Xulon Press book In the Cleft: Joy Comes In the Mourning | Dana Goodman

More interventions for children struggling emotionally

Note:  This post article is also posted in the gospel blog by FEBC

When our children's hearts are bruised and battered it feels like part of our mother's heart is dying.  We want to shield them from all the world throws at them on a daily basis.  We long to carve out a space where we can shelter them from daily arrows that plunge into their innocence.  I have sat helplessly as my children have endured one tragedy after another.  I have worked with children in my counselling practice who have shouldered unspeakable pain.  When we see bright eyes turn dull after countless days of unending disappointment and heartache, we need to know what to do to help them work through their pain.  One of the most profound books I have read is Mark Batterson's Circle Maker.  In it, he talks about circling dreams for our children.  I bought a Bible for my son after his brother died and began circling promises for him:

• "I know you by name and you have favour with me (Exodus 33:12)
• "My presence will go with you and I will give you rest" (Exodus 33:14)
• "They cried to the Lord in their trouble, and he brought them out of their distress.  He stilled the storm to a whisper; the waves of the sea were hushed.  They were glad when it grew calm, and he guided them to their desired haven."  (Psalm 107:28-30)

I bought him the noteworthy Bible, which has blank pages throughout so I could write notes to him and share promises over his life and destiny.  As a teenager, he may not be interested in biblical things, but as an adult he has promises to look back on and will marvel at the fulfillment of them.  Nothing beats prayer when it comes to the well being of our children; however, there are other interventions we can use with them to calm overwhelming feelings.

With young children they can create comfort bags.  Allow them to use stickers, paints, pastels etc. to decorate their special bag or box and them have them go on a scavenger hunt to search for things that give them comfort.  Some items they might include are a favourite smell such as lavender essential oil, a favourite teddy bear, favourite music, colouring items to draw about their feelings, a special journal to write in, a picture of someone who gives them comfort or a picture of a peaceful, beautiful place.

Children also like creating a peaceful places in the house where they can go when they are feeling overwhelmed with life.  Within that space, have music, cushions, blankets, crafts, lego, favourite stuffed animals etc. Often children will create forts or even transform their closets into special sanctuaries.  One of the greatest gifts we can give children is teaching them how to rest.  Schedule a rest time every day where they go to be still.

Another great technique to help children manage their emotions is the use of a worry box.  Have a worry box somewhere in the house where children can draw or write their worries and place them into the box.  Just getting their worries out and containing them in a box can diminish their anxiety significantly.  Some children like sharing their worries at the end of the day and some like to keep their thoughts private.  It is up to the child whether or not they share.  Don't force them to talk if they don't want to.

Some excellent resources include Worry Wars by Paris-Goodyear Brown and A Parenting Manuel:  Heart Hope for the Family by Doc Lew Childre.  

The company HeartMath has many amazing resources to help children get to their hearts in a fast paced world.

Peace

What to do when children grieve

Children usually feel grief and pain in their bodies. After my oldest son died of cancer, my younger son complained about stomach aches and body aches because he was unable to process his deep emotional pain. As parents, we need to know how to move them through pain and trauma so their emotional pain is processed and does not manifest in unhealthy ways later on in life.

In counselling sessions, I often have children draw a heart. After drawing their heart, I ask them to give their feelings a colour and then show me how much of each feeling they feel in their heart. For example, if there is a lot of sad and sad is blue, they would colour a lot of the heart blue. I will then ask them where they feel the sad in their body. When they show me, I ask them what colour it is, what shape it is and what texture it is. Once they are able to identify their feeling in their body they often feel better. "Colouring feelings in the heart" is also an excellent way to check in with children after a long, and often stressful day at school as well. It makes abstract feelings more concrete.

In addition to drawing their heart feelings, I ask traumatized and/or grieving children to share their sad story with me, which helps them process the trauma in the left and the right hemispheres of the brain. If they are afraid to share, I often suggest they use a puppet to share their story. This distances them enough from the trauma that they are then able to tell their pain stories. As they share their experience (left brained activity), I will tune into their feelings and name them (right brained activity) so that the trauma is fully processed. If children are non-verbal, they can draw what happened or show me using toys in the sand tray. In order to make sure they don't stay stuck in trauma, I end our activity by having them star breathe, an activity I borrowed from a child therapist named Paris-Goodyear Brown. With a crayon, the child traces a star--as they trace from point to point they practice breathing. When they reach the point of the star, they hold their breath for three, breathe out as they go to the next point, hold, and then breathe in again as they go to the next point. I then give them star glow-in-the-dark stickers to place on their roof above their bed to help them remember how to breathe so they feel calm before they sleep. As the child learns to breathe properly, the muscle memory relaxes and the amygdala (the part of the brain that scans for danger) begins to relax. After processing traumatic events in the counselling session, the child can create a container to hold their painful feelings until the next time we meet. I may also ask them to create a painting of a peaceful place where they can go to rest if life gets too hard. In this place, they are invited to imagine what they smell, taste, feel and do in their peaceful spot.  Just imagining a restful place releases "feel good hormones" such as Dopamine and Serotonin, which help the child relax even during stressful life events.

Some books I have found the most helpful for children grieving are Badger's Parting Gifts, Tear Soup, The Moon Balloon, The Fall of Freddie the Leaf, Gentle Willow, Grief Is Like a Snowflake, and When the Wind Stops.

Some helpful books for parents are Trauma Through A Child's Eyes, by Peter Lavine and Creative Interventions For Bereaved Children by Liana Lowenstein.

To read more on my grief journey and how I coped with the loss of my husband and son to cancer, you can read my newly released book, In the Cleft: Joy Comes in the Mourning, which is now available at Amazon and Barnes and Noblehttp://www.barnesandnoble.com/sample/read/9781498408745

Love others well

In the age of texting and social media overload, there is an overall sense of loneliness and dissatisfication with life I think.  People are communicating continually, but I am worried we are forgetting how to be intimate and relational.  We cannot possibly understand what is happening in peoples' lives through facebook.  We have to share our lives with each other, not just talk about them.

I am saddened by how many parents I see on their phones at the park, or on outings with their children, but are missing precioius moments of watching the details unfold before their very eyes.  Precious moments are fleeting,  never to be repeated in the same way again, so it is important not to miss snapshots of life that are taking place moment by moment.

The early attachement years are so very important.  Children connect with their mothers when they are nursing and they know by the way the mother looks into their eyes whether or not she is radiating love to them.  When mom is texting, there is no eye contact and therefore no attachement.   Attachement disruptions have longlasting and devastating consequences later on in life.  When a mom tunes into  her baby with smiles, loving gestures and warmth, the baby  responds back with smiles, gurgles and love, knowing that the world is a loving and safe place.   Without eye contact, a baby learns that the world is empty, lonely and detatched.  

When you are with your children, your spouse, or your friend, shut your phone off and honour them with your presense and full attention.  There is nothing more important than the people around you at the moment, and people phoning or texting you won't think you've died if you don't respond right away.   Connect with those you love.

Dana Goodman, author of In the Cleft:  Joy Comes in the Mourning  http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=dana%20goodman&sprefix=dana+%2Caps

Slow Down

Slow Down

I find it sad that we rush through life and miss so many beautiful moments along the way.  So many days, it feels like I'm pressed, rushed and anxious to get it all done, only to do life in that same hurried way the next day.  I had a dream a few nights ago that I was speeding through a school zone and was stopped by the police.  Whenever I dream, I know I need to pay attention to what God is speaking to me.  Very clearly, I knew he was telling me to SLOW DOWN.  I know how I want to live my life--squeezing every last bit of joy out of every moment, but why is it so hard to remember to breathe?  I was reminded in my quiet time a few days ago that my eyes reflect what I look upon.  When I gaze on beauty himself (Jesus), I reflect that beauty to others.  I want to pause on beauty, behold it, touch it, taste it and feel it.  I don't want to rush through life and miss sacred moments.  I want to filter life through a slow motion lens, capturing every bit of it and not missing a thing.  I want to be in tune with all of my senses and experience the fullness of life.  Every second, I have to intentionally choose how I want to do life.  Our fast paced world tempts us to achieve, succeed, and strive, when what we really need to do is savour.  

Visit me on my website at www.danagoodmaninthecleft.com 

To purchase my book, In the Cleft:  Joy Comes in the Mourning you can go to the following link

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/Dana-goodman?store=allproducts&keyword=Dana+goodman

Visit my author page on Amazon at amazon.com/author/danagoodman

In the Cleft: Joy Comes in the Mourning

This post article is also posted in the gospel Blog by FEBC

An excerpt from chapter five of In the Cleft Joy Comes In the Mourning by Dana Goodman

A Sample from Chapter five

Tear Soup

“Grandy’s arms ached and she felt stone cold and empty. There were no words that could describe the pain she was feeling. What’s more, when she looked out the window it surprised her to see how the rest of the world was going on as usual while her world had stopped.”

--Tear Soup by Pat Schwiebert and Chuck Deklyen

I watched Zach tinker with his Legos, oblivious, for the moment, of all he had endured over the past week. The phone rang, and when I picked up, I recognized Dr. Cochrane’s voice instantly. My heart went into an irregular rhythm as I went out into the garden to talk with him. He told me the results had come in and Zach had a very rare and aggressive tumour called glioblastoma multiforme.  He thought the most time Zach had left was one year.  One year!  I was beyond tears. My heart hurt and my head throbbed. I wanted to scream, but words did not come.  Instead, I sat in stunned silence.  Slowly, after putting down the phone, the nauseating realization that I had to go back in the house to share this news with my son dawned on me. How does a mom break such horrific news to her child?  I felt light headed and sick.  Instinctively, I wanted to buffer Zach, but he needed to know the truth. I could not hide and act as though this dreadful reality did not exist.   I knew the silence would scare him even more than my words.  I braced myself for the hardest thing I have ever had to do in my life.

I went into the house and just stared at him while he played with his Legos, aware that he was still excited to be missing school and thrilled to have endless hours to make his creations. I realized it was the last time I would see him play this freely, without the fear of cancer looming over him. He looked up at me with his innocent eyes and asked, “Who was on the phone, Mom?”

            “It was Dr. Cochrane, Zach.”

“What does he want?”

“He wanted to share the results of the tests that came back about why you have been having such severe headaches.”

“What did he say?”

I lowered myself to the floor, and then the tears came.

“Honey, you have a brain tumour.”

 “Is it cancer?”

 “Yes it is.”

“Am I going to die?”

“The doctors are doing everything they can to find a way to treat this, but yes, there is a possibility you may die.”

He looked up at me in terror and all I could do was hold him. “Zach, let’s pray that God will give you the courage to face this and that he will take away your fear.” We prayed together, cried together, and just sat together in silence. He called his Grandma Laird and wailed into the phone, “Grandma, I have cancer!” She soothed him with her love and gentleness, and he got off the phone a lot calmer.

“Mom, when am I going to die?” Time stood still as I choked the words out.

“The doctor said you have one year, maybe more.”

 He was quiet for a minute and then looked up at me with pain, but also hope. “Oh, so I have a whole year?” His comment baffled me. To him, a year was a lifetime.  He went back to playing with his Legos, thankful he had an entire year. I was astonished. Only God could have given him such supernatural peace.

 Unlike Zach, I had no peace.  A cesspool of anger churned inside of me. I silently scream at God, I am not planning this child’s funeral! He is only twelve years old. He has his whole life ahead of him.  Surely this is not OK with you!  I felt immobilized, stuck in quicksand and unable to stop the train wreck that loomed around the corner.  I paced back and forth waiting for Doug and Carter to get home from Vancouver, trying to put a lid on the frantic feelings ripping and tearing the inside of me.  When I heard the car pull into the driveway, I had to resist the urge to run and hide.  Bone tired, I made my way to the garage and shut the door behind me.  I intercepted Doug and Carter before they came into the house, wanting to cushion them from the blow.  “Dr. Cochrane phoned three hours ago,” I said numbly.  “The news is not good.  We need to have a family meeting when we get inside.”  I sounded a lot calmer than I felt.  Summoning a family meeting was my last memory until I put the boys to bed that night.  What we talked about is still buried in layers of grief.  I tucked Zach and Carter into bed around 9 pm.  Terrified of the dark thoughts that might be circling in Zach’s head, I gave him some melatonin.  I prayed sleep would give him respite from fear.

On a rare day shortly thereafter, when I was able to push back debilitating sadness, I found an old journal entry between God and I that I had recorded before Zach and Doug had been diagnosed.  In it, I shared with God how I had a sense my children were in danger.  Doug and I had been in Jamaica in December 2008, and while we were there, I had not been able to shake a foreboding sense that something was not right.  On the way home on the plane, I had silently prayed, God, do not ever let anything awful happen to my children.  I would not survive.  As I shared my uneasy feelings with God, he had assured me he loved my children even more than I did and he was summoning angels to fight on our behalf.  God had known long before I had what was coming my way. He had promised me beforehand that heaven’s armies would be released to help us endure the hard days ahead.

 Although God’s promise to send angelic help gave me strength, his reassurance faded in the days ahead as the ground gave way underneath me, day after endless day.  I often found myself whirling completely out of control.  The only reason I kept returning to God was because I knew I could not do it on my own. His comfort and love seemed like fantasy in this valley, but the risk of living without him was too high. Without God, this kind of pain would only lead to death.  Remembering Jesus was not immune to suffering did keep a pinprick of faith alive, protecting me from giving up on God altogether. Jesus had been where I was. In his own body, he had experienced our family’s gut-wrenching emotions.  He hurt, bled, cried and suffered alongside us. I related the psalmist David when he wrote about how his strength had dried up “like sun baked clay” (Psalm 22:15).  I could not see my way through the valley, but I sensed, somehow, Jesus would make a way for us through the dark, desert land — this I chose to believe.  I had recently read Women of Faith speaker Nicole Johnson’s book, Stepping into the Ring, and I tucked her promises close to my heart:

“No one who fights with their hope in the Lord ever loses the last round. Today is only one chapter, not the complete book of your life. You may have cancer, but cancer does not have you. Cancer can take your cells, but it cannot take you. Cancer can have your hair, but it cannot have your heart. When the last bell rings, cancer may stand in the center alone, but it will not be the winner. In order for cancer to win, it would have to be able to follow you beyond the grave, and it cannot. It will be left alone in the ring with a tired, worn-out shell. Your life will be with the One in whom you have put your hope, the author of everlasting life.”1 

Fighting back ever-present tears and the urge to give up, I continually fought hard to keep bringing myself back to God’s promises, such as these.  I knew no matter how ugly the journey got, all would be well in the end.  In the present, however, there were no words to fully console my heart.

 During this time of trying to cope, I never really knew how I felt about anything. It was as if someone had taken my feelings, put them into a blender, and scrambled them all up, making it impossible for me to decipher between one feeling and another. Did I love God or hate him? Did I resent him? Did I believe in him? Was he my all-in-all? I had talked to people about his love and his goodness navigating us through this storm, but did I really believe it? Confusion distorted everything and life was like trying to walk through a terrifying maze with no sense of direction. 

In the Cleft:  Joy Comes in the Mourning is a story of hope, love, sorrow and faith.  It is a book about how God brings forth beauty out of the ashes and how he can re-write our trauma stories so that they become the ultimate love story.  To find out more about In the Cleft:  Joy Comes in the Mourning you can visit my website at www.danagoodmaninthecleft.com

In the Cleft: Joy Comes in the Mourning can be purchase on Kindle, Nook and in paperback at Amazon and at Barnes and Noble http://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/dana-goodman?store=allproducts&keyword=dana+goodman