will experience grief." - Professor Lauren Breen at her TedX Talk

You can donate to Lionheart to support this important work.

Lionheart Song Credits:
Music and lyrics by Oscar Thomas and Christian Barratt
Produced by Christian Barratt
Performed by Christian Barratt and the 2019 Lionheart Kids Chorus

Warm thanks to:
Sponsor: Females Over Forty-five Fitness in Victoria Park
Sound Engineering: Damon Sutton
Music: William A Spence
... and all our generous and inspiring guests around the warm table this season!

Transcript

Sonia Nolan: 0:00

Welcome to My Warm Table. I'm Sonia Nolan and season two of this podcast about passion and purpose is brought to you by Females Over 45 Fitness, or FOFF in Victoria Park.

Introductory Voice Over of Previous Guests: 0:14

My name is Kate Chaney. My name is Bonnie Davies. My name is Madeleine King. My name is Valerio Fantinelli. My name is Lyn Beazley. My name is Alexandra Helen Flanagan Hi, my name is Sharon Todd. My name is Lucy Cooke and I'm the CEO of SpaceDraft. I'm the first Aboriginal female funeral director. CEO and founder of Motion by the Ocean. I'm a psychologist and a professor in psychology at Curtin University. Around My Warm Table. You're listening on Sonia Nolan's My Warm Table. Just sharing a yarn with her.

Sonia Nolan: 0:38

So much happens around our warm tables. And for me over the years, my kitchen table has certainly been baptised with the tears of family and friends experiencing grief. It might be the death of a loved one, the loss of a job those milestones when our children leave home and suddenly you find you're left with an empty nest. grief comes in all shapes and sizes. Grief is hard, and it's difficult to talk about. But it's a normal and necessary human condition that we all experience. Specifically today we're talking about grief through the expertise of local bereavement organisation Lionheart Camp for Kids. This is part one of our conversation, there was so much to cover that we've created two episodes, so make sure you keep listening on your podcast app for part two. Joining me around the Warm Table as Shelly Skinner and Professor Lauren Breen. Shelly is the founder and CEO of Lionheart. She's a social worker who's worked in hospitals within WA in the UK in the fields of oncology, palliative care, acquired brain injury, spinal injury, and emergency medicine. Lauren is on the board of Lionheart and she's a registered psychologist and a professor in the School of Population Health at Curtin University, where she researches grief across the lifespan. Both Shelly and Lauren are passionate about building a community where grief is seen as a healthy and positive response to death and life challenges. Welcome Lauren, and Shelly.

Lauren Breen: 2:14

Thanks for having us.

Sonia Nolan: 2:15

Oh, it's an absolute privilege. And I guess I guess that's a word that perhaps you use in working with people who are in the midst of grief, is that something that you feel is a privilege to be part of during that life moment?

Shelly Skinner: 2:30

Absolutely. I think people say to us all the time. "How do you do that? I don't know how you... don't know how you do that." And it is a privilege. And I think that we all experienced challenges and difficult times in life. And we can't change that. But if we can walk beside people, and assist people and offer skills and offer support and just be with people during those times. If we make a little bit of difference then that can make a world of difference.

Sonia Nolan: 3:04

I think that Lionhearts making a lot of difference. Shelly as the CEO of Lionheart and the founder, tell me what Lionheart is about.

Shelly Skinner: 3:13

So Lionheart is an organisation for families following the death of somebody important in their family. So whether that be a mum or a dad, or an aunt, uncle, a brother or sister, we support all children and all families in WA, regardless of how their family member died.

Sonia Nolan: 3:34

Right. And so how do you support them?

Shelly Skinner: 3:37

Our services are ever growing, which is lovely. We run the camp programmes for all family members, we run online programmes, we run a drumbeat programme. We also provide education in schools. We do teach- we do education for teachers and staff. And we also provide education services for students in schools as well. Right.

Sonia Nolan: 4:02

And Lauren, how, how do we describe grief? Like what what is the I guess the definition of grief? Does it have a definition that you particularly use? We're not really good at grief in the sense of, I

Lauren Breen: 4:12

So grief is our response to loss. And often we think about that in detail in terms of death loss, which is bereavement, but it also can be a response to the non death losses. So the loss of a job, or the loss of an identity that maybe came with that job, for example. So grief, a lot of people also think about it as just being a singular emotion or only being about emotions, but it actually is about all aspects of our life. So it's about our emotions, but also about how we might feel physically. It's about how we think about things. So it might change our levels of concentration and memory, for example, and it really can impact many aspects or all aspects of our life, including our social networks, our financial status and basically Everything. know that I've certainly had friends who've lost significant family members, and you want to help so much, and you want to do so much to support them and to be there. But it seems to be such a private moment in their lives that you just don't know how far to push and how far to get involved. So is that something that Lionheart can help people with?

Shelly Skinner: 5:29

Absolutely. And one of the challenges, when you know somebody who's experienced the death of somebody close to them, is that it's uncomfortable for us. And it's uncomfortable for us on many levels, including, we don't know what to say, we don't know what to do. But it also brings to the fore of our minds, what would happen if someone in our family died, what would happen if our husband or our child, and that's terrifying. So not only does it evoke big feelings in your friend, but also evoke big feelings for you. And gloriously as adults, we learn to get really awkward about grief. We don't know what to say we don't know what to do. And so children tend to be much better at that than us adults. But it is really challenging. And so many grieving families describe it as being incredibly lonely, and that they've lost their sense, their networks. And I wonder, I don't know this, for sure. But I do wonder if we live in such an instant society, where if we want something, we have it, if something's broken, we fix it. And grief is not like that. Grief is a journey, and it's up and down. And it's all over the place. And so people often talk about having support in the first kind of 2, 4, 6, 8 weeks. And then people, others go back to their regularly scheduled lives. But the grief continues for the grieving people.

Lauren Breen: 7:06

I think as well, people think of social support following loss as a simple thing, but it's actually really complicated. Because, say, for example, if you experienced a loss, I need to first recognise that you have a need for something, I need to have some- I need to decide what it is I might want to offer you. So I have to, and then have some intention to offer that and choose something that maybe is is something that you're then going to receive as being helpful. So so many things can go wrong in that process. I might, you know, send some flowers, but you're actually not happy with that you would prefer something a bit more practical, or I offer something practical and that's actually not what you want. Or I say, let me know if you ever need anything.

Sonia Nolan: 7:52

That's the plastic isn't it? "Just let me know, I'm here for you just let me know."

Lauren Breen: 7:56

But it puts the onus then on that grieving person who's potentially their entire life is just falling apart. How on earth are they going to know what they need or don't need at this point? So yeah, I think it is, we seem to think that it's very easy, but it's actually quite a complex process, particularly to get right.

Sonia Nolan: 8:11

Yeah, absolutely. And I guess that's what then I guess, paralyses some people doesn't it, that they've got all these great intentions and all these opportunities, you know, things they can give and can share. But they're worried about getting it wrong.

Lauren Breen: 8:26

Yeah I think we definitely struggle with that level of discomfort. I also think some of the things we think might work are not as helpful. So we might fall back on cliches, or platitudes, or maybe even some myths of grief that we think it goes a certain way. So then, when we maybe do offer some support, it's maybe not based on the most, I guess, accurate, or best thing that we can do. And in addition, of course, the grieving person themselves probably feels quite uncomfortable about asking for help, or they're not sure what to do either. And they don't want to bring everyone around them down. And so there's a lot of challenges, I guess, in this

Sonia Nolan: 9:08

Yeah. Tell me about the myths of grief. That's an space. interesting concept.

Lauren Breen: 9:12

So often say I wish people knew nothing about grief than what they think they know, which is wrong. So I think there's a lot of myths about grief that it goes in a certain- there's set stages that go in a certain order. So there's this concept of there being stages of grief, but there's no research evidence at all to support this idea that you first you have this...

Sonia Nolan: 9:33

The denial, the betrayal the...all of those sort of stages.

Lauren Breen: 9:37

Yeah, so denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance, there's no evidence whatsoever to support that that's actually what happens. There's also the myth that grief is a single emotion or that it's only about emotions, and it's not. There's the myth that you know, women grieve more than men, which of course, is also not the case. Or, or that really old adults don't grieve very much at all, or, I don't know, people with disability don't grieve or all kinds of things. And so yeah, there's so many myths that really need to be unpacked as well.

Sonia Nolan: 10:11

It is, you know, everyone is so different and so unique and, and I guess how they've lost their significant other must also make a difference, or does it?

Lauren Breen: 10:21

So I think there's probably more similarity than difference. But certainly some people would say that, you know, my grief, because ofthese particular circumstances, means a certain thing, or that I find more solace in talking to other people who have lost people in a similar circumstance or a similar relationship and so on. But yeah, I think the idea about there- just going back to the idea about stages, one of the things about that is that grieving people themselves often think that maybe they're doing something wrong or even going crazy, because their grief isn't working in the way that they thought it should. So there's a lot of "should" kind of ideas in grief. And yeah, I hear all the time in the research that I've done or speaking with grieving people, when, you know, they lean forward and grabbed my hand and say, "so am I okay, for this length of time?" Or "am I going crazy because my my grief isn't feeling like I'm walking a staircase or that I'm going in a certain, you know, this stage, and then that stage, I feel like I'm in a roller coaster, or I'm all over the place, or it's coming in waves. Am I going crazy?" So the danger of that myth is very problematic.

Shelly Skinner: 11:31

Yeah, I guess people are thinking "I'm doing it wrong." And that's in itself is really harmful for them at a stage when they're very vulnerable.

Sonia Nolan: 11:41

Yeah, right.

Lauren Breen: 11:42

And one of the big challenges is that everybody grieves differently. So, and we grieve differently on a day by day basis. So we might be having a good day or a bad day. And so it's hard to know how to help your friends, because you don't know if it's a good day or a bad day, and what they might need. But also by grieving differently. I think that that then allows space for misconnection or disconnection, because perhaps if I was grieving, I might want lots of hugs, lots of people to make me food, and lots of people to be around. But other people who are grieving may want nobody to be around, some time to themselves, and some space. So it's really hard to know what people want to need without actually asking them. And I think that's why children do it so well, because they're so open and upfront about what's going on and what's happening. And when children talk to us about their grief, they're not always talking about being sad, and feeling lonely. They're sometimes talking about things like guilt and shame, because after some body dies, sometimes life gets easier. If you've had someone who's been sick in the family home for a long time, or if there was a strange relationship, or they were going to stay at different family members houses a lot of the time, didn't know who was picking them up from school, life can sometimes get a bit easier and a bit happier. And so then they're not feeling sad. They're actually just feeling really guilty or ashamed that they're feeling that loss would

Sonia Nolan: 13:26

Thats really something that I'd never thought be easier. about. Yeah, okay. So with Lionheart, Shelly, is that- are they the sort of conversations that you have with young people or that you have with with the adults in their lives? What do you do? How do you unpack grief with them?

Shelly Skinner: 13:44

So Lionheart is predominantly about connection. It's about connecting families together, who are feeling alone who find themselves grieving and not really sure what to do about it. And we offer a space and we offer a programme that allows people to come together, to learn some new skills, to understand grief. When we first started running Lionheart, the programme was just for eight to 12 year olds. And we learned quite quickly that it's great to teach this small cohort of a family. However, by then going home and no one else in the family, knowing those skills or understanding these new ways of being, it was not very sustainable. And so we now run three programmes per camp. One is for adults, one is for teens, and one is for five to five to 12 year olds, all family members are invited. Whether that is parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles, the teens and the children as well. And through that programme, we show kids that they're not the only one. So the stats say about one in 20 children will experience the death of a parent before they turned 16. And it's hard to know how many children experience the death of a sibling. So we kind of gauge around the same. But so with those numbers, really, we're saying there's one in every school class, or about 31,000, children in WA at anytime experiencing the death of immediate family member. But what's interesting about that, given that those numbers are quite high, is that most kids who come to camp will say, I'm the only one in my class, or I thought I was the only one in my school. And they might not be the only one in their school, but it's not something that they tend to talk much about. So we bring everyone together, all the children have the opportunity to tell their story, they bring a photo of the person who's died. And they tell us about who they were in their life and why they're important and things they did together. And we talk about that relationship and that journey, and help them to make sense of their grief and how they're going to integrate that into their lives in a healthy and safe way. And then with the adults, we teach them what we teach the kids, we also teach them about developmentally appropriate grief for children how to support grieving children. So we are not therapy. It does sometimes feel like some of the conversations are very much a heart to heart conversation, but we're not therapy. We provide life skills, psychoeducation and peer support and group work. And that's our- that's your first introduction to camp, is always through your new family camp. And after that, we then provide services that are online, some that are music based, we have a mentor programme, and now our new education programmes in the school setting.

Sonia Nolan: 16:46

Tell me about the education programmes in school. Because I think that that's huge. That's the- I know, certainly going through the primary system and high school system with my children. Definitely, we had parents who passed away from their class cohorts. And again, you know, as a mum at the school, you feel like, "oh, how do we help? What do we do?" The teachers walk on eggshells. Oh, no Mother's Day is coming up, or Father's Day is coming up. And what do we do? Maybe the whole class doesn't do anything, because we don't want to upset this child. So you know, they're the sorts of conversations that I've heard. And I just don't know if they're particularly helpful, or on the right track, but then I don't I don't know. So what are your thoughts on all of that? I saw Lauren, you had a reaction when I said, you know, Mother's Day and Father's Day coming up, what are your thoughts on all of that?

Lauren Breen: 17:38

I was just thinking back to a couple of years ago now when one of my friends died suddenly, and my daughter was in high school class at the time in English. And my friend's son was in the class. And it was only a few weeks after my friend had died. And they, the book that they were reading, which is very appropriate for kids at that age was all about a child in the book whose father had died. And so their activity in English class was to write a eulogy from the perspective of this character. And of course, my friend's son didn't want to do this activity and actually walked out the room. And yeah, and but the school knew what had happened, but still thought that this was a...

Sonia Nolan: 18:24

An appropriate lesson.

Lauren Breen: 18:25

Yeah a perfectly fine thing to do in the class that day without any, I guess conversation with what was going on in the home. And yeah, I think you're right, people do struggle with it. And like you said, the friends as well, trying to support, you know, the other parents trying to support what they might be able to do. And yeah, so I think this is the kind of thing that then Shelly and the team actually goes into the school and sort of says,"Well, you know, if this happens, here's maybe some suggestions of what you might want to do." So it's not just about, I guess, coming at it from that discomfort or going,"Oh, I don't know what to do. So we just will just ban Mother's Day activity in the class or whatever."

Shelly Skinner: 19:04

It's really interesting hearing from the teachers what the struggles are, because I think when you think about grieving children and grieving families, in WA, especially if your family member dies of a cancer related issue. There is a lot of good supports in the community as there should be. But if your family member dies or something that's not cancer related, then there's no other services except for Lionhart that provide the normalisation and, and the group work. And so what very often happens is schools will say, you know, this child went home on Friday and came back on Monday and their parent had died by suicide, or had there been a homicide, or they'd been in a motor vehicle accident or they had died by drug overdose. All these things that aren't necessarily socially acceptable to talk about and have stigma attached to it. Sometimes the families will have given the child the accurate information as to what's happened. And sometimes they'll for whatever their reasons feel they need to shield them and perhaps not tell the full story. It's impossible for the school to know how much the family are happy for the school to share or not share, it's impossible to know what the child will say or won't say in class. So, teachers and schools are really on the frontline of providing grief support to our community. And I'm sure it's not covered in their syllabus at uni. And so if we can provide support and be a sounding board, be on the other end of the phone, we've got lots of templates about how you can make your grief policies in school, grief plans for individual children, all sorts of different really practical tasks. And in our education sessions with teachers, we do some great little activities that they can then do with their students as well. But it also helps them feel more comfortable and confident, just generating conversation. Because it's always so interesting to me that as a society, we're not comfortable talking about death and dying. But if you read any book, and you watch any movie, in order to make a good story, there has to be a challenge. Usually somebody dies or something very bad happens. And then you have your story, and it works out how it works out in the end. But if that's our constant source of entertainment in life, we still don't know how to have those conversations. We don't know how to talk about it.

Sonia Nolan: 21:38

That's so true. We have that narrative arc in fiction, but we're not really comfortable with it in real life.

Shelly Skinner: 21:47

What we know is that children, and the way they integrate and manage their grief has a lot to do with how adults manage their grief, and how adults cope with there's so we talk in camp a lot about how grief is like a mirror. So how I respond is likely how my child will learn how to respond. And that's okay, because this is where they're going to learn the greatest life lessons. So it's okay to fall apart on the floor in a big puddle of tears. Because that gives us an opportunity to model getting up again, washing our face, and seeing that it's okay to have great despair. But then, you know, then we can go back to our normal making dinner and watching television and all of those types of things. If children and adolescents or adults, don't have the opportunity to learn life skills, learn how to make that connection between your thoughts, feelings and actions to be able to say, I feel if they don't have the opportunity to learn those healthy life skills, then there's so many adverse life events and consequences that come out of that. And you know, some of the ones that are very, very common around risk taking behaviour during adolescence, drug and alcohol substance misuse, increased mental ill health, and more involvement with the justice system, more unemployment, and difficulty maintaining relationships later in life. So, you know, given that the stats this year, were one in seven primary school children are diagnosed with a mental illness and one in four high school planning for high school students are diagnosed with a mental illness, it's so important to be able to teach these skills early on. Because just because someone in your life dies, doesn't mean you get a free ride for the rest of your life. You'll still get knocked down. And by having these skills, you can use them forever.

Lauren Breen: 23:58

I recently did a TEDx talk. And the very first line was something along the lines of "you might never experience true love, but you will experience grief." So the work that Shelly and the team does is just so, so important, because it is about teaching this as a life skill. And we can't protect people from loss or from death. But we can try and inculcate the right kinds of, you know, the best kinds of strategies and coping skills, and why not start with young people and with families.

Sonia Nolan: 24:34

So what sort of skills and strategies should we all know?

Shelly Skinner: 24:38

So we do have a top tips sheet that you'll be able to find on our website soon. But I think some of the things that we talk with families about that people don't generally realise is that while, as an adult, you're busy protecting your child, they are very busy trying to protect you. So, if they see that you don't cry, then they will do their best not to cry in front of you. And if they see that you don't get sad, then they will try their best not to get sad in front of you. So often, almost all families who come to camp will say, "My child now wants to co sleep with me, they want to be close. And I want to protect them, because they want to be close to me." And that's okay. And co sleeping is fine. If that works for you - doesn't work for everyone, some people just need their eight hours - but when we talk to children about co sleeping, they'll say, "I'm laying in my bed worried that mum or dad is scared, or that they're not able to sleep or their mum and dad are worried. So I'm going to go and protect them." So they're not necessarily coming into the adult bed because they feel they need protection. They're wanting to look after the adults. And then the other thing that we do talk a lot about with families is children. I believe most of their questions come from the three C's. And that is, "can I catch it? Did I cause it? Or what are the consequences for me?" So the underlying of most questions will come somewhere in there. And most children will say, "what happens to me if my other parent dies?" Or "what happens to me if my brother dies?" And parents will say,"Well, I don't want to have that conversation, because I don't want them to think about me dying." And if I raise it, then does that mean they're going to be thinking about it. But we guarantee the children are already thinking about it. They don't want to raise it with you either. And so it's as simple as being able to say, "You know what, we never thought that dad was going to die. But now that dad's died, I bet you're worried about other people in your life dying too, because you know it can happen. So I'm not planning to die. And I'm, you know, I'm not sick. But I thought you might like to know that if I was to die, then I'm thinking you might go and live with Auntie such and such, how do you feel about that?" And that gives them an opportunity to have a little bit of choice and control, because they have the right to reply. And then they have the safety to know, okay, if Mum and dad are both now, not here, there is another adult who has this situation covered. Because one of the most challenging things for children is, if they don't think that there's an adult who's got that situation covered, then they feel like it's their job to take control of the situation. They don't have the skills and they don't have the power in the community. And they don't have the words. And so that can get really confusing and tricky for them.

Sonia Nolan: 27:50

It's interesting, though, that they may not have all of those things you've just described, but they certainly obviously have a real deep maturity and a deep thought process when it comes to grief and dying. It obviously unlocks a whole lot of things they would never have had to think about beforehand.

Lauren Breen: 28:10

Yeah, I think kids, in many ways can be very, very sophisticated. And they can know a lot more than what we might think. And they figure things out much more even if we don't tell them things. One of the projects that Shelly and I just worked on together was at the camps, there's an opportunity for the kids to write down some questions that they might want to have answered. And then there's a session where Shelly and a medical doctor, and a few other people answer those questions that their kids have been able to submit anonymously. And when we analyse those questions, they were very sophisticated in their understandings and what they wanted to know about the specific, you know, mechanisms and processes of dying, or about specific questions to do with how I manage grief or, you know, things like how can I look normal to other children or, you know, what exactly happens to the body when it dies? Or and they had questions about the afterlife, and all these kinds of things. They're thinking about it, but we like to think that we're protecting kids from, you know, if we just don't talk about it. And I think one of the other things you mentioned about, I guess, advice or tips is often when we do talk to kids about it, we do it in a code, which is confusing for children. So I often give this example and I should stop, you know, killing off my dad in the example but if I was to say to you, "oh I lost my dad last year," you know, I didn't misplace my dad. You know what that what I'm meaning. But of course, if I said to a child or we lost granddad over the weekend, they might jump up and start looking behind the couch for granddad. They don't realise that code. So I think it's, it might sound kind of stark or harsh for us to use those D words, death, dying and dead with children, and even just generally, in my opinion, but yeah, I think it's important to do that so that we're not hiding behind this code and using those kinds of words to try and soften it when it is a normal natural life experience. And some of them are very confusing if we said, oh, granddad's gone to sleep, or, you know, or we put we put the dog to sleep, that the child might think, oh, so next time I fall asleep, am I gonna wake up?

Shelly Skinner: 30:36

Brings up a whole load of other issues, doesn't it?

Lauren Breen: 30:38

Yeah, so it's all of those kinds of things. So, yeah, like I said, it might sound a bit kind of stark. But that's, that's where their brains are at. And it can be really good way to talk about it.

Sonia Nolan: 30:50

What sort of ages are we thinking about here, are we under 12, or under 10?

Lauren Breen: 30:55

So I guess you've got to be developmentally appropriate, really, really young children won't understand what death is or what dying is, or they might think like in their cartoons, you die, but then you come back the next day. So it takes a little while, couple of years really to understand what death is. And that's a permanent thing. And then, of course, yeah, it's- it depends on how much you talk about it in your family, and how much the kids have a language or that vocabulary about things. And children will experience grief and loss in different ways. So young kids, for example, might have a lot of tummy upsets, or headaches, and sort of feel it very somatically and in their bodies. With teenagers, it might be a lot, you know, that's a huge transition in life, and so can be a death in the family. So you've got two major things happening at once at a time when their brains are not fully developed, but they might think that they're fully developed. So you might have, I guess, some who become very, very anxious and very vigilant about protecting everybody and becoming that protector in the family, where you might have others who maybe start to engage in that risk taking to test the boundaries around life and death. So yeah, it really does depend a lot on the age and stage of the child rather than set rules.

Shelly Skinner: 32:13

And we would say that for small children, kind of age nine under, just use really short, sharp sentences. Because when I feel awkward about a topic, I just waffle about it, just lots of words. Whereas we'll lose children after the first 10 words. So really short, sharp, you know, "today, aunty Nancy died, that means her body stopped working. And she's not going to be alive anymore. Do you have any questions about that? Or if you want to talk about that later, you can come talk to me about that anytime you like." And they will definitely let you know if they have questions. So I think that's really helpful when you're looking at smaller children. And then I feel like adolescence is like the double whammy, because life is already hard for them. And it's that time when they're supposed to be individuating. So they're supposed to be pushing away from the family unit, working out who they are, and what they stand for. And your friends are all important. But when there is any kind of grief in the family, and that might be a death, it might be a divorce, it might be a parent starts working FIFO, it could be all sorts of things. Then while they're trying to push you away with the other hand, they pulling you in as well. So it's very confusing for adolescents very confusing for the adults in their lives. Because it's a weird push pull situation that's never quite in sync.

Sonia Nolan: 33:37

So what are the best approaches in that respect?

Shelly Skinner: 33:42

I think transparency and honesty. And so again, having those conversations that are just uncomfortable and yucky, and being able to sit down and say, Okay, this is going to be sticky for you in and icky for me, let's just get it done. And being able to say, this must be really hard. And it's hard for me, I don't know how to make it better for you. And you don't know how to make it better for me, but we're just gonna sit in this month together and do the best we can. And for some families, like talking doesn't work. That's not kind of how they work. And so it can be note writing, you can put like write a note and pop it under the door onto somebody's pillow. It can be expression through art, it can be music, it can be whatever it is you as a family need. And if it's not someone in your family, if there's another trusted adult that the adolescent feels connected to, whether that's an aunt or a neighbour or just working out who the right person is at the right time, and that might change over time as well.

Sonia Nolan: 34:46

So what do you want people to know like in your quest to make grief a healthy topic of conversation in the community? What is it that you want us to know?

Lauren Breen: 34:57

So I would love people to allow themselves permission, and to be open to thinking about the fact that they may will experience grief on a daily basis. It could be that your favourite television show after 40 years has ended, it could be that your favourite colleague at work has left and retired, it could be one of a million things.

Sonia Nolan: 35:26

Could it be that you're reading a book and it ends, because like, that is so true. For me, it's just like, Oh, I've got to take a moment. And I can't read another one yet, because I've just got to pause. And that sounds really flippant when we're then talking about people dying, but grief is everywhere, in small doses and in big doses.

Shelly Skinner: 35:47

And so grief is the disruption or the absence of anything, like something, somewhere, someone. And so to know that it's not just about death and dying. And so it could be anywhere in the day for you. But it could also be anywhere in the day for anyone else. So just to be open to kind of giving yourself a break, and giving others a break. And being able to be open to have any kind of conversation about feelings. I'm role modelling a lot with my kids at the moment there, when you "I feel because" to help them articulate their big feelings, but being able to just know that feelings are human, and if you want to be alive and you want to be human, then that's kind of just the way it has to be. So to embrace that, because it's really, it's a gift, and let's make the most of it.

Lauren Breen: 36:50

For sure. And I think when we're thinking about trying to support someone, or even ourselves, you know, to be gentle and kind on ourselves, that it's okay to make a mistake. And it's okay, if I try to support you, for example, that, you know, it's okay, if I'm a bit clumsy, or I'm a bit awkward. In fact, in real life, I'm quite awkward. So it's okay to say, you know, is this okay? Like, do you want to talk about it now, or, you know, would you prefer I text you later or, you know, just sort of checking in, it's much, much better to say something, and to risk just being awkward than to pretend that it hasn't happened at all, that's usually far, far more hurtful to the, you know, the person who's receiving that, then some kind of checking in, that might just be a little bit awkward or a bit weird, or a bit uncomfortable, but so much nicer.

Shelly Skinner: 37:42

So my mum died when I was 26. I'm now 43. And when I look back at that time, I don't remember the awkward things people did or didn't say, I remember the friends who turned up. I remember the friends who kept turning up, or who would just send me a little text or a meme or a GIF or just something silly. I remember the ones who kind of just, I felt like they were just there. And they didn't have to do anything right or anything wrong or and they may have done a million things right and a million things wrong. I just remember that they were there. And I guess that would be just to reassure people that if you just be there. And that's kind of what people remember.

Sonia Nolan: 38:28

We've covered a lot of ground on grief in this episode. But Shelly, Lauren and I talked for much longer, so please check out part two of this conversation to learn about what healthy grief is and what it isn't. In part two, we also talk about re griefing, the importance of funerals and physiological symptoms of grief. These are heartfelt insights on an important conversation. I hope you'll join us. Thanks for joining me, Sonia Nolan, around the Warm Table. Let's grow the community. Please follow My Warm Table podcast on socials and like and share this episode with your family and friends. My Warm Table is brought to you by Females Over 45 Fitness. Keep listening now for a health tip from FOFF head coach Kelli Reilly.

Kelli Reilly FOFF: 40:06

Hi, it's Kelli Rielly founder and head coach of Females Over 45 Fitness or FOFF. Today I'd like to encourage you to exercise, it helps to reduce your stress levels. During menopause, women may experience a range of physical and emotional symptoms including increased stress levels. That chronic stress can impact greatly on your menopausal symptoms leading to hot flushes, mood swings and insomnia. It can also increase the risk of heart disease and other health issues. At FOFF, ladies are finding their stress levels are so much better because they are getting a mental physical and emotional release. Get exercising ladies, manage your stress through exercise, relaxation techniques and a healthy lifestyle that can help navigate you through the challenges of menopause and improve overall health and well being. Remember ladies, it's your time to shine.