‘The Art OF Dying Well’ Podcast
Through a connection with the Centre for Wellbeing in Education at St Mary’s University, London, two of my boys were asked to reflect on their experience returning to school after their dad’s death. This reflection was featured in The Art of Dying Well podcast.
The Centre for Wellbeing in Education collaborated with the Centre for the Art of Living and Dying Well to hold The Bereavement in Education Summit in June 2024 at St Mary’s University. The award-winning podcast, The Art of Dying Well, presented by James Abbot, is dedicated to making death and dying topics we can discuss openly, without discomfort or fear. Episode 42 builds on conversations from the summit and features four important voices, including my sons, Daniel and Matthew, whose dad died when they were 8 and 6 years old. I am incredibly proud of my boys’ bravery in contributing their memories, thoughts and reflections to this essential national conversation.
I encourage you to listen to the episode here:
It was harder than I had anticipated to sit with Daniel and Matthew and ask them about their memories of those raw early days of bereavement. Tom remains an integral and large part of our lives — his smile greets us from photos on nearly every wall of our home, and we spend a lot of time with his parents, siblings, and their families. His old school and university friends have become ours, and we talk about him daily as part of our normal lives. I also make sure we regularly reflect on our grief through acts of remembrance, such as lighting candles or sparklers to mark his special days, dedicating a beautiful illuminated rose in the Marsden’s Ever After Garden each December, and participating in the annual Shinnyo En Lantern Floating Festival of Remembrance each September. While our lives are filled with memories of Tom, and we regularly honour his memory, bringing up those initial, raw days of loss felt different and more challenging.
Knowing the need to reframe conversations around death as important rather than difficult, I suggested the boys and I give it a try. Though initially uncertain, both recognised that sharing their experiences could help others. They each had something to say, and so we began.
reflections on episode 42: Bereavement in education
The host of the podcast, James Abbot rightly says that educators need put a young person’s grief at the very centre of a conversation on how to best support them. Child Bereavement UK (n.d.) says that schools, “by carrying on their usual day-to-day activities while being aware of the bereavement, can do a huge amount to support a grieving pupil.” It’s where educators show the awareness of the bereavement that makes all the difference to a grieving child. By prioritising understanding and the visibility of a young person’s grief and placing it at the centre of the conversation, schools can then provide the best support through carefully considered measures, offering appropriate guidance and care. So with intentionally open ears, what did I learn from the 4 voices in this episode of The Art of Dying Well podcast?
Daniel and matthew
Both boys understandably wanted their normal lives back after their dad had died. Home life had been irreversibly altered with every part of it changed now forever. School could be the space where things remained predictable, known and safe. Friends, routine, expectations were all familiar and understood, and not as shaky and unpredictable as home life had become, especially in those early days. Both boys wanted to see and be with their friends. Daniel reflects on wanting that connection with his friends and Matthew wanted to follow his older brother’s lead. They both report feeling well supported by their schools whether it was helping the caretaker (Matthew) or mindfully preparing him for lessons which may trigger grief (Daniel). I was relieved to hear this but very interested to explore more about this need they both expressed to feel ‘normal’ at the time.
Paige
Paige takes up the point in how she describes those early days of returning to school after her dad had died when she was 11 years old. She reflects on how others seemed to walk on eggshells around her and her grief at that time. Adults and children alike were careful not to trigger her, but she knew what they were doing - children always know! - and that made it harder to achieve the ‘normal’ both she and my boys describe in wanting at that time.
Now as a primary school teacher, Paige questions why we as educators, and generally in society I would add, are more comfortable talking about sex with children and not death? She says not talking about death makes grieving harder, “You will go through this at some point in your life and we need to know how to prepare for it, how to deal with it and how to come out the other side in a healthy way.” Brilliantly said!
Jenny
Jenny’s dad died when she was 17. She is now the Director of Initial Teacher Training at Anglia Ruskin University and takes up the conversation to express the importance of normalising the conversation around death and grief. She believes that there is a need to move away from being reactive about death to creating a proactive space where grief education and death literacy is embedded. Trainee teachers are regularly assessed on their level of communication skills, and on how compassionate and empathetic they are. These are not new skills to actively train a teacher in, only that death presents a unique context in which to apply them. As a society, we need to unpack the hang-ups and anxieties that exist around death and grief. Educators can put in the groundwork for supporting a bereaved young person and should know where to seek further specialist support if needed.
Final thoughts
These lived experiences tell us that children and young people want to be seen as and treated as normal after someone significant has died. Death is normal - everyone and everything dies - but our current society’s response to death and grief makes children and young people acutely aware that what has happened to them is everything but normal. After all, dads shouldn’t die when you are still at school. But it happens. Current statistics state that 1 in 29 children experience the death of a parent or sibling (Child Bereavement Network, 2023) so it is therefore highly likely that educators will encounter a bereaved child at some point in their career and they need to be prepared. With the risks of bereavement negatively affecting a child’s mental health in both the short and long-term, as well as research suggesting that grief experienced as a child can affect a person’s educational outcomes and later their employment and life chances, designing the right kind of support here is crucial. Therefore, effective training on supporting bereaved children in school should include:
learning how grief affects children and recognising behaviours that may indicate a need for further support or compassionate intervention
developing skills to have important conversations about love, loss, death and grief with children - whether they are bereaved or not - and with their families
facilitating whole-staff conversations on creating a proactive space where grief education and death literacy are embedded
Training which covers all of the points above will undoubtedly reassure and empower educators to know how to support a child bereaved of a significant family member in school. As Jenny suggests, many teachers already have the skills, it’s about the different context to apply them to and dedicating time to directly address and collectively explore ideas and thoughts as a staff body. Training focused on the knowledge and visibility of a young person’s grief, ensuring it is placed at the centre of the conversation, can help schools begin to make that positive difference to all our young people’s lives for who they are now and for the adults whom they will one day become.
Tom’s death when Daniel was 8 and Matthew was 6 is their ‘normal’. It’s a significant event in the their life stories and one they should feel comfortable with to talk about and share. Tom was an incredible man and a very loving and very present father whose boys were his world. He would often ask them to finish the statement: You make me… and their answers would be, ‘laugh’, ‘happy’ and ‘proud’. Tom would have been incredibly proud of them for taking part in this podcast, adding their voices to this essential national conversation, and carrying forward his legacy of love. I thank James and his team for giving us the opportunity to be part of the important conversation where death and dying can be spoken about openly.
References:
Child Bereavement UK (n.d.), Primary Schools. [online] Child Bereavement UK.
Child Bereavement UK (2018). Improving Bereavement Support in Schools. [online] Child Bereavement UK, p.1.
Childhood Bereavement Network (2023). Key Statistics. [online] Childhood Bereavement Network.