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| From left, George Osakoda of Hospice Hawai‘i and high school students Noelle Baca and Shelley Muneoka conduct a bereavement workshop.
Richard Ambo • The Honolulu Advertiser |
By James Gonser
Advertiser Leeward Bureau
PEARL CITY — Telling stories is an everyday activity in the Waiau Elementary School library. Dr. Seuss, Winnie-the-Pooh and Little Red Riding Hood are all read aloud to the delight of children.
But last week, high school students Noelle Baca and Shelley Muneoka visited the library to tell very different stories to a group of children they share a special bond with — the death of a parent.
Sitting in a circle on the floor, 11 children from five area schools shyly introduced themselves and listened to Baca and Muneoka describe their own mothers’ deaths and how it affected their lives.
| Helping kids cope
George Osakoda, bereavement coordinator with Hospice Hawai‘i, offered a few tips on dealing with young children and a family death.
 Be honest. Osakoda said sometimes children are kept from family funerals. "We advise parents to tell their kids what a funeral is about and give them a choice to go or not. Sometimes parents try to protect them by not letting them see what they need to see."
Answer questions. "Kids want to see the body. If it is a cremation, they want to ask questions. That’s OK. It will help them understand."
Let your emotions show. Osakoda said some parents don’t want to show children their own sorrow. "They put them to bed and then go in the bathroom and cry. What happens is the kids model their grief after the parents. If they see the parent tough it out and not saying anything, they will do the same. If they don’t see their parents crying, they think they better not cry. They need to let it out."
Be careful with euphemisms. If you tell a child that daddy is sleeping or in heaven, they might be afraid to go to sleep or afraid of going to heaven because that is where dead people go, he said. "Be careful. Sometimes they can do more damage than good." |
"It’s never, ever easy," said Baca, a Mililani High School senior whose mother died of cancer four years ago. "My mom was sick since I was in the second grade. I always knew in the back of my head that she would never make it."
Muneoka, a Kamehameha sophomore, told the children her mother died in 1997 after collapsing in the house. "In the beginning, I was in shock," Muneoka said. "It’s such a hard thing to understand. Adults don’t know how to tell us. We have to stick together."
The session, called Hospice Day for the Pearl City Complex, was the first time public school students who had lost a parent were brought together in an in-school peer support program, according to George Osakoda, bereavement coordinator with Hospice Hawai‘i.
Osakoda, hopes it will become a regular part of the complex’s emotional support system and that other schools will see the value in the program and adopt it as well.
He said the hospice holds monthly meetings for children from 5 to 17 years old at the Queen Lili‘okalani Children’s Center in Kalihi, but many children can’t attend those meetings. Going to a school to talk to the youngsters could be very helpful to their understanding of death.
"The idea is not to scare the young students, but to help them to deal with the family death and begin to heal," Osakoda said. "Each child in the group has lost a close family member and needs help understanding their grief."
Hospice Hawai‘i was founded in 1979 by a group of physicians, nurses and volunteers to help take care of terminally ill patients on O‘ahu. The organization’s goal is to enhance the quality of life for those near death by providing appropriate nursing, social work, art/music therapy, spiritual support and bereavement services.
The bereavement program provides support through volunteers and group sessions to families who are grieving the loss of a loved one.
As the girls continued their stories of loss, tears began to flow and tissue was passed around.
Waiau counselor Dennis Nishihara said the idea for the session came after he and other counselors attended a hospice workshop. Nishihara said he was worried about a couple of his students that had recent deaths in the family, but were not showing any signs of grief.
"The problem that I have had is not seeing problems where there should be," Nishihara said. "That was a concern to me. In the course of the workshop, it came out that it’s got to happen, and the longer down the road it is, the worse it is going to be. I got worried."
Nishihara contacted counselors from all the elementary schools in the complex and found that each had students that needed help dealing with a death in the family. Hospice Hawai‘i then was invited to conduct the program.
In Hawai‘i, one in five children experience the death of a loved one, which means more than 40,000 schoolchildren here need help with bereavement, according to Hospice Hawai‘i. Many times, adults are too busy dealing with their own grief to devote time and energy to helping their children heal, Osakoda said.
"Right after, I had all these questions and was afraid to ask Dad. He seemed upset," Muneoka said. "I didn’t understand. It was as if I’d done something wrong."
Sitting on the floor with the children, Osakoda asked them how they felt after hearing the girls’ stories. "Are you sad? How were your holidays?"
"Terrible!" one youngster blurted out, and burst into tears.
"It’s harder for little ones to understand and deal with grief," Osakoda said. "A 5- or 6-year-old has a limited understanding about death compared to a 10- or 12-year-old."
Waiau principal Judith Elliott said holding this type of session helps the students move forward and shows them they are not alone.
"The kids, especially the older ones who can articulate, will share how they can’t concentrate on school," Elliott said. "Grieving takes time, and it’s OK to be distracted. Our little guys don’t think about grades, but any emotional upheaval impacts whatever your life work is. For children, school is your life work, and it can have a direct impact on their success in school and with friends if they become isolated or withdrawn."
The session teaches them that other children have the same thoughts and fears, Elliott said.
"We are hoping to provide a place where children can bring out the sadness, the fears, doubt and self-blame and find some peace in sharing it with others," she said. "The little ones get overlooked and we tend to think children are not as impacted by death. They might not understand it, but are impacted by it."
Each child put together a book from the session with photos of all the other students and their counselors.
"All of the counselors will continue to work with the kids and the families," Osakoda said. "I suggested we do this on a quarterly basis. The next time, the kids will know each other. They have made friends and will look forward to seeing their friends again. In a support group like this it is always the kids who really help each other. They work together and talk to each other. We adults just set it up and serve the food."
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