RECORDED Fri 10 Oct 2025
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
Childhood grief, bereavement, mental health, school support, grief reactions, regression, separation anxiety, grief impact, grief education, grief misconceptions, grief support, grief training, grief resources, grief awareness, grief counseling..
SPEAKERS: Carolyn Johns, Megan Gilmour
Megan Gilmour 00:00
This episode is proudly brought to you by the TPG Telecom Foundation dedicated to creating opportunities to improve the health, wellbeing and education of Australian communities in need. Hi, I’m Megan Gilmour, MissingSchool Co-founder and CEO, and this is Live & Learn.
This is the podcast that unearths insights at the intersection of health and education, building a powerful alliance to keep kids with complex health conditions connected to school from anywhere. The podcast is recorded on Ngunnawal land, and we acknowledge and pay respect to the traditional owners of this land and the land on which you’re listening.
Welcome to our weekly webcast, a place to zero in on the interplay between health and education and to amplify the voices of those supporting school students to navigate their educational journeys despite complex challenges.
And today on Live & Learn we have Carolyn Johns. Carolyn is a senior child bereavement counselor at the National Center for Childhood Grief (NCCG) or as it is also known, A Friend’s Place. A psychologist with 20 years’ experience as a school counselor in Sydney, Caroline joined the NCCG 15 years ago, where she’s been a specialist children’s grief counselor since 2019.
Today, Caroline is part of the Centre’s teaching team and helps lead weekend camps for bereaved children and families. Carolyn, welcome to Live & Learn. We’re so happy to have you here today.
Carolyn Johns 01:40
Thank you, Megan. I’m really happy to be here.
Megan Gilmour 01:44
So today we’re here to talk about supporting school connections for students with complex challenges. Let’s head into the first question.
Carolyn, tell us how grief impacts kids and why it’s something every Australian needs to know and care about.
Carolyn Johns 02:01
It’s a great question, and it’s important to say from the start that grief responses are normal and healthy and important, and they’re not something that we need to fix. Bereavement can be one of the most traumatic experiences for children, and grief has the potential to have prolonged and profound negative impacts on children and their mental health, their physical health, their education, their family life, their whole world can be impacted, and there’s so many grief reactions and impacts that I wouldn’t mind going through if I’m allowed.
When we’re grieving, children and adults, all of us become an exaggerated version of who we were before. So, grief often makes preexisting conditions like anxiety or depression, even worse or even harder to manage.
And we know crying can be a really obvious impact of grief on children, but we teach at our center that it’s okay to cry, but it’s also okay not to cry. You don’t suddenly become a big crier if you want to cry before the death.
And anger is another really common emotion expressed with children who are grieving, and we think that’s because anger seems to be a really empowering emotion, rather than sadness. And we know, underneath anger is often anxiety or fear or jealousy, or guilt, all those other big, big emotions. And you know, really young children might not have the words to tell you how they’re feeling, but they’ll really show it in their behavior.
And an important concept about grief impacting children is regression, and regression is a universal concept. It happens to all of us, adults and children, but for children, they’ll be feeling much younger and more vulnerable on the inside than their chronological age.
So, children in schools might behave in much younger ways. They might speak in a baby voice, or become more clingy, or they’ll often need to sleep in with their parent or other family members at nighttime, that’s really common. And we know grief can often lead to separation anxiety, which can be really hard for kids attending school.
We know another impact on children’s grief is concentration. It can be really hard for grieving kids to take on new information, to remember things, they can become really easily distracted. Grieving children often spend a lot of head space worrying about either their surviving parent or other family members, so that makes focusing on school even more difficult as well.
Megan Gilmour 05:25
I could, yes, I think, you’ve really touched on some important points there, and I know we’ll get into more of them. One thing that struck me right out of the gate here was grief is absolutely a normal part of being human. It will happen to all of us, whether that’s being acknowledged or not. I imagine there’s a range of reasons why, and I’m sure you’ll get into that as well.
And thank you for pointing out some of those markers of grief, and then some of the things that we might be expected to do, but that don’t happen in grief. So, these, this is definitely given, it’s part of the human condition. As you’ve said, it’s really absolutely something every Australian needs to know and care about and childhood grief.
So, Carolyn, many people probably assume things about childhood grief. What’s the million-dollar question you get from parents or loved ones when their child is experiencing grief or suspected of experiencing grief?
Carolyn Johns 06:35
Probably the most common question we have from caregivers with grieving children is will this impact my child forever? Is this going to have a lasting impact? I don’t want it to wreck their life. Is this going to be with them forever? That sort of a question.
Megan Gilmour 06:53
Yes. And what’s the most important thing that you want them to know?
Carolyn Johns 06:57
Lots. I’ve got a lot to say. This is my passion, so I will talk and talk. My answer to their question is yes, if that person who died was central to the child’s life, that child will grieve forever, because we know people die, but relationships live forever, and their grief will look and feel different over time, but we know it will be there forever.
And we talk about grief as something that is always there, but it can be in the foreground or the background over time, and when grief is in the foreground, it’s all you can think about and all you can see, and it filters everything, and when grief moves more into the background, it’s still there, but you can enjoy school, and you can have time with your friends, and you can enjoy your family time, and you can work really hard when you need to and all of those sort of things. Life can be there, but you’ve still got your grief there.
Megan Gilmour 08:04
Yes, it really gives you the feels, doesn’t it. It really hits talking about this. I really felt it when you said that somebody might die, or somebody does die, and I’m sure there are other reasons for grief which we can get into as well, but that relationships last forever. I think this is a really key point and therefore hearing that grief has many different complexions.
So, it can be in the foreground, and it can be in the background, and maybe it’s there serving another purpose when it’s in the background, and maybe you’re holding it more lightly across time.
Carolyn Johns 08:52
So, and grieving people usually really understand that concept, because they’re living it. It really just makes sense to them.
Megan Gilmour 09:01
And people, well, I’m preempting a question here, I think, but I’ll just say it. People might say, ‘Aren’t you over that yet?
Carolyn Johns 09:13
Oh, that’s a common misconception that grief has a definite timeline, a beginning, an ending, and a lovely series of stages to go through and then you’re done. But we know grief is way more chaotic than that, a whole massive, big feelings all swirling around at once sometimes. And you know, it’s more like a roller coaster, but not a fun one. Lots of people describe it as, you know, a wave in the ocean, and sometimes it just feels like it’s drowning you, and other times it recedes a little bit and gives you a bit of respite.
Megan Gilmour 09:47
Yes, I think, and I’m not sure this was attributed to the Queen English, Queen Elizabeth, and I’m not sure if it’s true that it’s attributed. I’m not sure if it’s correct, but it went something like, grief is the price that you pay for loving.
Carolyn Johns 10:07
Yes, absolutely. And there’s lots of quotes like that around yes, if you love someone a lot, you’re going to grieve them a lot, and you’re going to love them forever.
Megan Gilmour 10:15
Yes, so it’s kind of sitting there right alongside your feelings for the person/individual. We’d love to know because you are indeed passionate, and that’s really obvious, and it’s obvious also that you have deep understanding of this subject, and so if you’re willing to, we’d love to know what brought you into the world of working with childhood grief.
Carolyn Johns 10:44
Yes, well, when I first trained as a psychologist, I knew I wanted to work with children always, and so when I was working in the high school, Mal and Dianne McKissock, they’re the founders of our centre, and they came to our school, and it was back in 2007 and they were doing a one day seminar for staff on children’s grief.
And I just sat there like a sponge, and that day ignited that passion inside me, and that just gets stronger and stronger all the time. And I was sitting there thinking – that year I had three personal losses myself, and everything they were saying made so much sense to me, and I realised then that my training in grief, in my degree, was really lacking.
So, I signed up for every course they were running at that time. And when I think about why I do what I do, grief is mainly about love, and I love love, like love is awesome. And not everyone experiences a mental illness or an addiction or an eating disorder, but everyone experiences grief. We all have people we love that die in our lifetime. And you know, we’re all in this together, and that really attracts me as well.
Megan Gilmour 12:02
Do you think it’s because you had a very personal experience or proximity to grief at that time?
Carolyn Johns 12:17
For me, professionally, but also personally, it really changed the way I talk to my own children about grief and my family and friends. So, it’s actually changed my life, not just through my career, but personally too.
Megan Gilmour 12:35
Yes, how you how you relate to the world,
Carolyn Johns 12:38
absolutely,
Megan Gilmour 12:38
I think that’s why it’s such an important topic. And so, knowing all that you know, what’s your biggest hope for kids with grief or experience in grief, their families and loved ones when navigating grief.
Carolyn Johns 12:54
It’s really hard, and my biggest hope for grieving children and their families is that they learn to live with their grief and maintain a strong connection with the person that they loved who has died. And I hope that they can still live a really rich, full, meaningful life while they carry their grief, yes, that’s what I would hope.
Megan Gilmour 13:18
Yes, beautiful. And I’m sure that’s been such an amazing platform for people to stand on with you, you know, understanding your experience is everything. And if people can help you understand that what’s going on is, you know, part of the picture, then it sort of feels less stigmatising or lonely.
What are some of the common and perhaps frustrating public misconceptions about childhood grief and how have you seen this impact kids and families?
Carolyn Johns 13:55
So, a lot of the misconceptions are around that kids don’t grieve because they’re so resilient. We know kids grieve, and they grieve just like adults do, but they’ll show it differently. And we know also that grief, as I said before, that misconception around the timeline of grief.
We have so many stories about kids being told by very well meaning, loving people in their life that, oh, it’s been two years. Are you still sad about that? Or why are you still crying? Or so many stories from parents whose friends or family again, very well meaning, I don’t think anyone’s trying to be hurtful here, but they don’t get it. Making comments like, oh, at least you’ll be able to remarry, or you’ll be able to have more children. Those sorts of comments and those sorts of misconceptions are really harmful.
The other one I’m thinking of that comes to mind is that if children are very young when their parent or sibling dies and they don’t have any memory of that person, then they’ll be okay, because they didn’t even know them.
But that’s just so harmful because those kids are grieving the mum or the dad or the brother or sister, they never got to know, that they never had time with, their whole future without them. You know, that’s a whole massive part of grief that a lot of people have a misconception about.
Megan Gilmour 15:40
Yes, I hear you on that. And the reason that I started MissingSchool was because my son became critically ill and very, very fortunate that he survived. And he’s 25 now, but I remember at some point during the period between him being well and becoming very, very sick.
He and I were there at the hospital together, and one of the social workers took me aside, because I remember he, he was screaming, and he, you know, he’d been, so he’d gone through all the blood tests and other things for like, you know, with courage and whatever.
And then he reached a point where he was just screaming and screaming at us and then I was crying, and I remember this social worker taking me aside and sitting down, and she said, you’ve just hit the point where you’re actually, he is grieving for his healthy self that he lost, and you are grieving for your healthy child and all the hopes that you had for that.
And that was one of the most helpful things, because, again, it was ‘Oh yes, that is what’s happening here’
Carolyn Johns 17:07
Yes, and in that moment you felt understood, and how powerful,
Megan Gilmour 17:09
Yes. Nobody’s died, but there’s a risk of that, but it’s something has been lost that was fundamental to us, to our life, to him, his own life, and so I just hear what you’re saying there. And we’ve had friends who lost their mum at a very young age, and they have grieved that, even though one of them didn’t really remember her.
Carolyn Johns 17:36
When that person has children themselves, that might be a time where grief becomes in the foreground again,
Megan Gilmour 17:42
Yes, yes. It’s complex, isn’t it?
Carolyn Johns 17:45
Oh, it is. And I was just thinking when you were talking about that those words from the social worker, we have a lot of children who we spend time with, whose parent is terminally ill but hasn’t died yet, and you often see, with degenerative illnesses, there’s a loss over time of capacity and function for that person.
So that child is grieving their healthy parent, or their healthy parents’ arms, who can’t hug them anymore, or they’re grieving their healthy parents’ legs who can’t kick a soccer ball around in the backyard anymore. So, all of those things are being grieved for, if that makes sense,
Megan Gilmour 18:28
Yes
Carolyn Johns 18:29
If that’s grammatically correct, but it is grief there in all of those weeks and months, even leading up to the death.
Megan Gilmour 18:36
Including for those of us who have parents who have gone into old age and having that relationship shift. I had that recent experience too, as you say that it comes to mind. It’s the things that are fundamental to us that are going or have gone, and there is naturally this adjustment that goes on. As you say, things are in the foreground, and it can create all sorts of relationship issues and other things too. So, I’m interested in that.
Carolyn Johns 19:13
And sibling conflict and misunderstandings,
Megan Gilmour 19:16
Yes, yes. And it’s really grief that’s sitting there and nobody’s actually digesting it or acknowledging that, because unless you really think
Carolyn Johns 19:25
Grieving what’s about to happen or what will probably happen soon. And I am so incredibly lucky to still have both of my parents alive. They’re in their mid 80s, and I’ve got two brothers, and we’re all very different. Me and my brothers are very different. So, when people are grieving, being an exaggerated version of who they were before, bring them together in a room [explosion]
Megan Gilmour 19:51
Oh, yes, and that’s a point you made earlier. So, lets pick that up again here, because this is a really. key point, you become an exaggerated version of who you are, you really do.
Carolyn Johns 20:07
Yes, so if you’re the family organiser and very practical and solution focused and want to fix everything, that’s going to be how you come into the grief in the family. If you’re more an emoter and crier and just someone who needs to express themselves a lot, then you’re going to be potentially clashing with that practical let’s get through this person, and you might not really understand each other, and it’s really hard. It’s really got generational differences and cultural differences in the mix.
Megan Gilmour 20:44
Indeed. And I guess for children, I’m interested in your advice or knowledge around the fact that, children, while they have the essence and character of who they are in a developmental stage in terms of who they are as well. So how does that exaggeration of self present, then for children?
Carolyn Johns 21:05
So, we’ve got to also remember that regression concept. So grieving children are often acting in ways and feeling much younger than their chronological age. So, children who are really outgoing and sociable and sporty and easily engaging with everyone around them, they’ll probably be even more out there.
Kids who are dabbling in drugs and alcohol, teens, they’ll be probably doing more of that. Teenagers who live online, basically, unfortunately, but that’s the truth, they’ll probably grieve online. Kids who are shy and withdrawn will probably be even more introverted. So, all of those personality characteristics and the preexisting issues for them personally, but also within their family, are even more exaggerated. So, we never talk about complicated grief here at our service, we believe that people with complicated lives are grieving,
Megan Gilmour 22:22
Yes, that’s a great way to put it. And yes, that regression moment too. I was thinking about a recent time with my elderly parents too, and when they sold their house just months ago,
Carolyn Johns 22:38
A lot of loss for them too
Megan Gilmour 22:39
Huge, huge, and for us as well. And that reversal. And anyway, I remember one day something, something happened, and I ended up basically laying in my 85-year-old mum’s lap crying. I’m 56 you know, I yes, they’re still my parents, and I, in some ways, felt like I was being immature. That’s how I felt like I kept saying, I have to grow up. So, I relate to this regression
Carolyn Johns 23:13
Absolutely. What a great example of it. And adults often tell us that they feel on the inside like they’re between eight and 15, and when you think about that age range, that’s a really formative part of our life as we’re growing up.
And that’s often the time in our life where we’re trying to work out who we are. And it might be the first time someone around us dies, or a family pet dies, so it might be our first sort of introduction into death and dying. So, it might be the first time in our life where we’ve asked for help or rejected help. So, it’s a really sort of common timeline. So, what you’ve just explained in that moment when you’re curled up on your mummy’s lap, you were that little girl again who is seeking safety and security and care.
Megan Gilmour 24:05
Yes, I guess it really flips the lid on vulnerability, doesn’t it, and people react differently to that. I guess you’re saying children can really express it, but then some might actually go to repressing it and maybe just trying to stop that feeling, is that what you see in your clinical experience?
Carolyn Johns 24:30
Yes because it hurts, right, when someone you love dies, it really hurts. So, a lot of the referrals we get are from caregivers who are so worried about their child because they haven’t cried, or they’re not grieving, or they’re just going to school like they’re normal, you know, like normal. And what we think is happening, they’re grieving 100% but they’re doing what they need to do to survive.
Most of the time, kids and adults will do instinctively what helps us most of the time, and when we’re grieving, it’s really hard for some kids to talk about how hard it is, how painful it is, how much it hurts.
And that’s why it’s important for schools and for adults who care to really be safe places, safe people for grieving children to talk to and to be around without judgment, but with sensitive and compassionate curiosity. Because when they’re ready and if kids are feeling safe, they usually will be more comfortable expressing it in a way that’s comfortable for them,
Megan Gilmour 25:44
Sensitive and compassionate curiosity, what a great phrase. Just really tells the story and the safe spaces. Being a safe place might also be a place where you don’t necessarily have to talk about it, but feeling okay, being in that space. It’s not a space that’s putting you under further stress or distress and being able to operate and perhaps even let that grief sit in the foreground or side ground for a little bit while you do other things.
Carolyn Johns 26:23
Sometimes you just have to sit and feel really sad. And then that sort of wave will pass, usually, and then you can go and play handball with your mates. But you know, it’s that ebb and flow of grief, and being familiar with that when it happens and how to look after yourself when it happens is all really important.
Megan Gilmour 26:43
Yes, and I’m thinking about here, and we’ll get into it shortly, so I’ll just mention it here, and then we can kind of move through and I know that you’ll pick it up. I’m thinking of all of the things that happen in children’s lives, bullying, potentially deaths of people, pets, moving houses, moving locations, things really changing fundamentally in a family setting, abuse. There are just so many things that could be causing a child to feel grief.
Carolyn Johns 27:23
And it’s not just a death
Megan Gilmour 27:24
Yes, and you were saying, rather than thinking about it as complicated grief, it’s people with complicated lives, children with complicated lives, that might be all the time or a point in time. And so, because this is just a part of life, as you say, and ebbs and flows, I think the critical point I’m taking from our conversation so far is that just about all kids in school could be feeling some level of grief at any given time.
Carolyn Johns 27:54
Absolutely. So, we differentiate grief as being the loss of an attachment. It could be a human, or it could be a dog, or it could be a rugby player who blows his knee and so he’s out for the season or his or the rest of his life, so his identity has been lost, or a person who has to have their arm amputated, there’s a loss of a limb. So, bereavement, on the other hand is grief after a death. That’s certainly what our service focuses on. As you say, grief can impact us in many, many aspects of our lives,
Megan Gilmour 28:33
Yes exactly. And that is the loss of an attachment, isn’t it? It’s a loss of something that was important to you and that could be physical, but it could also be anything inside of our skin that we might even not share with other people. So, and that’s the point here.
So how many Australian children and youth are living with grief right now. Is there a number on that data?
Carolyn Johns 29:06
It’s hard to measure actually, but we believe about one in 20 Australian children between the ages of three and 17 have had a parent that’s died. So that’s about 5% and when you add in deaths of other people in that child’s life, like other extended family or friends and pets and things like that, then that that number will increase significantly. We’ve got a lot of grieving children impacted.
Megan Gilmour 29:38
Yes, I was just going to try and do the numbers in schools? So, 5% a parent?
Carolyn Johns 29:46
Yes, three to five yes, about 5% have had a parent that’s died before the age of 16
Megan Gilmour 29:52
or 15 yes. I’m going to try and work out that number for schools. But is there a risk of delayed diagnosis of grief. I don’t know if you’d even call it diagnosis, maybe it’s recognition?
Carolyn Johns 30:03
I’m not all that sure, Megan, if that question really applies, because it’s not because it’s not really an illness to be diagnosed. So certainly, if grief is misunderstood or not allowed to be present, then that will lead to a poor outcome for that child. But in terms of delay of diagnosis, I’m just not sure of the relevance of that.
Megan Gilmour 30:32
Yes, so picked up more easily might be a better way of saying it is. Is there a risk that it might not be being picked up – childhood grief might not be being picked up as something a child’s experiencing.
Carolyn Johns 30:45
I think the risk is that, because children will be showing in their behavior that they’re grieving, that it’s going to be misinterpreted as laziness or naughtiness or just irritability or peer relations issues.
We hear of a lot of kids, unfortunately in schools who, and I think this is one of their challenges, who get bullied solely around the death of their parent, for example. And it’s just so sad, because these kids are vulnerable anyway and feeling isolated anyway.
And there’s a small number of kids in schools who don’t understand what they’re doing is so harmful, and target grieving children. And every child in my grief group at the moment put their hand up when I asked, ‘Have you ever been bullied about the death of your parent?’ They all just straight away, and heaps of my individual clients experience a similar thing.
Megan Gilmour 31:51
Yes, yes, it is heartbreaking. And we know that children with chronic medical conditions are five times more likely than other children to be bullied on the basis of their condition. So, it’s got to do with being a target or different or being vulnerable, and then people seizing,
Carolyn Johns 32:15
It makes people feel uncomfortable
Megan Gilmour 32:16
Yes, we just need more understanding. And it’s almost a denial of the fact that humans are vulnerable. There’s sort of this push to be invulnerable.
Carolyn Johns 32:29
And I know in schools a lot of the time, you know, if a child’s crying, it’s a massive deal, like all the adults around them feel very uncomfortable at seeing distress. And so, want to rush in and fix that child. That child might be crying for a really legitimate human, normal reason, you know. It’s okay to cry. That’s one of our rules that here at A Friend’s Place, actually, that it’s okay to cry.
Megan Gilmour 32:52
Crying is it’s cathartic. It’s actually soothing. I’m a big crier. I endorse it fully – I fully endorse crying!
Carolyn Johns 33:02
Great!
Megan Gilmour 33:04
Yes, that’s so super interesting, and just those layers of things. I guess children could also grieve friendships that end as well.
Carolyn Johns 33:14
Yes, absolutely
Megan Gilmour 33:16
What kind of complications do kids with grief face? So, we talked about a number of things there, but can there be, I guess, flow on effects to more serious mental health conditions from grief? I mean, can there be physical effects of grief?
Carolyn Johns 33:38
Yes, absolutely. And we know grief impacts our whole body, 24 hours a day. So, kids who are grieving often exhibit somatic complaints, sore tummies, headaches.
And interestingly, often their physical symptoms mimic the symptoms of their person who died, so someone who had a parent die of a brain aneurysm, one of their somatic issues after their grieving is that they might have a lot of headaches. Or someone whose mum died of cardiac arrest, they might get chest pains.
Megan Gilmour 34:18
Is this empathy on overdrive?
Carolyn Johns 34:20
It could be, yes, I think it is. And I mean those physical symptoms, are really real. And you know, it’s so common for kids who are grieving to have sore tummies or headaches or some level of somatic complaints, but we also know grief can impact their ability to sleep.
Megan Gilmour 34:38
I was going to ask,
Carolyn Johns 34:39
And we know lots of children and adults in our population have sleep disorders, sleep problems. So, kids who are grieving can find it really hard to get to sleep, really hard to stay asleep, really hard when they’re having very distressing nightmares about their person who died or really vivid life-like dreams that they’re not sleeping well. So, at school, they’re really tired.
Grief can impact our appetite. So, you might see digestive issues with kids. You know, it’s just all encompassing, our whole bodies are impacted.
Megan Gilmour 35:19
Yes? And unsurprisingly, I guess people could sleep more too
Carolyn Johns 35:25
Yes, yes. And we know, if that child had preexisting anxiety or depression, which we know are far too common in our world as well, that’s heightened and exaggerated.
There’s a real distinction for us between depression, which is a diagnosable medical illness, and grief. Grief has a different sort of origin with someone who’s depressed, they’re more likely to have less sort of enjoyment with life.
With someone who’s grieving, there’ll be moments of joy. If you ask a grieving child to tell you about their parent who died, or tell me about your best friend, like, what were they like? What was your mum like? Did she, was she serious? Or did she tell jokes their face will lighten up more than that, more than a lot of the time, their face will light up, and their eyes will sparkle and they’ll smile because they’ll be remembering with love that person who died, and just for a moment we’ve given that person respite from their grief. You don’t sort of see those sparks with someone who’s depressed. It’s a different being.
Megan Gilmour 36:45
Yes. So, I imagine there’s also the counter there that some children are experiencing grief around the death of a person who they didn’t have a good relationship with.
Carolyn Johns 37:00
Yes, so there can be a real ambivalence. So, if there was domestic violence in the family, if mum or dad who died wasn’t around much, if they just didn’t have a good relationship with their mum or dad who died, or sibling who died.
That can be really rough, because kids have these big, conflicting feelings that go hand in hand, and part of our role as caring adults can be to help those children understand that you can love your dad, for instance, but you can also hate what he did and love your dad and you can be so angry at him for the choices he made, and one doesn’t cancel the other one out.
Megan Gilmour 37:47
Yes, or grieve that you didn’t have the relationship that you wished you had, and that people are now gone.
Carolyn Johns 37:56
Yes, absolutely
Megan Gilmour 37:57
There’s a lot there. There’s I guess as many scenarios as there are people grieving, that’s all different. I mean, it’s all individual in a way.
Carolyn Johns 38:09
Yes. And that leads to another misconception that if the person who died might have been a really horrible parent, like they might have just been awful, who knows, and then that child or surviving partner is judged almost by society. Well, why are you even sad? I mean, I’m simplifying it a lot, but yes, why are you even sad?
Megan Gilmour 38:35
Yes, an expectation, almost, that you shouldn’t be grieving. And what’s wrong with you? Yes, wow, we’ve got a lot going on out there, haven’t we?
But it is so worth having these conversations, because to learn more about grief, because of its essential nature, and being human is power I think. It’s empowering to understand your feelings, or maybe, you know, in many of our cases, to understand the feelings of others, or perhaps agree that we don’t understand them. But that doesn’t mean that we have to judge that person’s reaction.
Carolyn Johns 39:26
I’m not claiming to understand what everyone’s going through ever, but I’m curious and I’m interested.
Megan Gilmour 39:33
Compassionate curiosity, yes. I’ve done a little calculation on the number you gave a 5% of kids with parent who’s died now, just, you know, raw calculations, that’s 200,000 school kids in Australia today who have lost a parent.
But that’s just the parent, as you say, there’s so many other people or things, as we’ve talked about, that could be happening in children’s lives that would lead to the experience of some kind of grief and grief processing. So that’s really something to pay attention to.
Now, do they miss a lot of school?
Carolyn Johns 40:15
Yes, they can do for a number of reasons. When you think about a child who might have had a family member who spent a lot of time in hospital with a long-term chronic illness, that child is spending a lot of time at hospitals and visiting hospitals and going with their parents to appointments and things, so that can definitely lead to those kids missing school.
In the time period immediately following a death in a family, that child might miss some school, take some time off, but that is so individual. Some kids take a day or two off. Some kids take a week or two. Some kids need a few months. Other kids go back that afternoon.
So that’s really variable, but also with the increase in school anxiety, school refusal, that can impact a child whether or not they can attend school.
Megan Gilmour 41:15
Yes, definitely, that’s what I’m thinking. And we saw post-pandemic, school attendance was dropping incrementally before the pandemic, and then that really caused a spiral in school nonattendance, most of which has been called and attributed to school refusal. But
Carolyn Johns 41:36
But that’s a big term, isn’t it? But there’s lot of underlying reasons why
Megan Gilmour 41:38
Yes, and I think over time, I mean, we recognise it because we’ve been working in this space for the longest time, but you know, everything that you said today just reinforces my view that that’s a misattribution to children,
Carolyn Johns 41:51
Yes, yes
Megan Gilmour 41:53
because children experienced a massive trauma and loss of trust in the life that they knew at that time. We all did actually.
Carolyn Johns 42:01
Our whole world view has been turned on its head.
Megan Gilmour 42:03
Exactly.
Carolyn Johns 42:04
The world isn’t safe, the world isn’t stable,
Megan Gilmour 42:06
Yes
Carolyn Johns 42:06
The world isn’t full of love. I won’t always be happy.
Megan Gilmour 42:10
People were dying around us. There were a lot of people ill or dying, and that was a large threat for children, and with social media coverage of it, and just in our faces, day in and day out.
And let’s add to that the climate crisis as well, all of that, that children are facing right now. It’s a lot for kids, kids are processing a lot right now more than ever, and that will firmly sit in the grief wheelhouse based on what we’re saying.
Carolyn Johns 42:49
But I just want kids to be kids, and that’s their only job. Yes, have fun. Have a laugh, play, be silly, make mistakes.
Megan Gilmour 43:00
I’m with you. I really rage against the pathologising of children. Let them do things that they enjoy, that are safe and good for them, and they’ll feel better. There are some pretty simple principles there.
Carolyn Johns 43:21
They’ll grow and learn that if I make a mistake, it’s probably not the end of the world, and I can do it differently next time, and I can be all right, even if I embarrass myself.
Megan Gilmour 43:31
Yes, there’s a lot of compliance things that children are facing that are probably not good for them. And instead of adults realising that – and kids are not little adults, are they, but we try to sort of layer that
Carolyn Johns 43:47
No, they are going through many developmental changes
Megan Gilmour 43:51
So, what are the critical times in the school life of a kid facing grief or experiencing grief, and what should families and schools be prepared for at those times?
Carolyn Johns 44:00
Yes, that’s a good question, because I think within a school sort of trajectory, there’s lots of transitions, isn’t there? So, for a grieving child, particularly if they’ve had a parent that’s died, times like starting school, finishing year six, starting year seven, big life transitions.
They’re hard, and it can bring grief into the foreground, because mum or dad should be there for that. They’re not going to be in the photos. They’re not going to be there to say how proud they are of them. Also, what I want us to take into account, every single day is hard, potentially for a child who’s grieving, not just those anniversary days or birthdays or things like that.
So, what I hope that families and schools can be a little bit prepared about anniversaries of someone’s death. That month leading up to it, anniversary of someone’s death is often harder than the day itself. So, schools, school staff and parents might really notice a change in behavior around that time and not really know what it’s attributed to.
Things like Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, they’re really challenging, particularly in primary schools, when we have such a huge focus on it, and there’s multiple events that the school is celebrating for a child whose parent has died, that’s really challenging, that they’re seeing other kids, moms and dads all around, and it’s really hard.
So, if we can provide those kids with the opportunity to be involved in all those activities, it’s really important. But I want us to also give them permission to change their mind on the day or halfway through the event or whenever they need to.
I want school staff and parents also to be aware that the school curriculum itself can be a very activating event in a student’s life who’s grieving. So, novels that are studied in English or history topics, I mean, when doesn’t that involve some sort of death, mass occurrence? PDHPE, often has topics on suicide or mental illness or diseases, cancer, etc., that impact children who are sitting in the classroom. So, it can be really helpful if teachers can sort of give kids a heads up if those sorts of topics are coming.
Megan Gilmour 46:39
Yes, it’s why it’s so important for us to communicate about this and to hear from people like you who understand and know and whose professional life has been to study this and understand it. Because there are just so many things that can happen in a school day that is having a triggering effect, as you say with nobody meaning to, it’s not intended.
Carolyn Johns 47:03
Yes absolutely, People aren’t deliberately nasty. So, we use the word activating rather than triggering, because a lot of our, well, not a lot, but some of our families have been impacted by death through a gunshot, so we’ve changed that language.
Megan Gilmour 47:16
Right? Great, yes.
Carolyn Johns 47:17
That’s okay. Trigger is a common term. But you’re right, through the school day, children can be activated through any of their senses, so it’s through something they might see or smell or touch, or a song or a word or a teacher yelling,
Megan Gilmour 47:42
That wave comes,
Carolyn Johns 47:43
oh, the wave comes. And when you’re activated, it’s sort of immediate, out of the blue, unexpected, uncontrollable, and it can be very distressing for that person, but also people around them.
And I’ve got an example of one of my teenage clients, and many kids actually have to go to the school office when something awful happens in their family. So, they get called out of class and they sit with the headmaster or an office lady or and I mean that with great respect that term, but they’re sitting in the office, waiting for auntie, uncle, grandma, grandpa, another parent, whoever, to come and pick them up.
And that can be a very, very distressing time for that young person. And so, then we think, ‘Oh, well, why are they so hesitant to go back to school?’ Because when they walk in the school gate, they go past the office where they sat and they heard the news, or they sat and they thought why isn’t mum picking me up today.
Megan Gilmour 48:41
Association
Carolyn Johns 48:42
Yes, and they see it every day. Or the kids whose best friend died, and they had English, maths and science with them a few times a week. And so, they are hiding in the toilets because ‘I can’t face going to maths and not have my bestie there sitting beside me’.
So, there’s so many parts of a school day, and when you think how much time kids spend at school, that can be really activating. So yes, I think increasing our awareness and understanding that what these kids are going through. But in saying that some kids cruise along and will seem relatively unaffected, but they’ll still be grieving. It’s, they’re grieving their way.
Megan Gilmour 49:27
And I’ve just also had that thought that kids could have teachers who are grieving as well, and have the feeling and sense from that other person’s experience as well, like playing on to [class]
Carolyn Johns 49:40
And sometimes that’s helpful, sometimes it’s not. We can’t assume, if we’ve gone through something, that that child has gone through, that we’re experiencing that same as they are
Megan Gilmour 49:51
Exactly
Megan Gilmour 49:52
So that, that assumption is really unhelpful most of the time.
Megan Gilmour 49:55
Yes, yes. Wow. There’s a lot of challenges and vulnerabilities there facing kids with grief at school. And I had another thought there, but it’ll come back to me, and if it doesn’t, it can, we can let it go.
Do you think there’s enough happening now to address grief as a vulnerability at school, and is it enough? Is there more to do? You’ve covered quite a bit of ground on this, so we’d love to hear your final thoughts on it.
Carolyn Johns 50:33
What I think is happening is that schools and school staff are often doing the absolute best they can to support grieving children in their communities, and it’s really hard, and we can all do better.
And you know, earlier this week, I was with an eight-year-old little boy whose dad died, and I asked him what it was like going back to school after his daddy had died. And he said, ‘confusing’. I said, why is that? He said, ‘Because, when I was gone’ – I think he only took about two days off school, and he said, ‘While I was home, there was this whole school announcement’ – and you know, this little eight-year-old even said the word announcement – ‘There was a whole school announcement, and I didn’t know that was going to happen. So, when I went back to school, everyone knew, and they were looking at me weird and asking me about it.’ He felt exposed, vulnerable.
And what I think schools are really good at when they do it, is consulting with a family and the child if it’s appropriate, if that, you know, age appropriate, what their wishes are in terms of who knows what, when the information is given, how it’s given and really giving that child that information to help them feel empowered when they walk back into school – I know that this teacher and this teacher know, or all the teachers know, or just my best friends have been told, or my whole class has been told, and that’s okay with me, or I don’t want anyone knowing anything, and I’ll tell people.
So giving that child a sense of control over that because they have had no control over the death of their parent or sibling or other loved one, so empowering them with that information, and having children go back to school with some sort of return to school plan – that’s probably too formal – but giving them the opportunity to maybe rehearse what to say if peers ask you where you’ve been, or if your peers ask you what happened to your dad, here’s something that you could say,
And even empowering kids to not have to tell adults who ask them, because kids generally want to do the right thing and follow the rules. And if a teacher asks me about my dad who died, I need to tell them.
So, we even say, you’re allowed to say, ‘I don’t really want to talk about it’. That’s okay, you know? Or you can say, ‘Yes, my dad died, but I don’t want to talk about it.’ And they’re allowed to say that to adults, kids, anyone or they might rehearse, ‘Yes, my daddy died of cancer, and it was really sad.’
Megan Gilmour 53:24
Yes.
Carolyn Johns 53:26
and they’ll have an idea of what to say. But if they can rehearse that a little bit, they might be able to get through those words without feeling as activated as if they were just going in cold and feeling exposed and vulnerable.
Megan Gilmour 53:47
Yes, that is, it’s something that I guess adults in schools might make assumptions about. This is the way that we do this. And then there’s also privacy issues, I guess, at play here as well,
Carolyn Johns 54:05
Absolutely, and we’ve got to respect family’s privacy and wishes, and even if that goes against what we want or what we believe in.
Megan Gilmour 54:14
Well, I think if it’s not handled in an appropriate way, it’s not only necessarily going to affect the child, in this case, who, for whom that’s happening, but it could also potentially affect peers as well, maybe even peers close to that student.
And based on what you’ve said about bullying. I mean, my goodness, what if the greater student body knowing that, would cause that to happen at a very vulnerable, new moment.
Carolyn Johns 54:53
It definitely can be weaponised. We hear about it all the time. But we also hear the flip side of grieving children tell us how wonderfully supportive their friends are, or their friends are people who are safe that they can just go and play soccer at lunchtime and not have to talk about it.
And it’s cool, because at school, no one asked me about it, and I don’t want to talk about it at school. I just want to get through the school day. So, schools can be wonderful distraction and provide stability and predictability in an otherwise traumatic and chaos world for grieving children.
Schools can help that child stay connected to life like through classes and socialising and extracurricular activities and just that normal stability of the day, it can help so much, because that child might go home and it’s just there’s people everywhere, mum’s bawling her eyes out, or is in bed, or, you know, they’ve got to go and visit their brother again in the hospital. So, schools are wonderful at that, at providing that normality.
Megan Gilmour 56:08
Yes, and then there’s the grieving about other people’s grief. I have down that they might not be physically missing school, but given everything that you’ve said, they might be physically at school but emotionally absent.
It’s almost like they need an Individual Learning Plan to accommodate all of the things that might be going on for them, or those behavioral expressions that might be a result of grief, that may not be compatible with what the school wants, and therefore you’ve got that clash going on.
I think we’re saying grief should be taken seriously, and I don’t mean heavily, but seriously, as something that can be very disruptive to a young person’s school life, and therefore that – we talked about compassionate curiosity, but also just that pragmatic planning aspect of it, to take that person through, rather than just throw them back into the environment and say, ‘Oh, we’ll make an announcement, and we’re here if you want to chat’. But then just let that play out.
I also wondered, as we close off here, can an estrangement be something that can create as much grief as a death, an estrangement in a relationship?
Carolyn Johns 57:36
Yes, absolutely so if we’re thinking about, you know, a marital breakdown and one or other parent moves out for a period of time, or, you know, even if a death has happened. So that’s one big grief. But also, then if they’ve had to move schools and change houses or move states or move countries. That’s a whole other level of grief, of missing the loss of their home, their family home, where all the memories were.
Estrangement of friendships that you just might not have the energy to maintain at the moment, so yes, absolutely, estrangement is something that can lead to a grief response, absolutely.
Megan Gilmour 58:29
Yes, good to know. Well, we’ve had such an amazing conversation. Is there anything else that you wanted to say about school quality of life for kids facing grief.
Carolyn Johns 58:41
Look, I don’t think so. I just think I want these kids to have a normal – what’s normal who knows, but a normal school life is possible, and what I’d love to happen is every single staff member in a school, well, I’ll go broader every human to have more training in this.
Because I know, as a psychologist, my training at uni was one lecture in a four-year degree. I know nurses and doctors are barely trained in grief and death while they’re trained in medicalised aspects, but the grief part, not so much. It’s a very limited aspect of even social work degrees.
So, I want everyone who works with children and who spends time with children to have a better understanding about the impact. And even in administration in schools, they’re the ones who pick up the phone when a distressed relative is calling. They’re the ones who have to sit potentially with a distressed young person while they’re waiting to be picked up. They’re on the real front line here, so they need our support as well.
You know, over the years of working here, we’ve had a number of our colleagues who have died, and even us supposed experts, we don’t know what to say, like know nothing we say will help. But what I’ve learned to say to my people in my world who have had someone that’s died, instead of saying ‘I’m sorry’, because then the person says, ‘Oh, that’s okay’. Sorry is a weird thing for me.
I’ve learned to say ‘I’m really sad to hear that news about your dad, tell me what it was like’, or ‘What’s it been like for you’ and that shows more than I care, rather than ‘Oh, I’m sorry’, but it’s like, ‘I’m really sad about that, like, this has impacted, you know, this is such big stuff, I’m really sad that to hear that news tell me about what you’re going through now’, and that’s really shifted for me, and it’s, that’s helped a lot.
Megan Gilmour 1:00:53
Yes, I was going to ask you, what is your call to action in seven words or less, but I think, I think we have every human to have more training in this.
Carolyn Johns 1:01:03
And let’s talk about it like talking about it in a normal, healthy way with children from birth, within our homes. You know, you might go outside and see a beautiful green leaf on a tree, but then you look down and there’s that dried dead leaf or the dead ant, like every living thing dies, and that’s a normal part of our life, and not make it so taboo and scary and unsafe.
There’s just two points about truth and inclusion. They sort of underpin – underneath safety – is truth and inclusion. So yes, we believe grieving children need and deserve access to appropriate, developmentally appropriate truth, truthful information and also to be included in big family decisions and conversations around funeral arrangements and things like that, because we believe being included is an antidote for that feeling of isolation.
Megan Gilmour 1:02:07
Yes, that safety came up very strongly through this. For me, it’s been an amazing conversation with you to, just an amazing conversation with you and your knowledge and your passion and everything is just really shown through here.
And that’s why we also need to do a big shout out to the National Center for Childhood Grief NCCG, and you can find them at childhoodgrief.org.au [https://www.childhoodgrief.org.au]. You can go there you will find a donate button. Give generously, donate, because we can see just how important it is to have a service like this and people like Carolyn, for kids to have access to somebody who can help them navigate this journey that they are having alone.
It can’t be done for them, but that that they can have, you know some travelers on that journey that can help them reflect and understand what they’re experiencing as a human experience, and maybe that helps them to hold it more lightly and feel into the more generous parts that grief has to offer us.
And also, of course, you know if, if you can offer any other forms of support, or you need resources yourself, or for a child you know, please head to childhood grief.org.au. Carolyn. Do you want to say anything in close?
Carolyn Johns 1:03:36
I just want to explain very quickly, the NCCG is – we are a not-for-profit organisation, like MissingSchool, and we have very little government funding, so we really rely on donations from the community, and we offer a free and unlimited specialist children’s bereavement service, so it’s free and unlimited for children from three to 17.
We also offer adult counseling for bereaved adults. We offer grief groups. We offer camps, online services, outreach services, education services, but as you said, our website has loads of resources on there, written resources, blogs from Dianne McKissock, books that are really good and helpful for reading with children who are younger about grief and death. So, there’s lots on our website. So please every single donation goes to helping us support grieving children and their families. So yes, but obviously, I think it’s really important.
Megan Gilmour 1:04:47
That’s incredible. And yes, just so needed. Thanks for helping us understand what the centre offers. Thank you for joining me today. Carolyn, it’s been a personally, very enriching conversation. I’ve learned so much I’ve got to understand and reflect on my own experiences of grief, and I’m sure everybody who listens to this will do the same, because everyone has experienced grief in some form or another, and so we’ve been able to take away all of your amazing knowledge and passion and it will help us all so our greatest thanks to you.
Carolyn Johns 1:05:29
You’re welcome. Thanks for having me.
Megan Gilmour 1:05:33
Thanks everyone for tuning in. Help us turn up the volume so all kids are seen and heard. Follow along, like, share, comment, or leave us a review, because we love hearing from you. And if you want to donate, head to missing school.org.au, because every dollar makes a difference.
