Children's Grief Awareness Day

Children's Grief Awareness

 Support grieving children by wearing blue on the third Thursday of November each year.
Children's Grief Awareness Day is observed every year on the third Thursday in November (the Thursday before the U.S. holiday of Thanksgiving). This time of year is a particularly appropriate time to support grieving children because the holiday season is often an especially difficult time after a death.
In 2015, Children's Grief Awareness Day will be Thursday, November 19. Visit the Children's Grief Awareness Day website for more information. 
Children grieve differently than adults do. The younger the child, the less they have the ability to understand death and loss. They don't have the vocabulary to put the concepts into words, and are less able to deal with emotional pain. Children often have many questions after a death. What's important is the conversation that comes from the question, the connection made with the child, rather than the answer. Even though we can't "fix" the child, we can support them, and hear them, and love them. In the confusing and overwhelming time of grief, our presence is more significant than our answers.
Grief is hard. Very hard.
Grief is not a sickness. And although you may feel like you are going crazy sometimes, grief is not a mental illness.
Grief is the name of the road that is traveled after the death of a loved one. The pain of a broken heart is a human being's normal, healthy response to loss. Grief is the connection to the person no longer with us. It is more than just the sadness of missing someone — grief is a reorganizing of a whole life.