August 18, 2025 • 14 mins
What do you say to a child who’s lost multiple loved ones and now lies awake, terrified of death? In this deeply compassionate episode, Dr Justin and Kylie Coulson unpack why repeated loss can create overwhelming bedtime anxiety, why it peaks when the lights go out, and the simple, research-backed ways parents can help. You’ll learn how to create safety, connection, and rituals that bring comfort — without minimising their grief or making false promises.
KEY POINTS
- Multiple losses and cumulative grief
- Why bedtime can trigger fears
- Connection and presence over quick fixes or false assurances
- Following your child’s lead
- How to create closure for your child
QUOTE OF THE EPISODE
“What your child needs most isn’t for their fear to disappear — it’s to feel truly seen and understood in it.” – Dr Justin Coulson
RESOURCES
- Understanding Grief in Children - Sage Journals
- Studies on the default mode network and bedtime anxiety
- Helping Kids Cope with Grief - a Conversation with Kristy Thomas
- Cumulative Grief - Dr Bill Webster
- The Journey of the Default Mode Network: Development, Function, and Impact on Mental Health
ACTION STEPS FOR PARENTS
- Make bedtime a safe, calming ritual.
- Be present in the moment.
- Follow their emotional lead.
- Use comfort objects.
- Create closure rituals.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hi, this is the Happy Families Podcast. Welcome. When your
child has experienced multiple deaths of loved ones and now
lies awake at night, terrified of death, terrified of being alone,
terrified of going to sleep, how do you comfort him?
What do you say to a young person who's learned
I think way too early that people that you love
can disappear. We're exploring the psychology behind childhood death, anxiety
(00:30):
and practical strategies that actually help in today's podcast. Stay
with us. Hello and welcome to the Happy Families Podcast,
Real parenting Solutions every day. This is Australia's number one
parenting podcast. We are Justin and Kylie Coulson and every
Tuesday we tackle your tricky topics. If you'd like to
submit a question, go to the super simple system at
happy families dot com. Do you just press record and
(00:52):
leave us a note? Otherwise you can email your voice
notes to podcasts at Happy families dot com. Do you Kylie?
Today a tricky one. It's a follow on from last
week's discussion about pending mortality. Based on that discussion, we
received a voice note from Tess who visited Happy families
dot com dot Au and Tess asked us this question.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
Hi, my name is Tess. I'm from the Abelian Victoria.
I just like some tips of how to help my
son to some big feelings his having when he's lying
in bed at night surrounding death. He's terrified of it.
There's a bit of history there. His friend passed from
brain cancer, my dad, his grandpa passed away. He is
great nana, and his nana has terminal cancer as well,
(01:36):
and he's absolutely terrified of everything surrounding death, whether it
be him or his loved ones. I'd just like to
help him throw up somehow.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
Oh my goodness, I mean, Kylie. We talked last week
about how life can sometimes be hard. This is what
psychologists call, with this particular child, cumulative grief. So if
kids are experiencing multiple significant losses in a relatively short
period of time, developing brains struggle to process not just
each individual death, but the pattern of loss itself. And
(02:07):
research shows that children who have experienced cumulative grief often
developed what looks like a kind of a generalized anxiety
around mortality, around death. But it's just their mind trying
to make sense of a world that suddenly feels really impermanent,
really unpredictable, completely unsafe. So he's lost a friend, a grandpa,
(02:29):
a great grandma, now facing his grandmother's terminal illness. That's
a lot of loss for anyone, let alone a child
who's still really developing his understanding of what mortality is
and how it works.
Speaker 3 (02:41):
And I think that while we don't know his age,
losing a friend, losing a peer, oh yeah, at any age,
I don't think it actually matters because I know that
you know, when we've lost adult friends.
Speaker 1 (02:55):
Yep, it's called an out of sequence death or an
out of order death. So the way that it's to
happen is that the older generations die before the younger
generations die. And when you lose somebody way too young,
certainly well before the older generations have passed along, it
just shakes you. It absolutely, It makes you question everything
about the permanence of your life. In some ways, that's
(03:16):
actually quite good. Like there's this one theory that's out
there called terror management theory. The idea is that at
a general level, while ever we're remembering that we are
in an impermanent state and that we are mortal and
will die one day, it helps us to live more
in the present. It helps us to be more grateful,
more focused, more intentional. But I don't think that's helpful
here when we're dealing with this generalized death anxiety. In fact,
(03:36):
I think that it's going to amplify that. We don't
want to keep on saying well, that's the point of
mortality like that. That's not going to help. So that's
not something that I think that we want to be
talking to our kids about. That's going to make them
even more worried. What it does emphasize, though, as you
made the point, when you're young, this stuff can really
throw you and you need the predictability, right, like you
(03:59):
need to believe that the people that you love are
going to be around you.
Speaker 3 (04:03):
And well, when you see great grandma die as a
young child, while that's hard and you're going to miss them,
it's very easy for mom and dad to talk about
the fact that she's lived this really long life.
Speaker 1 (04:15):
Yes, we can celebrate it. We're sad, but we're kind
of relieved as well.
Speaker 3 (04:19):
Yeah, but when your best friend dies or appear in
your classroom, even if you're not even close to them,
particularly the very fact that you know someone who's your
age has gone, that changes the dialogue, especially the internal dialogue,
as you try to grapple with does that mean I could?
Speaker 1 (04:37):
And I think this is the key insight. His fear
isn't about death as this abstract concept. It's about the
very real pattern that he's witnessed as he has lost
people that he loves. So his anxiety is actually evidence
of how deeply is capable of loving someone and how
much these relationships mean to him. But that doesn't help
(04:59):
you as a parent when seeing your child suffer respect.
I want to talk about why it peaks at bedtime,
So on the podcast, I often talk about this thing
called the default mode network. It's the part of your
brain that switches on when you don't have to think
about anything, and it's usually a really important part of
your brain because it gets you thinking about your identity,
about what your value. It gets you thinking about who
(05:19):
you are and what matters to you. But with people
who have anxiety, the default mode network kind of goes
over active, and it starts thinking about a whole lot
of things that you don't want it to be thinking
about at times that you don't want to be thinking
about them. So these fears are surfacing most intensely at
bedtime because during the day his mind's occupied with school
and with activities and with everything that's happening in his life.
(05:41):
But when the lights go out and the house gets quiet,
that's when his brain has the space to process what
he's experienced. And there's some research from some sleep studies
that tell us that the transition to sleep can with
some kids make them make who are more vulnerable to
anxious thoughts. It can naturally increase that because they're losing
(06:05):
conscious control. So for a child who's learned that bad
things can happen to people that he loves, the darkness
and the quiet, instead of feeling peaceful like it does
for most of us, can feel really threatening. This is
an afflaw in his thinking. It's the default mode network
doing what it's supposed to do. It's the nervous system
doing what it's designed to do, which is scanned for
(06:27):
threats when he's in a vulnerable state. The problem is
that in this case, the threats that he's scanning for
are real memories rather than the imaginary monster or the
intruder or something like that. After the break, we need
to talk about what we can do from a practical
point of view to help your kids if they are
dealing with this worry and fear about death. Okay, Kylie,
(06:56):
you can hear and tests that she's right there for
her son. You can tell that she's really switched on
and aware of what's going on for him. So I
want to share a couple of ideas. I think I
have three or four of them that will likely be
pretty aligned with what I'm sure Tess is already doing.
The research shows that the most effective strategies are going
to focus on connection and authentic relationship rather than trying
(07:17):
to manage the behavior or going for some quick fixes.
For ideas, Kylie, I'd like you to take the first
couple and then I'll wrap us up.
Speaker 3 (07:25):
Well, I think the first one is really important. It's
honestly about focusing on making bed time a time of
real connection with your child, slowing things down and really
being able to sit with them in whatever emotion they're
feeling at the particular time.
Speaker 1 (07:43):
Yeah, so I would say don't go digging for no,
not at all, because that rumination that longly amplified and
make it worse. But just being there and helping to
feel safe and comfortable and making it that time of
genuine connection, and.
Speaker 3 (07:54):
I think making a real ritual out of bed time,
you know, whether that's rubbing them back if they like that,
or putting some oils on and you know, just calming
everything down.
Speaker 1 (08:05):
We've always found singing to our kids. They well, except
for our youngest, all of our other kids have loved
it when we just lay on the floor or lay
in the bed beside them and sing them songs and
rub their back.
Speaker 3 (08:15):
Cuddles and story time, those kinds of things will really
help just calm their nervous system. Second, the second thing
is it's really important that we follow their lead. Like
you said, we're not we're not fishing for emotions. We're not.
We're not trying to kind of dig up and deep
and dark things. We really want to follow their lead.
(08:37):
If they're actually happy, don't bring it up, you need to.
Speaker 1 (08:40):
The way that I say this is kids don't need therapists.
They need parents. So don't try to be the psychologist.
That will backfire, that will make things worse.
Speaker 3 (08:47):
Yeah, So if they haven't, if they're in a great mood,
let's celebrate that. You know, what are the things that
you're grateful for today? Tell me about that. What was
your highlight, what are you looking forward to tomorrow? Those
kinds of questions that enable them to kind of live
into that joyful space. But there are going to be
times where it's going to be very obvious that they're
actually not coping particularly well. And we might say it
(09:09):
feels like you're really anxious right now, or you're a
little bit sad tonight. Do you want to talk to
me about that?
Speaker 1 (09:14):
Yeah, and those little scripts, it's so simple to say
it looks like having a tough time tonight. It seems
like a sad night. That's all you need. They will
open up, or they'll they'll sink into your shoulder and
hold you tight. That's really what you're looking for. I
got a couple that I'd love to throw in the
first one. Really, this kind of builds on what you've said.
(09:34):
Just folks, on connection in the present moment. Don't make
any promises about the future. Just be here right now.
You can't actually promise to your kids that no one
else is going to die. I think that's going to
be dishonest. And he's already learned that people do die,
so that will undermine your credibility and your relationship.
Speaker 3 (09:50):
And I think you can validate his feelings by acknowledging
that you have those same thoughts.
Speaker 1 (09:54):
Yeah, yeah, and we miss them. Let's celebrate them. I
even think, oh, actually I'm going to I'm jumping ahead.
I want to share one more idea. But let me
wrap this up just again, a simple script. I'm here
with you right now, you're safe in bed. We love
each other right now in this moment, You're okay, I'm okay,
We're good, right and just being in the moment is
a really big one. That really is me summarizing your
(10:17):
first two I think researchers have this phrase. They talk
about transitional comfort objects. So this is basically, it might
be a photo album of happy memories with the people
who's lost. It could be a special blanket that belonged
to grandpa, maybe a journal where he can write letters
to the people that he's lost, people who have died.
Speaker 3 (10:37):
I've seen people who've taken you know, Grandpa's shirt and
made it into a Teddy.
Speaker 1 (10:42):
Bear or yeah, or a pillow case or something like that. Yeah. Yeah.
So the key here is you want to give him
that sense of volition, that choice, that agency in creating
and using these transitional objects. You're not imposing them, but
you can develop them together. That's that whole autonomy support
that we talk about on the podcast all the time.
Speaker 3 (11:02):
For me, when I think about this as we kind
of tie this all up, I actually think that rituals
are a really important part of this process, especially for
young kids. Having a way for them to find closure
to the experience is really important. So growing up, I
came from a Polynesian background, and as part of death,
(11:25):
we would have a three day ceremony process or everybody
would come together and we would actually be in the
room with the dead person.
Speaker 1 (11:34):
And sorry, just got to pause. Anybody with a non
Polynesian cultural background right now is probably going you what, yeah, right,
because that's not what we typically do in Western culture.
When I met you and you told me about these things,
I was like, for real, like with the body.
Speaker 3 (11:49):
So you're not allowed to leave the body alone, so
somebody has to be with the body the entire time,
and we all sleep in the same room with the body.
So yes, very strange for somebody who has an experience.
But as a young kid, I was surrounded by that
and death was a celebration, So yes, there was lots
of crying, There was lots of laughter, There was lots
of music, There was lots of opportunity to share beautiful
(12:12):
experiences and memories of the person that we were celebrating.
When we moved to Australia and we left behind all
of that cultural significance, I actually found it really hard
to find closure as I said goodbye to people because
the casket was closed, I never got to see them
and that was really really hard for me and I
(12:32):
just having had both experiences, really think that finding a
way to help our children have closure. I'm not suggesting
they need to see a dead body to have that,
but maybe it's writing a letter to them to let
them know how much they love them and share the
memories that they have that make them feel so much
joy for the fact that they were in their lives.
I don't know. Maybe it's going out into the garden
(12:55):
and putting a beautiful rock or something into the garden
that's a memory of that, or planting a plant. But
I think that if we can find a way to
not only celebrate the life gone, but find an opportunity
to have closure to that whole experience, our children will
actually process it so much easier.
Speaker 1 (13:15):
Yeah, I think that when it comes to the Polynesian
culture and the death traditions and rituals. I think Polynesian
culture has it way more right than we have it
as a Western society. I didn't understand it. I didn't
like it when you first told me about it, But
over the years I would like that to be more
of what we do in our family. I just think
it's beautiful anyway. Tests Hopefully this's been helpful. What your
(13:36):
son needs most isn't for his fear to disappear. It's
for someone to understand that his fear makes perfect sense
given what his experience, and when he feels truly seen
and understood in those difficult emotions, he's going to develop
the capacity to carry those emotions without being overwhelmed by them.
Next week, a tricky question that keeps us firmly alive
and planted in the here and now, dealing with your
(13:58):
own anxiety and safety concerns your children doing things that
are risky. I keep saying that you kids should do
at least one thing every week that could land them
in hospital. We're going to talk about handling that issue
as a parent who gets anxious with our tricky questions
next week on the Happy Families podcast. If you have
a question you'd like to submit, go to happy families
dot com dot A you record your message or send
a voice note to podcasts at happy families dot com
(14:19):
dot you. Big thank you as always to Just and
rule On from Bridge Media for producing the podcast. Mimhammonds
looks after research, admin and resources. If you'd like to
share the podcast and tell others about it because you
think it might help make their families happier, we'd love
for you to share the pod and visit happy families
dot com dot you for more resources that can make
your family happier.
Hi, this is the Happy Families Podcast. Welcome. When your
child has experienced multiple deaths of loved ones and now
lies awake at night, terrified of death, terrified of being alone,
terrified of going to sleep, how do you comfort him?
What do you say to a young person who's learned
I think way too early that people that you love
can disappear. We're exploring the psychology behind childhood death, anxiety
(00:30):
and practical strategies that actually help in today's podcast. Stay
with us. Hello and welcome to the Happy Families Podcast,
Real parenting Solutions every day. This is Australia's number one
parenting podcast. We are Justin and Kylie Coulson and every
Tuesday we tackle your tricky topics. If you'd like to
submit a question, go to the super simple system at
happy families dot com. Do you just press record and
(00:52):
leave us a note? Otherwise you can email your voice
notes to podcasts at Happy families dot com. Do you Kylie?
Today a tricky one. It's a follow on from last
week's discussion about pending mortality. Based on that discussion, we
received a voice note from Tess who visited Happy families
dot com dot Au and Tess asked us this question.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
Hi, my name is Tess. I'm from the Abelian Victoria.
I just like some tips of how to help my
son to some big feelings his having when he's lying
in bed at night surrounding death. He's terrified of it.
There's a bit of history there. His friend passed from
brain cancer, my dad, his grandpa passed away. He is
great nana, and his nana has terminal cancer as well,
(01:36):
and he's absolutely terrified of everything surrounding death, whether it
be him or his loved ones. I'd just like to
help him throw up somehow.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
Oh my goodness, I mean, Kylie. We talked last week
about how life can sometimes be hard. This is what
psychologists call, with this particular child, cumulative grief. So if
kids are experiencing multiple significant losses in a relatively short
period of time, developing brains struggle to process not just
each individual death, but the pattern of loss itself. And
(02:07):
research shows that children who have experienced cumulative grief often
developed what looks like a kind of a generalized anxiety
around mortality, around death. But it's just their mind trying
to make sense of a world that suddenly feels really impermanent,
really unpredictable, completely unsafe. So he's lost a friend, a grandpa,
(02:29):
a great grandma, now facing his grandmother's terminal illness. That's
a lot of loss for anyone, let alone a child
who's still really developing his understanding of what mortality is
and how it works.
Speaker 3 (02:41):
And I think that while we don't know his age,
losing a friend, losing a peer, oh yeah, at any age,
I don't think it actually matters because I know that
you know, when we've lost adult friends.
Speaker 1 (02:55):
Yep, it's called an out of sequence death or an
out of order death. So the way that it's to
happen is that the older generations die before the younger
generations die. And when you lose somebody way too young,
certainly well before the older generations have passed along, it
just shakes you. It absolutely, It makes you question everything
about the permanence of your life. In some ways, that's
(03:16):
actually quite good. Like there's this one theory that's out
there called terror management theory. The idea is that at
a general level, while ever we're remembering that we are
in an impermanent state and that we are mortal and
will die one day, it helps us to live more
in the present. It helps us to be more grateful,
more focused, more intentional. But I don't think that's helpful
here when we're dealing with this generalized death anxiety. In fact,
(03:36):
I think that it's going to amplify that. We don't
want to keep on saying well, that's the point of
mortality like that. That's not going to help. So that's
not something that I think that we want to be
talking to our kids about. That's going to make them
even more worried. What it does emphasize, though, as you
made the point, when you're young, this stuff can really
throw you and you need the predictability, right, like you
(03:59):
need to believe that the people that you love are
going to be around you.
Speaker 3 (04:03):
And well, when you see great grandma die as a
young child, while that's hard and you're going to miss them,
it's very easy for mom and dad to talk about
the fact that she's lived this really long life.
Speaker 1 (04:15):
Yes, we can celebrate it. We're sad, but we're kind
of relieved as well.
Speaker 3 (04:19):
Yeah, but when your best friend dies or appear in
your classroom, even if you're not even close to them,
particularly the very fact that you know someone who's your
age has gone, that changes the dialogue, especially the internal dialogue,
as you try to grapple with does that mean I could?
Speaker 1 (04:37):
And I think this is the key insight. His fear
isn't about death as this abstract concept. It's about the
very real pattern that he's witnessed as he has lost
people that he loves. So his anxiety is actually evidence
of how deeply is capable of loving someone and how
much these relationships mean to him. But that doesn't help
(04:59):
you as a parent when seeing your child suffer respect.
I want to talk about why it peaks at bedtime,
So on the podcast, I often talk about this thing
called the default mode network. It's the part of your
brain that switches on when you don't have to think
about anything, and it's usually a really important part of
your brain because it gets you thinking about your identity,
about what your value. It gets you thinking about who
(05:19):
you are and what matters to you. But with people
who have anxiety, the default mode network kind of goes
over active, and it starts thinking about a whole lot
of things that you don't want it to be thinking
about at times that you don't want to be thinking
about them. So these fears are surfacing most intensely at
bedtime because during the day his mind's occupied with school
and with activities and with everything that's happening in his life.
(05:41):
But when the lights go out and the house gets quiet,
that's when his brain has the space to process what
he's experienced. And there's some research from some sleep studies
that tell us that the transition to sleep can with
some kids make them make who are more vulnerable to
anxious thoughts. It can naturally increase that because they're losing
(06:05):
conscious control. So for a child who's learned that bad
things can happen to people that he loves, the darkness
and the quiet, instead of feeling peaceful like it does
for most of us, can feel really threatening. This is
an afflaw in his thinking. It's the default mode network
doing what it's supposed to do. It's the nervous system
doing what it's designed to do, which is scanned for
(06:27):
threats when he's in a vulnerable state. The problem is
that in this case, the threats that he's scanning for
are real memories rather than the imaginary monster or the
intruder or something like that. After the break, we need
to talk about what we can do from a practical
point of view to help your kids if they are
dealing with this worry and fear about death. Okay, Kylie,
(06:56):
you can hear and tests that she's right there for
her son. You can tell that she's really switched on
and aware of what's going on for him. So I
want to share a couple of ideas. I think I
have three or four of them that will likely be
pretty aligned with what I'm sure Tess is already doing.
The research shows that the most effective strategies are going
to focus on connection and authentic relationship rather than trying
(07:17):
to manage the behavior or going for some quick fixes.
For ideas, Kylie, I'd like you to take the first
couple and then I'll wrap us up.
Speaker 3 (07:25):
Well, I think the first one is really important. It's
honestly about focusing on making bed time a time of
real connection with your child, slowing things down and really
being able to sit with them in whatever emotion they're
feeling at the particular time.
Speaker 1 (07:43):
Yeah, so I would say don't go digging for no,
not at all, because that rumination that longly amplified and
make it worse. But just being there and helping to
feel safe and comfortable and making it that time of
genuine connection, and.
Speaker 3 (07:54):
I think making a real ritual out of bed time,
you know, whether that's rubbing them back if they like that,
or putting some oils on and you know, just calming
everything down.
Speaker 1 (08:05):
We've always found singing to our kids. They well, except
for our youngest, all of our other kids have loved
it when we just lay on the floor or lay
in the bed beside them and sing them songs and
rub their back.
Speaker 3 (08:15):
Cuddles and story time, those kinds of things will really
help just calm their nervous system. Second, the second thing
is it's really important that we follow their lead. Like
you said, we're not we're not fishing for emotions. We're not.
We're not trying to kind of dig up and deep
and dark things. We really want to follow their lead.
(08:37):
If they're actually happy, don't bring it up, you need to.
Speaker 1 (08:40):
The way that I say this is kids don't need therapists.
They need parents. So don't try to be the psychologist.
That will backfire, that will make things worse.
Speaker 3 (08:47):
Yeah, So if they haven't, if they're in a great mood,
let's celebrate that. You know, what are the things that
you're grateful for today? Tell me about that. What was
your highlight, what are you looking forward to tomorrow? Those
kinds of questions that enable them to kind of live
into that joyful space. But there are going to be
times where it's going to be very obvious that they're
actually not coping particularly well. And we might say it
(09:09):
feels like you're really anxious right now, or you're a
little bit sad tonight. Do you want to talk to
me about that?
Speaker 1 (09:14):
Yeah, and those little scripts, it's so simple to say
it looks like having a tough time tonight. It seems
like a sad night. That's all you need. They will
open up, or they'll they'll sink into your shoulder and
hold you tight. That's really what you're looking for. I
got a couple that I'd love to throw in the
first one. Really, this kind of builds on what you've said.
(09:34):
Just folks, on connection in the present moment. Don't make
any promises about the future. Just be here right now.
You can't actually promise to your kids that no one
else is going to die. I think that's going to
be dishonest. And he's already learned that people do die,
so that will undermine your credibility and your relationship.
Speaker 3 (09:50):
And I think you can validate his feelings by acknowledging
that you have those same thoughts.
Speaker 1 (09:54):
Yeah, yeah, and we miss them. Let's celebrate them. I
even think, oh, actually I'm going to I'm jumping ahead.
I want to share one more idea. But let me
wrap this up just again, a simple script. I'm here
with you right now, you're safe in bed. We love
each other right now in this moment, You're okay, I'm okay,
We're good, right and just being in the moment is
a really big one. That really is me summarizing your
(10:17):
first two I think researchers have this phrase. They talk
about transitional comfort objects. So this is basically, it might
be a photo album of happy memories with the people
who's lost. It could be a special blanket that belonged
to grandpa, maybe a journal where he can write letters
to the people that he's lost, people who have died.
Speaker 3 (10:37):
I've seen people who've taken you know, Grandpa's shirt and
made it into a Teddy.
Speaker 1 (10:42):
Bear or yeah, or a pillow case or something like that. Yeah. Yeah.
So the key here is you want to give him
that sense of volition, that choice, that agency in creating
and using these transitional objects. You're not imposing them, but
you can develop them together. That's that whole autonomy support
that we talk about on the podcast all the time.
Speaker 3 (11:02):
For me, when I think about this as we kind
of tie this all up, I actually think that rituals
are a really important part of this process, especially for
young kids. Having a way for them to find closure
to the experience is really important. So growing up, I
came from a Polynesian background, and as part of death,
(11:25):
we would have a three day ceremony process or everybody
would come together and we would actually be in the
room with the dead person.
Speaker 1 (11:34):
And sorry, just got to pause. Anybody with a non
Polynesian cultural background right now is probably going you what, yeah, right,
because that's not what we typically do in Western culture.
When I met you and you told me about these things,
I was like, for real, like with the body.
Speaker 3 (11:49):
So you're not allowed to leave the body alone, so
somebody has to be with the body the entire time,
and we all sleep in the same room with the body.
So yes, very strange for somebody who has an experience.
But as a young kid, I was surrounded by that
and death was a celebration, So yes, there was lots
of crying, There was lots of laughter, There was lots
of music, There was lots of opportunity to share beautiful
(12:12):
experiences and memories of the person that we were celebrating.
When we moved to Australia and we left behind all
of that cultural significance, I actually found it really hard
to find closure as I said goodbye to people because
the casket was closed, I never got to see them
and that was really really hard for me and I
(12:32):
just having had both experiences, really think that finding a
way to help our children have closure. I'm not suggesting
they need to see a dead body to have that,
but maybe it's writing a letter to them to let
them know how much they love them and share the
memories that they have that make them feel so much
joy for the fact that they were in their lives.
I don't know. Maybe it's going out into the garden
(12:55):
and putting a beautiful rock or something into the garden
that's a memory of that, or planting a plant. But
I think that if we can find a way to
not only celebrate the life gone, but find an opportunity
to have closure to that whole experience, our children will
actually process it so much easier.
Speaker 1 (13:15):
Yeah, I think that when it comes to the Polynesian
culture and the death traditions and rituals. I think Polynesian
culture has it way more right than we have it
as a Western society. I didn't understand it. I didn't
like it when you first told me about it, But
over the years I would like that to be more
of what we do in our family. I just think
it's beautiful anyway. Tests Hopefully this's been helpful. What your
(13:36):
son needs most isn't for his fear to disappear. It's
for someone to understand that his fear makes perfect sense
given what his experience, and when he feels truly seen
and understood in those difficult emotions, he's going to develop
the capacity to carry those emotions without being overwhelmed by them.
Next week, a tricky question that keeps us firmly alive
and planted in the here and now, dealing with your
(13:58):
own anxiety and safety concerns your children doing things that
are risky. I keep saying that you kids should do
at least one thing every week that could land them
in hospital. We're going to talk about handling that issue
as a parent who gets anxious with our tricky questions
next week on the Happy Families podcast. If you have
a question you'd like to submit, go to happy families
dot com dot A you record your message or send
a voice note to podcasts at happy families dot com
(14:19):
dot you. Big thank you as always to Just and
rule On from Bridge Media for producing the podcast. Mimhammonds
looks after research, admin and resources. If you'd like to
share the podcast and tell others about it because you
think it might help make their families happier, we'd love
for you to share the pod and visit happy families
dot com dot you for more resources that can make
your family happier.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark
My Favorite Murder is a true crime comedy podcast hosted by Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark. Each week, Karen and Georgia share compelling true crimes and hometown stories from friends and listeners. Since MFM launched in January of 2016, Karen and Georgia have shared their lifelong interest in true crime and have covered stories of infamous serial killers like the Night Stalker, mysterious cold cases, captivating cults, incredible survivor stories and important events from history like the Tulsa race massacre of 1921. My Favorite Murder is part of the Exactly Right podcast network that provides a platform for bold, creative voices to bring to life provocative, entertaining and relatable stories for audiences everywhere. The Exactly Right roster of podcasts covers a variety of topics including historic true crime, comedic interviews and news, science, pop culture and more. Podcasts on the network include Buried Bones with Kate Winkler Dawson and Paul Holes, That's Messed Up: An SVU Podcast, This Podcast Will Kill You, Bananas and more.
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.