Today in class, we discussed the difficult topic of coping with children in the classroom who have experienced loss. As an education major, you don’t often think about the sad things that you may need to deal with. Today’s lecture was particularly difficult, and made me a little nervous about my future profession.

When I was in third grade, my best friend Natalie lived down the street from me. She was one year younger, and we got along like sisters. She and I would constantly play together, get into plenty of trouble, and spend hours at either her house or mine. This same year, Natalie’s mom was diagnosed with breast cancer. I remember my mom telling me that Mrs. Bradon was sick, but I just assumed she would need to go to the doctor and she would be fine. Only a few short months later, Mrs. Bradon passed away. I remember my mom telling me that we were going to the funeral, and when there, I sat next to Natalie and colored for hours. We sat there in silence, coloring.

At the time, I never really thought about what happened much. I assumed that Mrs. Bradon was away on holiday, or that she would come back soon. Natalie and I continued to play, and nothing seemed to have changed. However, subconsciously I think I knew that Mrs. Bradon would never come back, and would never be there to make us lunch or warn me not to touch the radiator (when every time I ignored her and did it anyway… getting burns on my hand to prove it). Looking back now, especially after this lecture, I can see that Natalie was going through the toughest time of her life. As a future teacher, it is more than likely that I will go through dealing with a bereaved child. In such a case, I will look back to my past and remember Mrs. Bradon every time I come across a similar situation. Perhaps my sitting there, coloring with her, was the best thing that I could have done at the time. Allowing Natalie to know that I was there for her, that nothing had changed for me, and that I would still color with her even though her mom wasn’t going to be there anymore, supported her in a way that was subconscious. I would like to imagine that that helped her a significant amount, but I don’t know because of being so young at the time.

This lecture was particularly necessary. Oftentimes, as stated before, teachers do not think that anything will go wrong. We have this presumption that every child is happy and fine, but the reality is that children are often going through a lot more than we think. Learning methods to help children deal with troubling times made me nervous about teaching, but also put me slightly at ease, as now I have some ideas of methods I could use in the future. We as human beings do not like to discuss difficult topics, but they are very necessary and will prove to be helpful in the future.

Location: jonkoping, sweden