A young family came to see me very concerned about
their 7 year old daughter, she had become fearful, clingy and
withdrawn. Her mother shared that she seemed to have lost
interest in all her favourite things: dance, play with her brother,
her love for school, and even favourite foods. There was a
noticeable change in her engagement at school and at home
she often retreated to her room to read.
Miss Seven had recently lost her grandma. Granny had
slipped away peacefully in her sleep. Her death wasn’t sudden
and she was not in pain, according to the medical team.
“It really was the perfect way to go” Miss Seven’s mother
had said.
Granny was at peace. Miss Seven was not.
After our first session together, it became clearer to me
what may be the deeper problem. Miss Seven had no prior life
experience to help her handle such a big concept like loss of
life. She had never known anyone to die before. She had such
big questions about death, dying, getting old, the big empty
hole she felt in her body. Yet she wasn’t asking any of these
questions at home, despite having a positive relationship with
both her parents.
Miss Seven simply did not know life without Granny in it.
As we talked further about how her parents were handling their
feelings, Miss Seven assured me: “They would never let me
see that they are sad! I think mummy might have been crying in
the shower the other day”. Her parents seemed to be doing
their best to show their daughter that ‘life must go on’ and had
attempted to avoid showing emotions or talking about their pain
and loss.
Miss Seven, however, didn’t know how to take the next
step in getting on with her life, saying that she felt frozen and

BIG little Feelings

how sometimes it was hard to breathe. She went on to share
that the empty feeling had now taken over her whole body. It
had started in her tummy, then her heart, soon her head was
‘full of a black emptiness’. She even felt the pain of loss in her
little finger.
I asked if she remembered ever feeling this way before.
She shook her head: NO.
I asked if she had any pets.
She nodded: YES.
When I asked if any of her pets had passed away: NO.
Later, in private with her parents, I followed up with the
same questions and her mother confessed:
“A month ago, one of our chickens became ill. When I
returned from dropping the kids at school, I found it dead
in the pen. I was so stressed out, I didn’t want the kids to
feel the pain of losing a family pet, so I drove all around
the region looking for a chook that looked the same. Do
you know how hard it was to find a chook to match the
exact colour and size?!!!”
“I imagine it would be incredibly difficult.” I carefully
replied. “I’m curious as to how that afternoon might have
played out if you had not found a replacement chook.”
Miss Seven’s mother broke down saying that she just
wanted to protect her kids from the pain of death. She tried to
pull herself back together as she didn’t want Miss Seven to see
her crying. Our session ended well, with us both have a little
giggle as she admitted that she probably shouldn’t have found
a replacement goldfish over a year ago either!

Parenting little people through grief and loss isn’t
easy.
These child-sized tips may help:

BIG little Feelings

- Be brave and show children your own pain and allow
them to see the tears when they come
- Talk about your own emotions as a great first step in
helping children process their own BIG feelings
- Allow pets to be the gift that teaches little people how to
love deeply, tend to the needs of another, and feel the
pain of loss, when that time comes.

Josie

Big Little Feelings