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10 Things Kids Need After Losing A Sibling

10 Things Kids Need After Losing A Sibling

  1. Kids need the grief process normalized; it does not be a secret or strange to feel sad. Let them know it is normal to have tear-filled eyes ready to overflow in a moments notice. It’s also normal to not cry too! Everyone grieves differently; that is ok!
  2. Kids need to know that death is a part of life. Click HERE to read about how to talk to your child about death and dying. There are also tons of great books to read with your kids to help you discuss death in a kid-friendly yet hopeful way. Click HERE to find those resources.
  3. Kids need adults to be honest. Losing a loved one can be scary and raise many questions for kids. Allow them to ask questions and answer them truthfully. If you don’t know the answer to a question, then let them know you don’t know. It’s more important to be honest with them at that point in time, than to make up an answer they later find out is not true.  It is much better for kids to hear honest answers from their parents than from overheard conversations, their friends, the news, or others. Show your child that YOU are the safe person to go to with their fears. Some details do not need to be told to them, however, as they get older and want to know more, you do need to be honest with your children.
  4. Kids need adults to answer their questions. (As mentioned above) it is very critical that children ask questions, as this can help with both trust and irrational fear. Your children need to be able to trust that you will be honest with them. They also need to be able to ask questions to help guide their concern or fear about dying and death- as related to themselves or another loved one.
  5. Kids need adults not to delay telling them about a death. While this may not seem like a big deal, it is a very big deal to a child. They need to be some of the first ones to know when a sibling passes away. It is critical that they hear it from their parents as not to feel like their are secrets being kept from them. It can be very hurtful and extra alarming for a child to find out about losing a sibling from someone other than their parents.
  6. Kids need adults to recognize their fears and validate them. Listen to your child’s fears and let them know that you understand why or how they feel that way. Let them know it is ‘normal’ to feel afraid at times, but also challenge them to do hard things and help them to celebrate those moments. As children watch their parents do hard things and acknowledge them, it will also help their child to feel safer to challenge themselves as well. Example: If your child’s fear is to swim after losing a sibling to a drowning, explain to them that you completely understand how it could be scary for them, but that swimming doesn’t need to be scary. Validate them, reassure them, and then help them conquer their fear. 
  7. Kids need to see adults grieve. Let your kids know that they will see you cry but that you will be ok. Let them know that you cry because your heart is sad and missing their sibling. Preparing them to see you sad or upset can take the fear out of seeing their parent crying. Seeing their parent cry and grieve reassures them that they are not alone in their feelings of sadness/grief.
  8. Kids need a supportive environment where they can be themselves to honestly express their grief feelings and experiences without being judged or told they should change. Think about where you have the best conversations with your child- over a meal, in the car, while playing a game, etc. Creating that supportive environment allows them to open up and share what is on their hearts.
  9. Kids need guidance in how to cherish the memories they had with their sibling. Together as a family decide what days you will now declare ‘family days’ for your family- their birthday, Heaven Day, due date, etc. Guard those days as a family and plan something FUN and special for your family to do on those difficult and painful days. Include your children in these days and the planning of them. Ask your child what they would like to keep or make to remember their sibling some ideas might include- a blanket of their siblings clothing, a teddy bear make out of their clothing or baby blanket, hanging a favorite picture of them in their bedroom, sleeping with on of their toys or stuffed animals, wearing a necklace with their picture, etc. Click HERE to find printable (at the bottom of the page) that you can complete with your child and send up on balloons or leave at the cemetery.
  10. Kids need to go back into routine as quickly as possible. Kids thrive with routine and schedule. Routine provides them with a sense of security and normalcy. These are two things that lost almost instantly when a child loses a sibling. Strive to keep your child on the same schedule/routine as before the loss of their sibling. Bedtimes, mealtimes, snack times, play times- these can go a long way in helping repair your child’s loss of security and normalcy amidst a loss.

Note to Parents- Helping your children through the loss of a sibling may feel impossible when you are walking in the grief of losing your child yourself. However, it all begins with a shift in perspective. Your other children will be a GIFT in helping you through this deep grief! They are exactly what God wants to use to show you that you CAN get up each day and keep going even when it seems impossible. If you challenge yourself to view them this way, it will feel less annoying or nagging when they need you or your attention when you just want to sit and stare out the window. Challenge yourself to be grateful for the little joys they bring to your day, the ways they encourage your heart, and how lucky you are to have other children to cuddle during this time. 

After looking at the list of 10 Things Kids Need After Losing a Sibling, be honest with yourself. Which ones can you not offer right now? Which ones feel impossible? Then make a list of those things and ASK FOR HELP! There are most likely people calling, texting, and stopping by to ask how they can help. Let them help you and your kids! For example: Maybe your life feels like a giant tornado and everything is spinning around right now. That is probably how your kids feel too. Let someone help your kids begin establishing a ‘new routine’. Maybe it’s asking grandparents to take them to ice cream and let the kids ask questions or answer questions about how they are feeling. Accept help; and let others love on your kids; but make sure you are taking time to do the same! They NEED you, and need to know ‘things will be ok, and we will keep going’. They are looking for your lead…

Note to Grandparents & Friends: It is good to ask ‘How Can I Help?’ but also ask, ‘Can I _____ for you?’ Sometimes the parents are going to feel so overwhelmed that they don’t even know where to begin asking for help. Do not assume they want their kids to go somewhere; always ask.

Here are ways you can be a blessing to the other children and give them special attention:

  • play a game
  • take them for ice cream
  • color with them
  • go to the park
  • let them initiate discussion on their sibling who passed away
  • take them shopping for an outfit for the funeral
  • help them make someone special for their sibling who passed away
  • take them out to lunch
  • take them bowling
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Talking About Death & Dying with Kids

I had really never talked about death/dying with our 3 and 5 year old much before their sister passed away. An occasional reference to Heaven, was really all that had come up in conversation. For young kids, it seemed like a topic that ‘we’ll get to when they’re older’. However, it doesn’t always work out that way. For many families, death comes knocking on when you least expect it, and that can be a scary thing to think about.

Two weeks before Zoe passed away, our boys had been talking about Heaven in Sunday School. I remember driving home from church with Zoe in the car with us, as our boys proceeded to tell us all about Heaven. They described learning about how there were rooms that God was preparing for us in a big big house. That when our rooms were ready we got to go to His big big house. How we all had ‘jobs’ to do here on earth, and when our jobs here were finished then we got to go see Jesus.

Ten days later, they would encounter Heaven in a very personal way.

As our boys sat in our living room, alongside two of our pastors, we had to remind them of what they had just learned about Heaven, and how it now directly related to our family.

‘Remember how you learned about how God is preparing rooms for us in Heaven, well today Zoe’s room was ready. She got to go see Jesus today. Her ‘job’ here was done.’

Their eyes got teary, all of our hearts sank, and our new reality began…

However, for our family, Heaven took on a whole new meaning in our hearts. Unfortunately, before losing Zoe, we were all very comfortable with our lives here, together; maybe even a little too comfortable. This Earth was clearly our home. Now having our sister/daughter in Heaven made us all yearn for Heaven in a whole new way. We had countless conversations about what Heaven would be like, would Zoe stay little, could she see us, could she fly, did she have dinosaurs (remember we had two little boys) as pets, did she still have to wear a diaper, and many more.

On Zoe’s first birthday, we began a fun tradition of talking about what we imagined her birthday to be like in Heaven. Now clearly we don’t know if they celebrate birthdays in Heaven, but for our little boys it connected them with their sister in such a special way. They would talk about what colors she’d pick, what theme she would like, what type of cake she would want, who would go to her party, what foods she would eat, etc. Then we would make a similar cake/cupcakes and send up ‘birthday cards/notes’ to her on balloons.

We began to realize that when we focused on the Hope of Heaven as a family, the sting of death became less breath-taking.

Fast forward four years later, and our boys are still talking about Heaven with the same vigor and passion they did when Zoe first left. After a conversation I had recently, I was reminded that not everyone talks about Heaven and dying with their kids as openly as we do. I do not fault them for that, as I realize there can be a lot of fear that can accompany such discussion. However, as we approach the subject of death and dying with the Hope of Heaven fear can be erased!

Heaven is an integral part of what Christians believe. It’s our future! As Christ-followers, it’s to be our permanent home! Randy Alcorn in his book Heaven for Kids, discusses the topic of moving to a new city. When we are going to move, what is the first thing we do? We research. We go online and look for what our new city will be like. We read to find out where we might want to live, etc. We spend time learning about our new home; and our excitement builds and builds. While we may be sad to leave our old home, friends, town, etc, the Hope of our New Home is so great that the fears begin to dissipate. Satan wants Heaven to be scary and seem down right boring, but as we read what scripture promises us about our New Home, we begin to become excited and want to invite everyone we know to move there with us! It’s going to be the greatest place to live!

So how do we help our kids when death knocks on our family’s door whether it be a sibling, a parent, a grandparent, or a friend? We give them the GIFT OF HOPE… Hope of Heaven. We teach them about what awaits them when their ‘room is ready’ and their ‘job here on earth is complete’.

Click HERE to find a list of books to keep the conversation of Heaven going in your home! 

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My Story of Hope- Morgan (My Sister Rylan)

Rylan Richelle Steubing, 19 years of beautiful life… Her name was so unique that she could never find it on a keychain, (much to her dismay) and almost everyone pronounces it “Ryland” and she was so sweet and shy that she would never correct them. So me being four years younger, yet ten times bossier and louder I would correct them for her.

When we were younger, I was about 5 and she was 9 and she would make me answer the phone because she was too shy to.

But… just a few months before she passed, she preached an entire sermon to spanish speaking people with a translator by her side in Peru.. yes! Peru. Safe to say she’d come a long way not only in her shyness but in her walk with God.

Her soul was so pure and sweet and so rare and her death is such an enormous loss to this world, but I can only imagine the praises that were sung when she returned to her heavenly father

Since the day of her death, there are so many “nevers” in my mind that I don’t think I could even list them all:

  • I will never hear her laugh again.
  • I will never see her smile again.
  • I will never fight over her clothes again.
  • I will never go to small coffee shops with her and play jenga ever again.
  • I will never get to hug her again.
  • I will never get to eat the cookies she made (and sometimes burned) ever again.

I’m sure everyone who’s lost someone has these thoughts. This negative, never-ending feeling of despair.
God has taught me in the last year, to take those “nevers” and turn them into being thankful:

  • I am thankful that she got to laugh and had the exact amount of time God himself had planned for her, even if it isn’t what we’d hoped for her on Earth.
  • I am thankful that she had moments in her life that made her smile, and that for the time she was here, she was happy.
  • I am thankful that I had a sister to steal clothes from and bond with.
  • I am thankful that God gave me a built in best friend to live with for the first 15 years of my life, that was a beautiful example of God’s love and being his servant.
  • I am thankful that I got a sister that made me cookies

God has numbered our days. He holds us in the palms of his hands, he knew my sister before she was in my mother’s womb and he knew she would pass away on February 22nd, 2017 in the morning. He knew she would be diagnosed with epilepsy at the age of fourteen and he knew that she would become an amazing woman of God.

All things work together for our good, and we have a good God that will not let me fall no matter the amount of grief I’m under.

Losing my best friend will forever be the most painful thing i’ve ever experienced, but I am more than grateful that I know she is with Jesus, and I know he planned for all of it to happen.

(Say Goodnight written by Morgan Steubing)

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Trusting His Timing

I wrote this Sunday, August 8, 2014, a little less than 4 months after we lost Zoe. I believe the sermon that day was titled Trust His Timing. I was going to post it to our family blog, but never did. As I reflect back on it, I feel even more confident now about how I felt then.

This Sunday, while going through the gospel of Luke, our pastor was teaching from chapter 8. The passage was a familiar one, the healing of Jairus’s daughter.

(Photo Credit)

 

After reading the passage be began with an illustration about a pastor who was in Turkey for a conference. He received a call about his teenage daughter being in a terrible accident and was left on life support. After changing his flight, he was left in the airport for 5 hours awaiting his flight home. While reading his Bible, he came across the story of Jairus’s daughter, but from the Gospel of Mark (chapter 5). Upon reaching verse 23, he struggled to make it through the verse.

He pleaded earnestly with him, “My little daughter is dying. Please come and put your hands on her so that she will be healed and live.”

He could empathize with the earnestness with which Jairus pleaded. For him, there was comfort in knowing that he could relate to Jairus’s desperate heart.

Our pastor left the illustration without sharing with us whether or not his daughter lived; I was left the impression that she did survive.

The story of this pastor visiting Turkey and Jairus’s story immediately affected Mackenzie and I in perhaps a different way than other people in the congregation.

We too have felt the desperation that Jairus felt. Similar to our story, his daughter died as well. However, for us, Zoe was not raised to life. The healing Zoe received was different than what we would have asked for. I can see Jesus picking Zoe up in his arms during that nap, and gently whispering, “My precious child, wake up.”

For both Jairus and for our family, healing occurred; however it looked very different. Both required  faith and trust in Jesus’s. One ended with the results as prayed for, ours did not. I can’t tell you why God chose us to receive the gift of Zoe’s life and death, but I can tell you that He is using it for his glory as we trust His timing.

God has not asked me to understand why He has chosen to show His power and glory through Zoe’s death. I can, however choose to either receive it or reject it.

We have chosen to receive it. We hurt. The pain is real, but we now know what it means to have God come and enter into our pain with us. He is there in those days when we feel like we don’t know how to do anything without losing it. He is there when we have fun and laugh with the boys. He is there when we are supported by family, friends, and strangers. He is there when we feel like we have not rely on each other. He is there.

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We trust in God’s timing, not because we understand it, but because He is there with us. Looking back at those words and the journey we have been on since Zoe’s death, I see that God has used her death to grow our trust in him, to show us love and support of people who were there for us in our grief and continue to be, and to draw others closer to Him. He has also shown us how He is using Zoe’s death to walk with other through their grief and loss. I still can’t tell you why God chose us for this terrible gift, but I can tell you what He is doing through it.

Trust His timing and keep moving forward. He will, in time, show you what He is doing. It’s not easy, but it’s worth it!

 

 

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He is Hope

He is Hope.

I came across this picture recently, and it took my breath away. I had forgotten that this was the backdrop to the funeral service for our daughter Zoe. As I gazed at the screen, it seemed only fitting, now knowing what He had planned for our family, and the ministry- Hope Family Care, that He would birth out of this event.

As we sat there that day very much engulfed in our own grief, I had no idea that God would use our precious Zoe to bring Hope to others in the midst of their own grief and loss.

When I see this picture, I am reminded that God knew, even before she was born, that He wanted to use our daughter’s life and death to bring hope to others. I am reminded that the God who understood the loss of a child; was comforting me, and I am reminded that God willingly gave up His Son so that one day I (and others) could have Hope.

From the point of view of a father who has lost a child, Easter reminds me that God (the Father), isn’t asking me to walk through anything He himself wasn’t willing to walk through. He accepted the pain, the devastation, and the heartbreak, all because He could see the whole picture and had the end in mind. He didn’t allow Himself to get stuck on the here and now, but loved our sinful world so much that He was willing to sacrifice now for an ultimate goal of resurrection power.

Even in the midst of our darkest tragedy, God is still good. He is still good not because of what He does, but because of who He is. Good is his nature, his character, everything about Him is good.

Romans 8:28 says, “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.

Not just that, but look at the verses after, and see what else He promises…

What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?

So this Easter, remember that even though you may be walking through ‘the valley of the shadow of death’,   and it doesn’t feel good that He who is good is walking right beside you.

HE is HOPE