Hospice San Miguel Offers New School Program to Help Children Handle Grief

A father who leaves for the United States to work, a mother who dies in childbirth, a favorite sister who leaves home to marry, a brother who is killed in an accident--young children suffer, too, and often they have no idea what is happening to their emotions and what to do about their grief.

Mexican society is both emotional in some arenas where people are free to express their feelings, such as masked dancers during fiestas, and resistant to the idea of talking openly about painful loss, even during Day of the Dead ceremonies which are often portrayed as joyous reunions with departed loved ones.

To a child the experience may not be all that joyous, reopening wounds that never healed.

Children are often considered resilient, even unaware of what is happening around them, and they may be told to just be silent by a surviving parent who is too wrapped up in grieving to help the children understand what is happening to their world and to their emotions.

And their repressed misunderstood grief may cripple them for years or for life as they never learn to understand and accept their loss and their stages of grieving.

Hospice San Miguel, itself an innovative program for Mexico that provides assistance for those with a terminal illness and their families, has initiated a pilot Child Bereavement Program to see how school children can learn to talk about their emotions, particularly around the loss of a family member.

The program is called, "Yo, Tambien, Siento" - "I, Too, Feel."

Organizers believe it is the only such program in Mexico and even in the United States and Canada. The initial stages of the program are being monitored closely, and statistics are being gathered to verify that the program is indeed accomplishing its goals, as early results indicate it does.

The program is about to launch its second stage, reaching out to older children age eight to thirteen at Atabal School.

The program´s first stage was November 6 to 27 at Carrusel Montessori School for children age four to six. Parents from both schools learned about the successful results of the first stage at a joint meeting January 28 at Carrusel.

A Parents/Kids Camp March 27 will integrate the experiences for all of the participants with such activities as games, skits, readings, and displays of the art the children did during the sessions, with discussions to help families learn more about handling grief and other strong emotions as a family unit.

The idea for a Child Bereavement Program in schools began with a woman who picked up a flyer about Hospice San Miguel in the Jardin. She was a teacher who had just lost her husband, and she participated in bereavement sessions at Hospice, then wanted some assistance in helping her young children understand the loss of their father.

Grief counselor Alicia Murias worked with the preschoolers, and the mother was so grateful she brought up the idea of reaching out to all the children at Carrusel School where she teaches.

Hospice San Miguel´s Leticia Gonzalez, Director of Mexican Services, and Anne Howells, Social Work Coordinator, worked with Mark Baker, the Hospice Director, to develop a pilot program. The Carrusel students were divided into two smaller groups by age. The 25 three and four year olds included five who spoke only English and 20 native Spanish speakers. The 12 age five and six included 4 English speakers and 8 Spanish speakers.

Anne Howells, trained as an art therapist and social worker, leads the first sessions gently by asking the children to draw pictures about anything that they have lost in their lives. She suggests they think about a dog that has died, or a bird they used to watch who one day flew away and never came back, or a beautiful flowering plant that shriveled away.

Alicia Murias leads the last two sessions where children draw their families and themselves, including those who are missing from the family picture. This is where the program begins to talk about serious losses the children may have experienced.

"This is the stage at which individual problems which may require additional counseling will come out. A child may draw a fragmented body, or portray the home as a prison," Howells explains. "When we detect children with serious problems, we work to get them assistance."

"San Miguel is basically a small traditional town," Gonzalez adds. "We don't have the psychological staff that is available at a major school district like Mexico City. We find what resources we can that are suited to the needs that arise.

"But this is not just a screening program to detect those with critical problems; it is an educational experience to help all children and their families."

In the final session, Murias leads the children into discussions of what they think happens after death. She reads a short story called "The Dragonfly" to the children in Spanish and then Howells reads it in English. The story is about a group of waterbug friends who wonder what happens when another waterbug suddenly disappears and is never seen again. The waterbug friends promise each other that if any of them leaves, they will come back and tell the remaining waterbugs what happened.

Of course one of the bugs soon morphs into a dragonfly and is thrilled to be soaring into the sky on strong wings, when he remembers his promise to go back and tell the others what happened. But no matter how hard he tries, he can't get below the surface of the water to reach them. He flies away, thinking to himself that soon they will all join him anyway and will see how wonderful it is to fly.

"We don't get into spirituality directly and in no way bring in any religious teachings," Gonzalez says. "Children share what they think happens when you die, and there is a range of ideas, and all ideas are welcomed.

"We know some parents will be concerned that we might contradict what they are teaching their children about spirituality. We are careful to not consider any idea right or wrong. We only touch on spiritual issues as they arise and allow the children to talk about what they think and how they understand the concept of dying."

As the program progresses, the parents and older children are being given questionnaires both before and after the sessions, to see what value they have found in the program, and to measure their attitudes before and after to see if the program has been effective. These questionnaires will be used for a statistical analysis from which a research paper will be written and submitted to professional journals.

At the moment the Child Bereavement Program is operating on a zero budget, expenses being subsidized by Hospice San Miguel. But there are hopes that outside funding may be found to allow the program to expand to more and more schools.

Gonzalez has spoken to the local teachers union about the possibility of offering the Child Bereavement Program in the public schools. "It was wonderful to start out in private schools like Carrusel and Atabal, which are very open to new ideas and ways of reaching children. It will be more difficult to adapt our program to the public schools that are more traditional and are teaching the students along a preset schedule and format. But we hope that we will be able to find a way to offer this Child Bereavement assistance to many additional schools, if funding can be found."

She made the first inroad into the public school program when a principal at an elementary school heard about Hospice´s bereavement counseling and asked if they could help a public school child who was experiencing problems.

Gonzalez has developed a presentation for new schools on the need for balance and understanding before learning can happen. "We're all going to die, and we don't talk about it," she says bluntly. "All of us are in denial about this most important event coming in all our lives. Death and grieving are important to talk about and accept if we are to live our lives fully. And it is easier to achieve this balance if we start out with the concepts as children."

As the program develops, ideas keep emerging to make the sessions more active and more participatory. Songs, games, plays, books, and art projects such a creating boxes of memories, or even a student's personal Day of the Dead altar for a loved one with that child's treasured items and memories are being considered.

"Each classroom may create a montage in the earlier sessions of examples of things they find around them that have died, such as a dried up leaf, a insect carcass, an animal bone. We see these things all around us and don't examine them and the feelings they bring up," Howells explains.

"We hope to write some short plays where the children can take the roles of a family which has experienced a death, so that they can say the words in the play that they may not be able to verbalize themselves," Howells continues.

"We want to develop some role-playing exercises where two children can pretend to be other people experiencing the loss of someone close to them. As they come up with the emotions and words for these imaginary characters, they may find these emotions within themselves and learn that they are not alone in experiencing grief."

To make a donation for expansion of the Child Bereavement Program, to arrange a presentation at a new school, or to learn more about the program in general, contact Leticia Gonzalez at Hospice San Miguel at 415-154-4287 (from the US add 01152 before the number), or email lego_2000_mx@yahoo.com.mx.

San Miguel de Allende is a city of 80,000 in central Mexico, about 165 miles northwest of Mexico City, which recently was named an UNESCO World Heritage site. It is an arts and cultural center that was in the center of the beginnings of Mexico's war of independence from Spain in 1810.