Helping Kids Through Loss with Grief Expert David Kessler

Dr. Becky talks with grief expert David Kessler about helping kids through loss, why children blame themselves, and how honesty and connection make grief survivable - for them and for us.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Dr. Becky Kennedy?

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• 0:43Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  As you know, I love talking about emotions, but there's one I don't talk about a lot. And honestly, it's one that I think I have a lot of struggle around: grief. Now, we can easily think, no one in my life has died recently, no one's about to die. But here's the thing, we cannot go through life without processing grief. It will happen to all of us. It will happen to our kids. And it's more than just a death in the family. It's shifting stages. It's moving. There's so many ways grief comes up. And what I promise you is my conversation today with David Kessler, one of the world's foremost experts on grief and loss, is going to transform you. It is going to make you feel. It is going to give

• 1:25Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  you visuals that stay with you forever. And I think one of the most powerful things about this conversation is it's going to give you frameworks to understand complicated feelings, maybe before they happen next time. And having those frameworks in you now will change how those experiences end up being processed in your body and how things end up going in your family home. Trust me, this is a conversation you do not want to miss. And you also might want to get a tissue or two ready. I'm Dr. Becky, and this is Good Inside. We'll be back right after this.

• 2:03Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Hi David.

• 2:04Speaker 01

  Hi, nice to be here.

• 2:06Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  So happy to have you. So, let's just jump right in.

• 2:08Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 2:09Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  We're gonna be talking about grief and loss. And I'm a big definitions person, right? I feel like that gives me a framework. And so, let's just start with grief. How do you define grief? What brought you to be interested in it? Let's just start there.

• 2:26Speaker 01

  Okay. I think what brought me to be interested in this, it's not a career that most people choose. It kinda chose me. I grew up with a lot of loss in my childhood, from neglect to sexual abuse, addiction. And then when I was 13, my mother was dying. And at the same time she was dying, where we were staying at the hotel, there was a fire and a shooting. It turned out to be one of the first mass shootings in the US. So, it was a lot. And I came away from that feeling really damaged and broken, and this life was shot.

• 3:09Speaker 01

  But luckily, I had a neighbor who really sort of gave me a little attention that I needed. And she said, because I dropped out of school.

• 3:21Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  How old?

• 3:23Speaker 01

  Probably 13, 14. And she said, you know, after a couple of years, I just walked the streets. And she said, you know, you seem kinda smart. You can challenge your high school diploma. So I went back and I did that. Went to community college. Started learning about this field, really from my own healing, never thinking it'd be a career.

• 3:46Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Yeah.

• 3:46Speaker 01

  So that's what got me into this. It's just finding my own way through it.

• 3:52Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  And how, when you were younger, how did you see the adults around you? How was grief modeled?

• 3:58Speaker 01

  Here's not well. The only advice I got was from someone in the hallway of the hospital, who said, "Stay strong." Which kinda meant, "Take care of everyone and get rid of your feelings." And the other thing that I think is really surprising is as a child, I thought I was the only one that ever had a parent die. I mean, everyone I knew had parents.

• 4:24Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Yeah.

• 4:24Speaker 01

  So, it was me.

• 4:27Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  It was me like, I must have done something wrong on some level.

• 4:30Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 4:31Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Yeah.

• 4:32Speaker 01

  Absolutely. And I think that's key with children is that we personalize it. We think we did something. You know, we all say challenging things to our parents. So you think, I just would have been better, nicer, more obedient, whatever it was.

• 4:48Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Yeah.

• 4:49Speaker 01

  So that's what got me here.

• 4:52Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  There's so many things I want to double click on, one at a time. Let me think if I can hold them in my brain. Um, what you're saying, I think is so important. And just for anyone listening, it's so, it's hard to understand because you're like, wait, I never told my kid that it was their fault that I got sick or that, no one says that. I mean, maybe some parents say that. We, we hope they don't like, you know, it's going to be your fault if I die. That's usually not what people say.

• 5:16Speaker 01

  And we call that magical thinking.

• 5:18Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Magical thinking. And, and I think about it in terms of what's really adaptive. I'm always grounded in evolution. Well, when a kid is overwhelmed by sensation and feeling, right? Kids depend on adults for survival, right? And so if an adult gets sick or, you know, dies, a kid is overwhelmed by the feeling of, oh my goodness, one of the people I depend on for everything in this world is not here anymore. They have to try to make sense of that. And if they don't have a safe adult to tell them a story of how to make sense, kids are really left to their own devices. And actually taking in fault, it must be my fault. It sounds like, oh, why would I do that to myself when I was a kid? It's very adaptive because at least it feels like

• 6:02Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  I could be better. There's something in my control.

• 6:04Speaker 01

  I have some control, right.

• 6:05Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Hundred percent. And so it ends up catching up with us later in life. It's usually not adaptive.

• 6:10Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 6:11Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  But for a lot of years. And so I just think that's so powerful to get magical thinking. But also as a kid, what a crafty thing to try to create a story that actually gives you control back versus the frozenness of, I guess anyone could be taken away from me at any moment without reason.

• 6:29Speaker 01

  And that's one of the things I always teach. We would rather be guilty than helpless.

• 6:35Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Hmm. I just want to let that sit.

• 6:37Speaker 01

  Yeah. Guilty than helpless. We'd rather have an illusion of control than live in this world where anyone can die any moment. My fault is better than people randomly dying. Think of that as a child.

• 6:54Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Yeah.

• 6:56Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  There's so many applications of that, but feeling out of control and helpless and like the world is random and anything could happen to you at any moment is kind of like an unlivable scenario.

• 7:09Speaker 01

  Correct.

• 7:10Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Right, and I'm always drawn, I think about it in terms of the power of repair and attachment, but it's really relevant here. This powerful Fairburn quote, I don't know if you know it, where he says, "For kids, it's better to be a sinner in a world ruled by God than to live in a world ruled by the devil." So similar, like I'd rather take fault and badness in than to think I'm kind of a good, relatively helpless kid and the world around me is kind of bad. That's, again, kind of unlivable.

• 7:37Speaker 01

  And I reached out to my father and wanted to talk about grief and he shut it down.

• 7:44Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Tell me more about that.

• 7:45Speaker 01

  He didn't know how. He didn't know how. He said, "We're not talking about that. You know, your mother's gone. That's it." So luckily, I took it upon myself to learn, to understand what had happened to me.

• 8:03Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Well, I want to ask you two questions at once, answer in either order. I'm curious what you remember that feeling like when it was shut down and I'm curious your understanding of it now.

• 8:12Speaker 01

  It felt so isolating. Only me again. I am the only one in this pain. Everyone else seems to be doing okay, but me. And also, an important thing with children is I can remember going back to school and it's probably one of the reasons why I ended up dropping out, is the teacher, in her kindness, was in front of everyone, "Oh, my gosh, everyone, David's mother had died, dah dah dah." And the thing is, kids read that stuff as embarrassment.

• 8:52Speaker 01

  I was embarrassed. I was the kid who had a mother who died. Now, as adults, we would never think death is embarrassing, but as a child, that's how sometimes we read it. So I always, I do a lot of education around teachers and really making sure that, you know, they understand how to acknowledge things a little more privately, rather than making someone stand out who always already feels like they're standing out.

• 9:22Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Everyone be nice to David today.

• 9:24Speaker 01

  Be nice to David.

• 9:25Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Good intentions.

• 9:26Speaker 01

  Great intentions, great intentions.

• 9:29Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  And I think part of it, I wonder for you, is your, your feelings state, your sensations were obviously so intense. And we know the feelings intensify as we feel alone. And so in a way, the publicness of it is even worse because it, it calls attention to, to something. First of all, you weren't ready for it, right? So it's like an assault in the moment. And then in some ways, you're starting to feel seen publicly for a set of feelings you've been told in your home shouldn't even be there in the first place. So really not a good match.

• 9:58Speaker 01

  I'm just trying to survive and behave and figure out this new world I'm in. And I think that's what death is and loss. You've been thrown onto another planet with no instructions. I think that's true for adults and it's just as, if not more true for children. So getting back to what's my definition of grief, I have two of them.

• 10:24Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Okay.

• 10:25Speaker 01

  One is when, especially when we're talking about death, grief is love. Grief is love. It's another form of love. And the second definition is grief is a change we didn't want. So that could be the divorce, it could be moving, that could be.

• 10:49Speaker 01

  Someone, you know, not being the person we thought they would be, all those things.

• 10:55Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Love and something you you didn't want, which the simplicity of those words, it's so interesting. One of the things I share with parents a lot in very minor scenarios compared to death. You show up to the ice cream place and it's closed or, you know, you thought you had soccer practice and it started an hour earlier, right? The simple language of you didn't want this to happen.

• 11:17Speaker 01

  Correct.

• 11:18Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Hard stop, zip it, nothing else. It is both so simple and so profound and how like you didn't like, yeah, that's exactly, that's like, kind of the the whole essence of my experience is actually that I didn't want that to happen. And that's a really painful experience when we have things in various degrees that we didn't want to happen.

• 11:36Speaker 01

  And I think the hardest thing for parents is we we don't want them to have this pain they're having. So we try to fix and make it okay and we can't.

• 11:51Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Yeah.

• 11:51Speaker 01

  Because grief is not being broken. Grief is, you know, this, these feelings that happen to us that there's it's it's feelings to be with, not to fix. And, you know, that throws us all for a loop.

• 12:07Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  And and something you shared in your story that's so profound is you were feeling so much grief after the loss of your mom. And I think there's this narrative, not only to kids, but to be strong for your son.

• 12:20Speaker 01

  Right.

• 12:20Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Be strong for your daughter, right? But if there's a really massive gap, I don't think anyone thinks for a kid who's grieving, you want a parent who is completely melting and can't function, right? There's extremes, but if there's such a big gap, my kid is devastated. He lost his mom and I seemingly can just go on and back to work like nothing happened. That that's actually really disturbing and and almost shaming to a kid who's feeling so intensely.

• 12:46Speaker 01

  Well, and getting back to the simplicity of it, I tell parents, and by the way, when people say, would you rather talk to the child or the parent? I'm always like, the parent. Let me work with the parent. So you you know that feeling, right? So I I always tell parents two things. You have to teach them how to grieve and how to live. Grieving, feel those feelings and life continues. We're still going to do things.

• 13:16Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  So it informs one of the reasons why I think a parent might have especially a hard time with that. But going back to your dad, do you have an understanding now, doesn't make it okay, but of why your dad reacted like that? Why he didn't want to talk about anything?

• 13:30Speaker 01

  He was completely overwhelmed. He was completely overwhelmed. It's interesting. One of the things that I did in my own healing was, this is as an adult, I went back and rewrote my story as everyone else. So for instance, when I was a kid, the nurses didn't let me see my mother. I had to be 13. I had to be 14. I was only 13. My father didn't want to talk about it, and I felt like my mother abandoned me. So think about this years later, when I began to do this work, and I really looked and went, wait a minute,

• 14:12Speaker 01

  what was it like for those nurses? I realized, oh, it's very nuanced. I bet some of them liked those rules. Some of them might have felt bad enforcing them. Some of them might have thought they were doing the right thing. It became really interesting to look at that. And then I got to my father, who I judged, who wasn't there for me. Wait, his wife's dying? He's going to be a parent? And he's never really been a parent. He doesn't know how to do this. He can't pay for his wife's burial. So all of a sudden, the man

• 14:51Speaker 01

  I had so much judgment for, as an adult, I could find compassion. And my mother, who I thought abandoned me, I was able to realize, that's what a child's mind does, abandonment. My mother didn't abandon me. She died.

• 15:09Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  I'm just sitting with what you said. It's just so powerful and makes me think about whether it's grief or something else, the power of rewriting the story of the people around you. And I think there's another two things are true. When we gain understanding in a different way than we used to have, that doesn't take away from the pain.

• 15:25Speaker 01

  No.

• 15:26Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  And so I just, and I know you know that.

• 15:27Speaker 01

  Both stories exist.

• 15:28Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  That's right. That's right.

• 15:29Speaker 01

  My childhood story exists and my adult story exists.

• 15:34Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  That's right. And they're just, they could both be on the shelf. There's no need to.

• 15:36Speaker 01

  There's no canceling of one another in that.

• 15:38Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  No ranking.

• 15:39Speaker 01

  Right.

• 15:40Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Yes, I think that's so beautiful. You know, I don't want to distill it down to this, but as you've, you know, thought and lived or hungry for so long, are there one, two things that you feel like people really misunderstand about grief? Like they really have one framework and a different framework is more helpful?

• 15:57Speaker 01

  I think one thing is for children, they're puddle jumpers. They jump into the pain and they jump out.

• 16:07Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Hmm.

• 16:08Speaker 01

  For adults, when we're in grief, if someone came up to us in grief and said in our like first few weeks, do you want to go to a party? We'd be like, are you kidding? I'm in grief. I can't get to a party. Why would you even ask me? I'd be insulted.

• 16:24Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Yeah.

• 16:25Speaker 01

  A child can be in enormous pain. Grandpa died in this moment and five minutes later want to go out to play. So I think adults don't realize, children puddle jumpers.

• 16:38Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Yeah.

• 16:39Speaker 01

  In and out of the grief. And they need that distraction.

• 16:43Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Hmm.

• 16:44Speaker 01

  Um, I think the other thing is, as I mentioned, we're fixers. We want to fix. We don't want our kids to be in pain. And it's really, I often try to say to myself, to others, we have to give even our children the dignity of their own experience.

• 17:05Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Oh, so beautiful.

• 17:07Speaker 01

  And it's so hard when they're in pain. Like, we don't want to get, we want to give them the dignity of winning the award. We don't want to give them the dignity of their pain.

• 17:17Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Yeah.

• 17:18Speaker 01

  And it's hard.

• 17:20Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  It is. I'm a visual person and sometimes I think logically, order of operations. Like, one of the things I find it's helpful to level with parents about is the pain is there. Like, come and gone. Like, that's there. That's like a fact. So, the only real choice we have is what we do next. Because I think we get into, "I don't want my kid to feel this way." And there's something like, they do feel this way. "Oh, I wish they didn't feel..." Okay, it's already happening, right? It's kind of like, "The ice cream store is closed. What are we gonna do next? We can't make it open." So, I think this idea, and your experience really speaks to it. Like, we, for our kids, no matter what it is, we can't change the hard, but we can change the alone. And I think we focus too much on fixing the hard. The thing we can fix is the alone.

• 18:01Speaker 01

  Right. And that's what we want to know. Just like, I felt no one was in this with me. For our parents, and to just, like, they're in this with us. I think the other thing is, you know, our kids' pain is so hard. We want to throw a million shiny objects. We want to, "Well, let's go to your favorite place. Let's do this. Let's get you out of it." And grief must be witnessed. We need our grief witnessed.

• 18:34Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Yeah.

• 18:35Speaker 01

  We need to know someone else sees our pain.

• 18:38Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Yes, absolutely.

• 18:45Dr. Becky Kennedy?

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• 19:30Dr. Becky Kennedy?

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• 20:13Dr. Becky Kennedy?

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• 20:54Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  So, so much grief and loss in your early years. You became very interested in grief and loss. And then I know you experienced the loss of your own son.

• 21:05Speaker 01

  Yes, I have two sons. And I adopted my two sons from the LA County Adoption Foster Care System. They'd been in five foster homes. I had the illusion, they were four and five years old when I got them. I had the illusion that love would conquer all. And I forgot how important those first few years were. So I tried my best to overcome that and give them great childhoods. But still, those demons came up from their past when they were in their teenage years.

• 21:47Speaker 01

  And my younger son, David, died at 21 after really a tough, tough fight with addiction. And he was actually born drug exposed. So that was really brutal to watch, brutal for me, brutal for his brother. It was tough.

• 22:07Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  I'm very, I'm so sorry for your loss.

• 22:10Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 22:11Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Did, being on that side of grief, not your own parent, but your, your son, did, did anything, was it a different experience of grief?

• 22:19Speaker 01

  It was, I was shocked and paralyzed to be in that kind of pain. You know, it's hard for me to, people will go, well, was it different than as your child, you know, childhood and all that? And it's like, it's just pain. So I don't, I, I could never figure out which would be worse or all those things. I mean, I certainly, I always feel like the pain we're in is the worst pain. And that was pretty brutal, pretty brutal.

• 22:52Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Yeah.

• 22:52Speaker 01

  And it's been nine years now. I have found, you know, joy and happiness. And again, and I try to live in his honor. And partly, I really had to do that for his brother. I had to really teach him, life goes on no matter what we've been through. And I think the hardest things, sometimes for me and for parents, is to realize.

• 23:22Speaker 01

  Our kids are going to go through loss. If we're going to teach them about staying safe in the road and everything else, we have to teach them about loss. When? How do we do it? When it occurs. When the neighbor dies. When the dog dies. That's our moment to teach.

• 23:41Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  I think that's exactly right. Just when do we teach? When it occurs? Like, parents hear all the time, "Grandma's dying of cancer, but my son is three, so young." And again, there's like this, um, we can't ignore reality. Like, again, is he young at three? Sure, three is young. Grandma is dying. He sees grandma every week. Now grandma's in the hospital. He hears the word "cancer." Like, grandma's not going to come around soon. So, we don't really have a choice. Like, in my mind, like, it's here. So, either he's going to live it alone and confused, or we have to figure out the best way to talk to, you know, a three-year-old about that.

• 24:19Speaker 01

  Oh, we do have a choice? And sometimes we make choices that are not good ones. I have heard grandma's gone to live somewhere else, grandpa's gone on a long trip.

• 24:33Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Yeah.

• 24:34Speaker 01

  All of those things. And then you've got this young child that just hears "grandpa went on a long trip"? Wait, wait. And then, five years later, we're going to Disney World? Wait, wait. Who's going to die? Someone's dying on this trip.

• 24:48Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  That's exactly right. Grandma went to sleep, and then, six months later, my kids had a lot of sleep issues. I'm like, "I'm going to help connect the dots for you here."

• 24:55Speaker 01

  Yes, yes. Oh, there's a reason they've got a little insomnia there. Who wants to go to sleep and die?

• 25:00Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  So, I'm reminded of, you know, one of my favorite, you know, things from my kids' childhood, where there was, I think it was my oldest was probably in this three- or four-year-old preschool class, and they had, it was a gerbil, pet gerbil. And truly, like, a week into school, it was pretty early, we get this email from the teacher saying, you know, I think it was Patty, the gerbil, Patty died. And Patty was very, very old. Parents were like, "Well, you probably didn't have to start the year with Patty dying, you know, but here we are." And they did this thing where, during the rug discussions, one of the teachers would transcribe the conversation and send it to the parents. And so, we kind of had a sense of what's going on in the classroom, and they transcribed the conversation about Patty dying. And it was so interesting. There was a girl in the class, it was one of my son's friends,

• 25:46Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  who had recently gone to her grandparents' burial. The whole graveside, everything, okay? And you heard other kids in the class saying, "I think we should write Patty a letter to read." And this girl was like, "Patty's in a box in the ground." So it was like, "I feel like Patty went on a long trip." You know, like, and you could hear what the kids had been told about death. And this one girl, and I love this girl, was just kind of like going with reality. Like Patty's not going to be able to take our call because Patty's dead and she's a gerbil. Right? And you just saw it play out in this transcription. And I do think that kids are expert perceivers of their environments more than us

• 26:31Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  because their life depends on noticing danger. And so they smell inconsistency. They know things don't add up. And that actually can give them so much anxiety, right? And so much panic because then it's like, "Well, what else can't I trust in the world? What else can't happen?"

• 26:47Speaker 01

  Correct, correct. And I'll tell you something parents do a big, big one on is when someone has died by suicide. When someone has died by suicide, we're, as parents, not going to tell them the truth. And my only response to the parents, and I say this gently, "I wonder who will." Someone is going to, and then they're not going to trust you. That's a hard one. It's the big secret we keep a lot of times, which only adds to the stigma of illnesses of our mind.

• 27:25Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Yes. You know, I often think that hard truths told by a loving, trusted adult is actually one of the safest, most connecting experiences we have. And yeah, there are, and I think this is so intergenerational. Like the things nobody was ever honest or put words to for us, we don't really, like, your dad didn't have language, my guess is. And so some generation at some point kind of puts their hand up and they're like, "I guess it's going to be me." And it's awkward and it's painful and you don't get it right, but you kind of pivot every generation, I think, after that.

• 28:01Speaker 01

  All right, I want to ask you a question here.

• 28:03Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Oh my goodness, I wasn't prepared for this, David.

• 28:06Speaker 01

  So here's where there's some disagreement in the field.

• 28:09Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Okay.

• 28:10Speaker 01

  And I'm all for it.

• 28:11Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Yeah.

• 28:11Speaker 01

  Like, there's no one right way to do anything. A lot of people believe we should ask our young children if they want to go to the funeral. Here's my take, and this is where I differ with some. My take is, and parents, when they hear this, they go, I can't force my child. And I go, wait, but you force them to eat, you force them to go to school. We force our kids to do things all the time. I say, listen, this is one, a teaching moment. I would say to the children, do you remember how we went to grandpa's birthday party?

• 28:53Speaker 01

  And we sang, "Happy Birthday." "Happy Birthday" is another way we say, "I love you." And we're all going to gather one more time for grandpa. And we call that a funeral. And in that goodbye, it's another way we say, "I love you." And then I prepare the child for what they were going to see at a funeral and what it's going to be like. And it's interesting, parents sometimes want to go to their five-year-old, "Do you want to go to grandpa's funeral?" And the problem with that, I love the idea of giving children choices, but what happens is the child says,

• 29:34Speaker 01

  "No, I don't want to go to the funeral," which is their way of saying, "I don't want grandpa to be dead." And so we go, "Okay, mommy, daddy's not going to force you."

• 29:45Speaker 01

  Our child, at six, seven years old, goes, "When's his next funeral? I want to go after all." "Oh, I didn't inform you it was a once-in-a-lifetime event? You didn't understand that at five?" So what are your thoughts on that?

• 30:00Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Okay, so... I think there's probably something in between. So I'm not a big fan of asking kids questions that are adult decisions. That's number one. I'm also not a fan of forcing, basically, anything except for, I don't know, the seatbelt in the car. And part of that is I just think there's a better way to be effective. So here's what's in the middle, because this actually recently came up with my friend, where the couple was a little bit in disagreement about if the kid should go to, you know, the grandparents funeral. And I said to this friend, I was like, "Look, if you ask your kids, all they're actually feeling is, do I want to make mom happy or dad happy?" Like, or I think what happens when you ask a kid, first of all, they're like, "I have no idea how to answer this question. I don't have enough information. I don't really know what a funeral is. I don't really know the impact going or not going is going to have on me. And so I'm actually just going to try to read what you think."

• 30:45Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  And so I don't actually think they're able to answer the question. It's like a five-year-old saying what school they want to go to. Like, it's the school that gave them the best candy. Like, they're not equipped to make that decision. Now, I think where I really align with you is I think, number one, we tend to think kids can't handle things when they can handle things. Number two, kids are actually really interested in taking things that are

• 31:12Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  not palpable and making them palpable. Like, the funerals are like, "Oh, grandpa died, and here it is." Like, "Die." Like, what does that mean? Kids find that very confusing. And while as adults we make something concrete, yes, it brings up this flood of feelings of the reality. For kids especially, it's part of an arc. Like, they want to have that moment of making it real. And the friend I was talking about ended up taking the kid to the funeral and graveside. Like, this kid wanted to put dirt on over and over, right? Because I think it was the kid's way of saying, "This is my way of understanding what's happening." So the way I would approach it is, first of all, if there's two parents or one, try to get on the same page.

• 31:57Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  You don't want this conversation to be a marital dispute hidden as a conversation with your kids. That's number one. Number two, I think what you can say is, there's something called a funeral. Let us explain what that means. And hopefully by then, you've already said, "Grandpa died. Death is when the bodies..." stops working. No, he won't come to pizza on Sunday like they have. And I think what's also important, kids really need to hear this. I'm not dying. Mom's not dying. You're not dying.

• 32:21Speaker 01

  Oh, let me tell you. Let me tell you. Here's the thing. You are so right, but I want to emphasize that. That's the dreaded question. Parents don't want. Are you going to die too someday?

• 32:35Speaker 01

  And the answer has to be yes.

• 32:38Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Yeah.

• 32:38Speaker 01

  And here's what I'm doing to stay healthy. And this is why I ask you to eat your green beans and all that stuff. But parents, oh, they don't want that question.

• 32:49Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Yeah. And I think like, you know, I think, and we can get back to the funeral, but I think when you get that question, something that's also helpful is, and this is true when kids are anxious about anything, instead of diving right into the content, noticing what's happening. Wow, you're a kid who has a lot of big thoughts. You're a kid with a really busy brain. That's a really scary thought. And, and this is a favorite line of mine. Something you always know about me is I will always give you a truthful answer, even if it's uncomfortable, because I know we can get through hard things together. And so I'm going to answer that question. But you can put a little context that they're kind of asking you the question and they're also telling you it's kind of scary to be a kid wondering about big things. And I agree, like, you have to be honest and name, this is actually one of the hardest things to sit with, that fact.

• 33:31Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  But when a kid, when, when someone dies in the family, the truth is I will die. But kids don't understand death isn't contagious like a cold or the flu. Like they don't know that inherently. And so they worry when something changes in my environment that affects my stability, like what else could change, right?

• 33:47Speaker 01

  There's more.

• 33:48Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Going to the funeral doesn't mean someone else is going to die. Like they, they might need to hear that. So going back to the decision, I would lay it all out. I'd say, if you believe it's like a helpful thing, here's what it's going to be like. And it's another form of love and it's helpful to have a moment where we're together. Now, if a kid is like kicking and screaming, right? Like I'm definitely not going to force my kid to go. I just, and also, part of that is if this is a funeral that's meaningful for me,

• 34:14Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  and I know I'm holding like a tantruming young child, like that just doesn't feel like it's a good grieving process for anyone.

• 34:20Speaker 01

  And that's where I would bring someone trusted, that if, just in general, I always say when you're at the funeral, have another trusted person so you can be present in your grief, and you can have, because the thing is, when parents are grieving for maybe their parents, you don't remember to say to the kids, "Let's all go and try to go to the bathroom first." Because you're in your, you know, and that's why if there's your sister, someone else who like can be a little more in the moment, just to help out the kids with their questions. And the other thing is, kids are literal. Here's my, here's my story about this. There

• 35:00Speaker 01

  was a woman, her, um, her dad had died, heartbroken, getting ready for the funeral, dressing, her five-year-old comes up, "Mommy, when do they cut off grandpa's head?" And she's like, "What? When do they cut off grandpa's head?" And mom says, "I can't deal with it today. Go downstairs to your dad. Just go downstairs." She goes downstairs. Dad says, "What, what, what's this? Listen, no zombies today? No cutting off heads? You can't go there. Can't

• 35:39Speaker 01

  do it today." Goes to the funeral, really shut down. After the funeral, they're at the reception. Luckily, the aunt comes up and says to her little five-year-old girl, "So, honey, I heard you had a question earlier." "Yes, but I'm not asking it anymore because it gets me in trouble." She goes, "I love your questions. I'd love to hear your question." And she goes, "When do they chop off grandpa's head?" And she goes, "Wow, what a great question. Can you tell me more about that question?" And the little girl says, "Yeah, I don't understand a headstone. How do they get the head in the stone?"

• 36:22Speaker 01

  Kids are literal.

• 36:24Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  And they're trying to figure it out.

• 36:25Speaker 01

  They're trying to figure it out.

• 36:27Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  More than trying to avoid the pain, they're actually trying to develop a story to understand something. And that's where we hopefully come in.

• 36:33Speaker 01

  Right, right.

• 36:33Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  So I'm a big fan of leading with the truth. I think kids are capable of more than we realize. Sometimes we assume kids aren't ready when they are. Funerals can be a very concrete representation of something that without that, doesn't live in a concrete way. And that's, you know, hard. And I always want to leave room for the fact that you know your family best. And for some kids, it really might not be the right decision. And it doesn't have to be all or nothing. I know a lot of families who then plan a different type of, you know, mini funeral, an event, a memory gathering, a sharing of pictures and stories. And so, yes. So I guess I'm like often usually somewhere in the middle.

• 37:06Speaker 01

  I know one Sunday school teacher, and by the way, I always defer

• 37:11Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Of course.

• 37:12Speaker 01

  to the family. Like, I will give them my opinions, my experience, and then their culture, their family, obviously rules, you know, never our place. So really important, but I know one Sunday school teacher who, when the kids are probably about eight or nine, takes them to a small graveyard. They have a little treasure hunt. They figure things out. They got to find the oldest person. They got to find the youngest person. They learn graveyard etiquette. And then, when they're about 12, she takes them to the casket room of the local funeral home. Because children find caskets fascinating. And if

• 37:56Speaker 01

  you can process what a casket is before grandpa's in it,

• 38:01Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Yeah.

• 38:02Speaker 01

  much better. Much better.

• 38:05Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  So I want to end with a couple quick questions.

• 38:09Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 38:09Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Almost rapid fire.

• 38:10Speaker 01

  All right.

• 38:11Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Ish. Ready? You want me to stretch? You're good?

• 38:13Speaker 01

  Let's go. Let's go for it.

• 38:14Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Okay. One thing people need to understand about grief.

• 38:18Speaker 01

  Is it is forever, and you can eventually remember with more love than pain.

• 38:27Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  What's one thing you learned about yourself through a grieving process?

• 38:31Speaker 01

  How controlling I am and how to have compassion for that control.

• 38:36Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Is there a phrase, a mantra, a simple sentence that you come back to around grief that's helpful to you?

• 38:42Speaker 01

  What we run from pursues us and what we face transforms us.

• 38:49Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Mic drop. I have some, I'm going to force myself to have some other questions, but that just gave me the chills. What is one thing to try to never say to someone in grief?

• 38:59Speaker 01

  You know, I have this loss that like, you know, I lost my keys the other day. No comparison, no make sure you're at the poker game and throw your loss out there too.

• 39:10Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Yeah.

• 39:10Speaker 01

  Just be with the person who's in grief.

• 39:12Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  What is one thing that's always helpful to do or say to someone in grief?

• 39:17Speaker 01

  Listen, listen, and love.

• 39:22Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  This is not part of rapid fire, but I have a follow up. I'm curious, like I have found that people around me have lost someone meaningful, like they light up when I just want to hear more about the person. Is that true for a lot of people?

• 39:35Speaker 01

  Say their name.

• 39:36Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Yeah.

• 39:36Speaker 01

  Say their name. Here's the thing, I will say, ask about the person. Now, the thing is like nuance this, don't ask in the board meeting.

• 39:45Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Yes.

• 39:46Speaker 01

  But obviously, you know, ask about the person, the anniversaries, all those things. Sometimes people will say, David, I took your advice and I said their name or I asked and they started crying. I made them cry and I said, no, you didn't make them cry. They were crying. You became a safe person to cry with.

• 40:08Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Oh, that's beautiful. Okay, last question. If every parent listening could have one idea with them when they think about approaching their kid in a moment of grief, what would that idea be?

• 40:24Speaker 01

  To think about it like the seasons. For every spring, there's a summer. For every summer, there's a fall. For every fall, there's a winter. Everything that lives dies. And we have this wonderful time in between to be with one another.

• 40:45Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Beautiful. Thank you. Thank you. This is a really moving and impactful conversation.

• 40:51Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 40:52Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  This is a conversation that has left me with too many takeaways to even summarize to you right now. And I'm going to allow that to just be true for me because I know I will listen to this over and over. I do want to share the three things that are loudest for me right now. Number one, simply grief is love. Grief is love. Two, what we run from pursues us. What we can face transforms us. Oh my goodness. The visual of that, the pursuit, the being willing, feeling capable enough to face, that is just so profound.

• 41:36Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  And then the third thing, we often think when we're with someone, we say something and they start crying. I made them cry. This is so awkward. What David said will stay with me forever. That person was already crying inside. You just became a safe person, safe relationship, a safe container, so they didn't have to feel alone in that feeling anymore. Let's end the way we always do. Place your feet on the ground. Place a hand on your heart. And let's remind ourselves, even as we struggle on the outside, we remain good inside. I'll see you soon.

• 42:30Dr. Becky Kennedy?

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• 43:15Dr. Becky Kennedy?

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• 44:00Dr. Becky Kennedy?

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• 44:45Dr. Becky Kennedy?

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