Grief: The Grief Within (Part 2 of 2)

Dear Parent,

I sometimes find myself thinking about you and your children, and how grief often plays a big part in the background of your lives.  Our children have lost their sense of felt safety along with original attachments and sometimes many subsequent ones.  We parents have our personal grief from past wounds and dreams for the family life we hoped we were creating when we brought our children home. The grief is deeply stored as trauma in our brains, one painful event on top of another that leads to inexplicable, triggered emotional experiences in our daily lives.

Grief is sneaky.  It is like the background of a Jackson Pollack canvas.  We often cannot see it due to the wild strokes of everyday life, but it is there, lying in wait for a scratch on the surface to reveal what is hidden there. 

Our kids have a complex reality and they rarely understand themselves, their emotions, or why the grief in the form of outbursts, negativity, and aggression overtake them, when they feel deprivation of any kind.

If you understood that grief is beneath their outbursts, perhaps you would be more compassionate toward your child’s tantrum resulting from not getting a second cookie.  Maybe.

Love matters,

Ce

P.S. Check out the Love Matters Parenting Society membership for more support.