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Miranda R Waterton's avatar

When my son was eleven, his grannie died. It was the first bereavement he’d experienced and for reasons beyond our control the funeral coincided with SATS week at his primary school. He we a bright student and the school badly wanted his grades to bump up their results and get them an Outstanding result. They put massive pressure on us to make him go in every day and when we refused, they insisted we only took him out for a day (involving a 350 mile round trip on top of the stress of the funeral and seeing his dad break down in public for the first time ever). Then he had to be in early the next morning to do the paper he’d missed. They regarded this as a great inconvenience to themselves and a huge concession. This was a church school, which continually preached the importance of trusting in God’s provision and goodness. My Christianity took a huge hit that week and it’s never really recovered. A grieving eleven year old should not have to push through anything, particularly for the benefit of others

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Dr Vicki Connop's avatar

This is so poignant and relatable Ellie. I think many, if not most, of us need to learn this lesson about listening to the body and not pushing through. It's been essential for me in finding my way through the quagmire of autoimmune disease.

And you'd be amazed how many times I hear that tale in my therapy room of kids being sent back to school a day or two after the death of a parent. Noone knows how to support kids to grieve it seems, and that grief gets bottled up until (often) another loss later in life brings it all tumbling out. We really need to get better at doing grief in Western culture...

Thanks for resharing your post, I missed it first time around ❤

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