Help Me Say Goodbye: Activities for Helping Kids Cope When a Special Person Dies

Help Me Say Goodbye is an excellent aid for parents and others dealing with children grieving at the loss of a loved one. Over time, the exercises and discussions they engender with grieving children open up the child's understanding of their own grief and the grief process. It is good for very young children, who often have difficulty expressing some of the confusing and conflicting thoughts one has when a loved one dies. The activities in the book are respectful of feelings small children have, and encourages all attempts at expression of complicated feelings. The workbook can be used again and again as the child works his/her way through feelings found in the different phases of grief. This is another book I have sent to orphanages in Africa, and also to caretakers of children who have just lost a parent. It has proven to be helpful and comforting in all circumstances. The book has also had the perhaps unintended effect of making children more sensitive to and compassionate about an adult's grief. Excellent for families.

I'm a social worker by trade and counsel children and adolescents. I recently purchased multiple books for a boy who is 7 and recently lost his father. Of the books I purchased, I found this to be the best of the interactive books. Not only does it guide you, as a parents or loving adult to assist a child talk and express their feelings about their lost loved one, it also helps the person who is doing the activities with the child. When an adult is grieving while also trying to care for a child, it can be hard to find the energy to go beyond activities of daily living. This books spells it all out for you so there is little thought involved no the part of the adult.

Useful, practical activities that help children open up and express their thoughts and emotions about the loss of a loved one. Clients going through grief and loss can really benefit from this activity book, especially when they tend to be quiet and have a difficult time expressing themselves. I made copies for my clients and it worked really well. It helped them understand their feelings and to verbalize them appropriately.

Great activity book for children (and adults) to find voice and affirmation for their feelings related to grief and loss. It can easily be adapted for any age using an assortment of mediums used in art therapy and creative writing. It is a book that a child and adult will go back to time and time again to work through and provide a starter for difficult conversations. It came to me at an important time when I needed resources for my niece and nephew and their children when my sister died after a very brief illness. hELP ME SAY GOODBYE is a resource I will turn to many times in my practice as an MSW. Thank you. Mary

When my husband died a few months ago, our children were only 2 and 4 years old, they were not sure what was going on but I found this book a few weeks before he passed away and I was able to start talking to them and showing them the activities in this book. His slow decent as the Cancer took over gave us the time to start before he died, but this book would be very helpful for sudden deaths as well. My four year old did one of the ideas from this book, making a memory table at the funeral and filling it with items that reminded him of his father, it was a very touching moment when people learned what the table represented. I would recommend this for sure, I even gave a copy to my son's preschool to use when other children need to learn to say goodbye to someone they love.

My daughter is autistic and had a very hard time processing the death of her Granpappy. Working through the activites in this book is really helping her, me and her therapist. I would highly recommend this for ANY child processing loss.

This book is geared more towards the child dealing with the terminal illness of a loved one. I wish I had it when we first learned of our grandmother's terminal condition. It does a good job explaining what is happening to the body & also what to expect when it comes time for a funeral. It doesn't give much help for the child dealing with the grief after the person passes away. There were a couple of good suggestions like creating a memory box or sending a balloon message after the person passes away. However, I wish there were more suggestions or activities to help the child dealing with grief after the death of the person.

I bought this for my 8 year old it looks to be a great resource for a child dealing with death after a long illness. Unfortunately it is not what we are needing