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In common with other PSD
work done in schools, bereavement issues should be approached several
times during primary and secondary education, each time building
on what has been introduced before.
Common reactions -
adults and children can
respond in broadly similar ways to grief and bereavement. Reactions will
depend on the nature of the incident, their degree of involvement with it,
and their own personality and coping skills.
For adults, reactions may be
manifested behaviourally or physically by such symptoms as:
|
Tiredness |
Sleep disturbance |
Tension |
Loss of appetite |
|
Difficulty concentrating |
Intolerance |
Shaking |
Tearfulness |
|
Irritability |
Headaches |
Depression |
Menstrual irregularity |
|
Nausea |
Memory difficulties |
Increased sensitivity |
Anger |
As well
as the above reactions, children may additionally display the following
behaviours:
| Increased misbehaviour and
'acting younger'
|
Difficulty concentrating
in school |
| Disturbed
sleep, fear of darkness and being alone |
Clinging behaviour with
parents |
|
Preoccupation with the
traumatic
incident |
Fears for their safety, or
that of family and friends |
|
Changes in appetite |
Pretend
play and acting out the traumatic
event |
|
Heightened alertness and
sensitivity
to danger |
Reluctance to talk about
the incident |
For both children and
adults it is their naturally available communities ( family, friends and
colleagues ) who will provide the most appropriate and potential sources
of help and support. External sources of support should be sensitive to
the needs of these natural communities, and should seek to augment,
validate and reassure these to enhance rather than detract from their
effectiveness.
If a child feels secure
with a particular member of school staff, it is likely that they will come
to that person specifically for comfort or enlightenment, and it is
important that the teacher has given some thought as to how he or she
should respond. Children, and even older teenagers, see things in terms of
black and white. The result is that their questions may be disconcertingly
blunt and the teacher may find himself or herself upset by the form of the
question, or the inability to answer it.
A natural instinct may be
to protect a child from the magnitude of his or her loss. It is probably
wiser for the responsible teacher to present reality as it is, and, should
it be necessary to tell a pupil that a person has died, to do so
sensitively in a normal tone of voice and clear direct language.
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