Despite what you may want your kids to experience, life isn’t all rainbows and butterflies. Hard times can hit for you or your loved ones and it can be hard to explain this or experience this with your children. For this Mom Tip Monday, fellow BabySteals mom, Anita Sullivan, shares her own experience and tips on dealing with grief with children.

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Anita and her family

More than four years ago, my adult brother went missing. It’s been a difficult journey for our whole family, including my oldest son who was four at the time. We’ve had to help him through it, while dealing with it ourselves. We’ve also faced the challenge of not wanting our youngest to not know about his uncle. We’ve also had the death of my husband’s mom and losses of loved pets.

Many families deal with situations like it, not knowing how to best help their child grieve, while also grieving themselves. While we usually are talking about happy things on this family of steals fans, we all have loss in our lives at times too. Here are some things we’ve learned that may help your family too.

1. Show your kids your emotions, don’t hide them.

Kids need to know it’s okay to be sad, and it’s okay to cry. But also show them that you are happy over memories and over time together. By putting on a brave face and never letting them know you’re grieving, they learn that it’s not okay to be sad.

2. Make sure they know that happy times are ahead.

Plan things to do as a family that you can look forward to, knowing that it won’t eclipse the sadness, but will create new good memories.

3. Encourage your kids to share memories of the lost loved one.

Create a scrapbook or box of memories that they can look through and remember their loved one. Allow them to participate in adding to it. For example, my son has a great memory of my brother taking him fishing. I’d forgotten about it, but he hasn’t.

4. Communicate with caregivers.

Let teachers or caregivers know that your child may experience out of the norm behaviors as they cope with this. Let your child know they can talk to these adults in their lives about what they’re feeling.

5. Share stories with your kids.

Tell stories about the lost loved one as your kids grow, reminding them how much the person loved them, or would have loved seeing them grow. Keep them alive in the heart of the family, giving your kids a feeling of roots and love. My sons have limited family in their lives, but I always want them to know the love of family.

6. Be honest on a level they can understand.

When my brother was first missing, we didn’t know what to tell our son. We didn’t want to lie, but we don’t really know the truth. We don’t know where he is. We’ve come to realize that it’s okay to say “we don’t know but we won’t give up until we do” and keep the brutal details from him (like that we believe he killed himself). As he’s gotten older, we’ve added more details but always the truth as he could understand and cope with it.

7. Just love ‘em.

When my husband’s mom died, our son was five (our youngest hadn’t yet arrived). He told my husband, “Dad, don’t be sad, you still have me.” His pure unselfish love for my husband helped in those dark days, and my husband responded in a way that made him know he was more valuable than anyone else in the world to us.

To learn more about our experiences and family, visit my blog. I’m just a sister, wife and mom sharing my journey and story of hope. Maybe you’ll find something to relate to.

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Disclaimer: The opinions expressed here are the views of the writer and do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of Steal Network or its employees.