Product Description
To watch a child grieve and not know what to do is a profoundly difficult experience for parents, teachers, and caregivers. Yet, there are guidelines for helping children develop a lifelong, healthy response to loss.In When Children Grieve, the authors offer a cutting-edge volume to free children from the false idea of "not feeling bad" and to empower them with positive, effective methods of dealing with loss.There are many life experiences that can produce feelings of grief in a child, from the death of a relative or a divorce in the family to more everyday experiences such as moving to a new neighborhood or losing a prized possession. No matter the reason or degree of severity, if a child you love is grieving, the guidelines examined in this thoughtful book can make a difference.

Amazon.com Review
It would be a pity if this interesting, humane, and practical book were read only by parents of recently bereaved children--for two reasons. First, the book is about grief in a broad sense. Its lessons apply not only to the child whose pet, aunt, or parent has died, but also to the child whose parents have divorced, who has suffered a debilitating injury, or who has experienced other forms of traumatic loss. Second, let's face it: every child will suffer a loss at some point, so it behooves parents to be prepared in advance. As the authors say, "our task as parents is to prepare our children to deal with the experiences they will have." It's unfortunate that the book has what might be considered a common structural flaw in self-help books. All of Part I (about 50 pages) is devoted to examining various myths about grieving and mistakes in dealing with it--for example, that the griever should keep busy and try not to feel bad. This is "good advice about bad advice," but it leaves the reader wondering why the authors didn't choose to get on with the plain old "good advice" on page 1. By Part II, it's already clear which coping techniques the authors will recommend. It would have been better to start there. --Richard Farr

CUSTOMER REVIEWS (Average Customer Rating: 5.0 based on 12 reviews)

Great for Parents and All Adults Wanting to Heal Their Childhood Hearts by April Braswell (Las Vegas, NV)

5 Stars
March 17, 2009
Friedman, Russell and Matthews (aka Michael Landon's daughter) have written a beautiful, gentle healing and completion book for adults in a position to help children complete their grief after a loss. As a Dating and Relationship Coach, naturally, I sought out training for Divorce and Grief Recovery from the world-renowned Grief Recovery Institute (www.Grief.net) based in Sherman Oaks. Reading "When Children Grieve" of course is a must read for anyone with children facing any kind of loss, be it death of a relative, moving, death of a pet, divorce. However, about half way through, I started to see an additional usefulness to this seminal work. The short lists for what to be sure to cover when doing a relationship review both for the death of a pet as well as death of a relative were so gentle, loving, and helpful that I realized this would be a wonderful work for any adult who grew up in any kind of a dysfunctional family. I hate to overly use the nearly hackneyed lingo of healing our inner child. However, truly indeed, the loving, caring tone with clear boundaries was one which would be ALSO be SO beneficial for anyone who grew up in a dysfunctional family that I had to cite that in an Amazon review so adults would think to purchase this IN ADDITION to the classic "The Grief Recovery Handbook." In case you are not already familiar with The Grief Recovery Institute, they are the ones CNN brought in after 911 to help a nation grieve as well as be featured with Matt Lauer on Divorce and Children. This book is a must have for any adult, any parent. So short, easy to read and easy to implement. You will be such a help to others as well as to yourself.

excellent book by RJ (Rochester NY)

5 Stars
August 01, 2007
The book is readable, practical and filled with useful information. It would be helpful to both parents and professionals.

Everyone needs this book! by K. Geerken (Connecticut)

5 Stars
May 28, 2007
"When Children Grieve" is a book every person should read. It explains just how significantly we are impacted by almost evey loss we experience. Each and every one of us will experience loss in our lives. Most of us don't realize the impact those losses have on our future lives and the decisions we make when we have not gone through the grieving process. We need to ackowledge the changes that a loss brings to our lives. This book thoughfully explains what grieving is and how to recognize it in your life. I highly recommend it for everyone as a teaching resource for lifes lessons.

A must read for any one going through a loss of any kind by Susan Fenwick (San Jose, CA)

5 Stars
April 03, 2007
This is a great book for anyone who has been through a move, divorce, pet loss, or loss of a loved one. It gives great solutions for resolve. Even if it has been years since your loss. Even though the title implies it is to help your children you can learn alot about yourself as well.

A Must Read for All Parents by Dr. Russ Buenteo, Director of Community Affairs, Trust Family Funeral Homes (New York, NY)

5 Stars
January 14, 2004
This book should be required for all parents. If you want to understand the basics of human and/or child behavior, this book is a must read. The book succinctly and lovingly explains the concept of "loss" and the emotional and physical responses to it-what we would normally call grief.The beauty of this book is that grief is placed in a larger context. In other words, according to the authors, grief is the response when experiencing a "massive change or end from everything familiar." Therefore, children, and adults, can grieve a variety of situations: loss of a pet, moving to another neighborhood, or changing schools. Therein rests the beauty of this book. This book explains how to help children. More importantly, the adults who are required to provide the assistance will learn more about their children and themselves.So highly recommended, there are not enough stars to express this book's importance.

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