Activities to help with grieving for adults and children

When someone passes away, a complicated rush of feelings occurs that may be difficult to comprehend. If you are attempting to work through those complicated emotions, or are helping others—especially children—do so, consider some of the activities listed below, which allow one to express and understand the emotions that accompany grief.

Activities for adults

Journaling

Journaling during your grief experience can help you express your feelings and understand the importance of your loss. If you wish you could have told the person something before he/she died, consider writing a letter to the deceased person. Afterward, you can bury it, destroy it, keep it—whatever feels right to you. 

Exercise

The mind and body are connected. Physical activity helps keep you healthy, and also prepares you to cope better emotionally. Ways to take care of one's physical health and combat stress and fatigue include getting plenty of sleep, eating healthy and exercising.

Spending time with nature can be soothing and healing. You can do any physical activity that you have enjoyed in the past, or try a new one. Finally, doing the activity with others can be even more helpful.

Meditation

We’ve written a complete guide on grieving and meditation, which you can check out here. But in short, meditation allows you to give space and time to your emotions, checking in on how you are really feeling. It takes practice, but eventually, letting yourself feel exactly as you feel can be the one of the most healthy experiences to have in the grieving process.

Rituals

Rituals are activities that are done to remember and honor the person whom you have lost. They can be related to your cultural traditions—like a visitation or wake, funeral, or memorial service—and there are also informal rituals that will honor the deceased and help you cope. Here are some:

  • Sewing a memory quilt

  • Planting a memory garden or plant

  • Sharing a memory dinner

  • Lighting candles on special dates

  • Creating a Mini-Memoir 

  • Making a Memory Box, Sculptured Memory, or a Handprint

  • Weaving Memory Bracelets

A Support Group

The internet allows easy access to talk about your loss with other individuals who may be facing a similar type of situation. A support group is a way to engage in conversation, share with others what you’re feeling, and get a different perspective to cope. 

  • Actively Moving Forward offers a variety of avenues for sharing and receiving help during your grief journey. With a text-messaging service called GriefCoach, they help your network to check in on hard days and offer emotional support. 

  • What’s Your Grief offers e-courses, podcasts, and articles with face-to-face resources to help you move throsugh your journey and learn ways to support others in the future. 

  • Grief In Common focuses on finding someone whom you can meet in person and offers phone consultations and live chat rooms. 

  • HealGrief offers a program for young people, a Candle Gallery where you light a virtual candle, and other larger virtual memorial sites. The site also has an Artful Healing section that allows you to create art, photography, and stories to share with others during a season of loss. 

Using Social Media

Memorial pages on social media sites have become popular ways to inform a wider audience about a loved one’s passing and a way to reach out for help. As well as allowing you to convey practical information, such as funeral plans, social media allows loved ones or friends to post tributes or condolences. Reading these messages can provide comfort for those grieving the loss. To gain protection from Internet trolls, you can create a closed group on Facebook and post privately on social media such as Instagram. 

Reading

Many books have been written on coping with grief, some by authors who have undergone their own loss.

The loss of a parent can make you feel lonely about no longer having them in your life, as they hold a special relationship to you having brought you into the world. Here are some titles focused on this type of loss:

The loss of a spouse is especially difficult in that on top of losing your person, many grieve the loss of future plans they had made together and carry double the workload now that their partner is gone. If you have experienced the death of a partner, the following books may be helpful.

The loss of a child is heartbreaking, and it is important to know that you are not alone. In addition to this guide on how to grieve, the following books may be helpful:

Activities for children

Reading

There are also many children’s books on the market that help a child learn about grief, death, loss, and mourning. Allow them the freedom and flexibility to read whenever they feel they are ready to find out more about their grief. Give them the opportunity to ask questions, explore information, and settle their emotions. 

Grief Is Like A Maze

This activity illustrates to children that the process of moving through grief is not easy and help them know that sometimes they will feel stuck and lost. While the child is finding their way through the maze, talk about whether it is easy or hard to find a way through.

Matching Game

This activity can help the child understand that feelings can lead to actions which do not help get their needs met, so that children can learn to differentiate between self-caring actions and those that push people away. Go through the list of actions and help them identify actions that don’t help, and others that do. Let the child draw lines from feelings to words and categorize the actions. 

Healing heart

This is a bonding activity between adults and children to encourage open discussion of feelings and emotions. The heart can be made of any material like fabric or paper. Begin by making a heart, cutting it apart, and have your child write or draw things related to their grief or loss. Put together the pieces with band-aids, and the artwork can be hung up as a reminder of the special person.

— Jisu Lee

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