Hard to Find Help...

[Guest Lost35]

It is hard enough to find someone insightful enough to help children deal with the death of a parent (with the exception of those who've gone through it themselves).  It is nearly impossible to find someone able to help a child who lost a parent before birth. 

 

I've read it is similar to what adopted children face, except that they have second families and the possibility of reconciliation is at least a distant possibility. 

 

Not many people understand, nor do they understand there is anything to understand. 

 

If my son is having a hard day, my family gets irritated, thinking I've, "put this in his head".  But honestly, I haven't.

 

He has the right to feel whatever he feels.  I just wish someone (including me) could understand what that might feel like. 

 

By any chance, is there anyone on this board who was in a similar circumstance, who could give some clarity?  I would love to hear your thoughts...

 

-L.

[BrokenHeart2]

Awe Lost35 I wish I could help but can't. I just hope you find the support you need for your son.  I'm sorry your family isn't more supportive.  Hugs to both of you.

[ieh21]

There is not much to say. My youngest lost her dad when she was three weeks old, which is very much like before she was born. Sometimes she will say things like "I am sad because I miss papa". Some of these times I think she is being genuine in her feelings, and others, she's angling to get something. She's five.

 

So in a way, I understand your family. My own family (who has no love lost for my inlaws) expresses similar things when she expresses any form of grief. It's possible that sometimes it's me projecting on her. That is possible. And it's possible that other times she is genuinely expressing grief.

 

There's no way to tell. My own reaction is to go with my gut in the situation. If it's 8:30PM and she comes to me way past bedtime, telling me she can't sleep because she misses her dad, I might be inclined to think that she's trying to pull at my heart strings to stay up late. If we're coming back from an activity with another family and she says that she misses having a father, I might be inclined to believe what she's expressing.

 

You know your child. there is no magic recipe on how to help them deal. Others have suggested books but even books are not universal. Stay open to his expressions of grief, show your own grief in a measured way. Just don't let him get away with things (he still needs boundaries) and show open-mindedness.

[SoVerySad]

Lost35, both my children were adopted from Guatemala as infants. We have no birth father information at all for my daughter. We do have only my son's birth father's name. After their adoptions, we used a searcher to try to find their birthmothers to establish contact, should our children ever wish to meet them or their birth siblings, etc.. In one case, we were successful, but have since lost contact. In the other, we were never able to find her to make contact. It is so different there trying to find someone.

 

After my husband died, my son (who was 14 at the time) became more interested in what I knew about his birthfather, which sadly is only his name mentioned by his birthmother in her adoption social work interview. It wasn't on his original birth certificate. After so many years, it would be pretty impossible to find him. It disappointed him to learn that he couldn't have any info about him. He had never asked about him before my husband died. I think it felt like another loss to him in a way. I wish I had any piece of information to tell him, but I don't.

 

If you son is missing his father, I agree with you that his feelings are valid. He may not have spent time with him, but he's old enough to get a sense of what he's lost in not having his father. Your memories you share about your husband likely make him wish more he could have had time with him, but I really think that is a small negative vs all the positives of you helping him "know" his father. I'm sure it doesn't help you to have family making assumptions about his feelings. I have some family who think it strange and perhaps damaging in some way how much my children and I talk about their father. I feel I know them best.

 

I don't know if that perspective from our situation helped at all. I absolutely believe you can miss someone you never met. When I talk about my grandparents who raised me, my kids will often remark that they wish they could have known/remember them. My grandmother died before their adoption, and my grandfather when they were toddlers.

 

Hugs to you and your little guy...

[Captains wife]

Lost35 - I am going through something similar with my son who is 5. I'm sorry your family isn't more supportive - your poor little guy is likely hurting/trying to deal with something that someone his age shouldn't have to deal with .....My son was only 9 months old when his Dad died so our situation is slightly different but there are some likely similarities. My son has started talking about his Dad a lot more recently and that he misses him (or misses having a Dad) and he sits and feels sad...before he was more matter of fact about it. I think he gets angry about it sometimes too - Ive had a few behavioral issues with him. I think he sees what other kids his age have and feels he is missing out (and he is, although he and I are very close). Other than reading books about talking to children about the loss of a parent, I have recently enlisted a child psychologist to help and we have just started this so not sure what the outcome/how helpful it will be. But I know I need help to deal with my son's feelings on the loss of his Dad, someone he really never knew. I found someone who specializes in children's grief about 40 mins from my house and will be taking him once a week.

[luvmy2babies]

I?m sorry your son is having a rough time.  My son was 8 weeks old when dh died.  He is now 6, which is how old my daughter was when it happened.  He is acting a lot like she did.  He is asking a lot of questions, wanting to know if he can ever come back even just for a visit, saying it makes him sad, his friends have dads and he doesn?t. Asking Why?

 

There is a myth that children with no memory of the parent won?t grieve.  But he knows what a father is now and that he doesn?t have one here.  People don?t get it; but it should be understandable that is going to hurt a little one?s heart.  And then there?s that pull to keep their father alive in their hearts and tell them about him; but when it trends towards a grief response in either of my children, I follow their lead.  We don?t talk about him every day or a whole lot since he has no memory of him; but I do like to tell him when he does something funny his father used to do or I see they have something in common.  He will sometimes say he doesn?t want to talk about him and I leave it alone.  My mom?s response to me talking about what happened with my son once was ?So don?t talk about him?you brought it on.?  I don?t think that works.  And he doesn?t always respond with sadness. 

 

I was cutting his nails and he was being really dramatic just like dh used to when I cut his when he was unable to.  I told him his daddy used to act the same way he was acting and imitated dh?s dramatics.  Ds fell over laughing.  All I can do is respect his feelings and his process.  It is very unique from either mine or his sister?s or any other family member and I know the one thing I can?t do is shut him down when I know it?s a grief response. 

 

He doesn?t use it to get over.  My daughter on the other hand, tried a whole lot to blame missing her daddy on various actions the first couple of years or to butter me up.  So far smiles and kisses are his weapon of choice.  He has his father's smile, which is what drew me to him.  Litter stinker has his teachers and so many other people right where he wants them.

 

[MrsDan]

DD was three months old when he died. Lately she's been talking about him a lot, making up stories of things that never happened. I know it's normal, and I'm not particularly concerned about it. But frankly, I don't want to hear it. Or she'll talk about how he's in the sky, which I told her at one point because I was trying to explain that he's somewhere where he can't come back and that weirdly made sense at the time.  I do try to talk about him, but often it devolves into questions I can't handle, mostly containing the word why. I have no idea why. Or I have some idea, but that's a whole thing I can't deal with right now.

 

She already likes my boyfriend a great deal. That concerns me, because if things don't work out it will be a loss. But I also feel conflicted about letting her cultivate a relationship that would be akin to what she should be having with her father. The other side of me thinks, her needs and feelings matter more than mine or even Dan's and if he should become a father figure to her that might be best. I don't know. The relationship is new, but as it develops I have to think about if an dhow theirs should be developing too, and how that will impact her grief.

[calimom]

It is hard enough to find someone insightful enough to help children deal with the death of a parent (with the exception of those who've gone through it themselves). 

 

 

 

What I'm hearing is that you feel your child could benefit from some additional assistance, but you think he can't make use of such help unless the professional has not experienced parental death, particularly prior to their own birth. It's certainly a unique, but not unheard of situation, to be sure.

 

But I'm wondering if perhaps you're not setting yourself up for more failure and disappointment. There are fabulous therapists and counselors out there who focus on the needs of all children. Two of my own kids benefitted from play therapy (my five year old son) and family counseling (when I became the legal guardian of my young teenaged stepdaughter) Both were wonderful, competent, well educated and trained professionals who zeroed in on what was most helpful. To my knowledge, neither professional has a dead parent, or the exact life experience, yet they were great.

 

My youngest daughter, who was just over a year old when her father was killed, has always had a lot of questions, but didn't exhibit the same need for additional help that her older siblings did. I watched, but it didn't seem necessary. All kids process loss differently, and all feelings are valid.

 

Please don't eliminate potential help based on the professional's parental status. Wishing you and your child the best.

[Guest Lost35]

Thank you all for responding.  I take what you all say to heart and if I can use it in some way to help myself and my little guy, I do.

 

I guess I just feel for his circumstance.  He can't ever look at a photograph of the two of them, or even hear a story about how happy Dad was to find out he was going to be a father. 

 

He has never used it for gain.  I don't think he understands it enough to do so, nor is he apt to think to do so.  Mostly, it is just big, sudden sorrow, because he has his father's great big heart, and he takes the world on his shoulders and sometimes he needs a bit of help with it all.

 

I just want to help him as best I can.  I tell him what I know his father would have thought and said, but it just seems to fall short of what he should have.  It would be nice to talk to someone who understood that, though that may not be possible...

 

Thank you all again for your thoughts.

 

-L.

 

[Tatianakm]

I feel for you, truly, this pain is unbearable. To see this little guy, who should be just happy and care free at his age, to get sad must be heartbreaking...

 

I am in a very similar situation, but still very early into it, but already dreading what this will do to my little girl, who is just 6 weeks now, and was only 3 weeks old when her father passed away. All i have left is just several pictures of her father holding her. The thought of a small child having to deal with a loss and being sad and longing for a father is just too much to handle.

 

I hope one day i could draw from your experience and get through rough times, just like you are doing now.

Big, tight hugs to you and your little guy.

 

Ieh21 and other ladies, when and how did you start talking abouth dad to your children? What advice can you give now, looking back at early days? Thank you in advance for any insight you can share.

[Guest Lost35]

Tatianakm,

 

You have a good heart to respond to my post;  I am more than seven years out and you are in the very thick of it...

 

Thank you for that. 

 

For yourself,  just take each day as it comes.  I remember having all these ideas about what was important and what needed to be accomplished, and then there were days when one (or both) of us didn't have the strength.  I had to learn to throw my hands up and let go of what I thought would be best, in the interest of getting through a hard day.

 

If the house is a mess and the day otherwise de-railed, it is perfectly okay to go the beach or the park or on a drive, wherever and just be present and okay with the moment.  It is imperative, sometimes. 

 

Also,  when H. was a newborn and older, I would walk him around the house and practice telling him about what happened, in front of Peter's photos.  If I got it wrong or it didn't sound the way I wanted, I was able to try again the next day, and he didn't know the difference.  I choked the words out at first, and then it became easier, the more I heard myself say them.  Take the time you have to practice the words;  it will feel "normal" one day, when they are old enough to listen. 

 

My little guy never had something one day and lost it the next;  that shock was spared him, though I find he deals with something a bit more obscure.  And this is my difficulty in that I don't know how to help him with this.  But we talk and we listen and we have a very open and honest connection that would not likely have existed otherwise, and he is a lovely boy with a big heart and big insights into things far beyond his years.  His life is certainly shaped by this, but in many ways he will live a fuller life, if I can just get him there...

 

 

Thank you again for responding.  I hope this helps you.  Take care.

 

-L.