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Dealing with Loss
PART I (continued)
A letter to parents about this website
guide
This website guide contains practical
suggestions for helping your children deal with the losses
your family will experience during and after your divorce.
While it is important to acknowledge that these losses
are very real ones, it is essential to reaffirm that children
who experience the disruption of divorce can go on to
lead happy, well-adjusted lives. You can help your children
deal with the loss of ongoing contact with two parents;
of existing routines; of long-familiar ways of being loved,
being shown how to do things, having limits set; of school,
friends, and neighborhood; and of the feelings of safety
and security that come from a sense of family stability
and permanence.
Grieving a loss is a normal and healthy process, not a
sign of illness. If you are like most people, however,
events in your own life may have prevented you from developing
effective ways of dealing with loss, ways that allow you
to honor the past, live fully in the present, and look
ahead to a satisfying future.
Please remember the following as you face the challenge
of helping your children deal with their losses during
this phase of the family's life:
Children and adults have the capacity and the inclination
to do the grief work that makes it possible to grow in
wisdom and create the next chapter of their lives. You
are in the best position to help your children. You know
them. You care about them. You love them. You can trust
yourself to help them learn what they need to learn, to
help them deal with painful losses, and to help them grow
stronger, wiser, and healthier, and more loving. In the
process, you may become better able to do your own grief
work, so that all of the members of your family will become
better able to live their lives fully, now and in the
future.
You have what you need, and you have the ability to get
whatever help you decide is important. Be gentle with
yourself.
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