Healing Children's Grief: Surviving a Parent's Death from Cancer / Edition 1

by Grace Hyslop Christ

Overview

In this unique book, Grace Christ relates the powerfully moving stories of eighty-eight families and their 157 children (ages 3 to 17) who participated in a parent-guidance intervention through the terminal illness and death of one of the parents from cancer. Using extensive case examples throughout, Healing Children's Grief: Surviving a Parent's Death from Cancer provides a detailed examination of how children and adolescents cope with this loss. Covering a critical 20 month period, from 6 months before to 14 months after the death of a parent, Christ reports that a majority of the children successfully adapted to the loss during the subsequent months after the death.
The book is divided into two major sections. The first summarizes the theoretical background and methodology. The second presents the findings of the five developmentally derived age groups (3-5, 6-8, 9-11, 12-14, and 15-17). Using qualitative analytic methods, these findings clarify important differences in children's grief and mourning processes, in their understanding of events, in their interactions with families, and in their varying needs for help and support. The author describes how parents participated in healing their children's grief by: preparing, informing, and guiding children through the experience; understanding their developmental needs; supporting and resonating with their unique expressions of grief; helping them construct a positive legacy; and reconstituting relationships without the day to day presence of the parent who died. Healing Children's Grief: Surviving a Parent's Death from Cancer provides practical guidance and direction for professionals and physicians, nurses, social workers, therapists, guidance counselors, and teachers.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780195105919
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	01/27/2000
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	288
Product dimensions:	9.00(w) x 6.10(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Columbia University

Table of Contents

Introduction
1. Narrative: Mother, 3-year-old daughter
2. Childhood bereavement studies
3. Stages of the illness and child development
4. Study sample, intervention, bereavement model, methodology
5. Pre-school children 3-5 years of age: responses variations
6. Narrative: Mother, 4 and 7 year old daughters
7. Children: 6-8 years of age: responses variations
8. Narratives:
Mother, 7 year-old son and 4-year-old daughter
Father, 7 and 20 year-old daughters
9. Children, 9-11 years of age: response variations
10. Narratives:
Father, 10-year-old daughter
Mother, 7 and 11 year old daughters and a 10-year-old son
11. Children 12-14 years of age: responses variations
12. Narratives
Father, 12-year-old daughter and 15-year-old son
Mother, 12-year-old son
13. Children, 15-17 years of age: response variations
14. Narratives:
Father, 13 and 16 year old daughters and 15-year-old son
Mother, 16-year-old daughter
15. Conclusion
Bibliography

Editorial Reviews

"In the most comprehensive study of child bereavement to date, the author examines how children aged 3 to 17 cope with terminal cancer and subsequent death of one of their parents. The first section gives a summary of the literature on this topic and offers a background on the methodology used in this study. The second section makes extensive use of specific examples to present the findings of this study for each of the five age groups." — Journal of Social Work Education

In 'Healing Children's Grief: Surviving a Parent's Death From Cancer, Dr. Grace Hyslop Christ [...] makes it clear that children, even very young children, do grieve, though their grieving differs at different ages, and often bears little resemblance to the mourning reactions of adults. For all age groups, the researchers found, children who adjusted most successfully had parents who were communicative and shared information about what was going on. ''Children really focused on the positive aspects of the parent,' Christ said, and they often worked to construct an image of the parent that they could remember and take with them into their later lives." —Erica Goode, "Experts Offer Fresh Insights Into the Mind of the Grieving Child," New York Times

From the Publisher