Good Grief 1

Barbara Ward is a freelance trainer and consultant and a psychosynthesis counsellor from a teaching and health education background.

• Aims and Objectives. Statistics for Britain. Foreword. Contents. Contributors. 1. INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND. 1.1 Why teach about loss and death? 1.2 Educator's notes. 1.3 Understanding Loss. 1.4 Divorce and Separation. 1.5 How to help someone who is suffering from loss. 1.6 Tracing Western attitudes to death. 1.7 Stages of grief. 1.8 Difficulties in grieving. 1.9 Grief in children. 1.10 Dying children and their families. 1.11 Preparation for a child's funeral. 1.12 Children's reaction to death. 1.13 Death of a child - a school's response. 1.14 Loss of a child - helping the parents. 1.15 When a child in your school is bereaved. 1.16 Bereavement in the junior school - a teacher's experience. 1.17 Glossary of words associated with death. 2. ACTIVITIES. 2.1 Creative activities. 2.2 Feelings. 2.3 Living with loss. 2.4 What is death? 2.5 How can we help? 2.6 Self esteem and self image. 3. APPENDICES. 3.1 Unhappy ever after. 3.2 Caught in the middle. 3.3 Helen House. 3.4 What to do when someone dies. 3.5 Why do we have funerals. 3.6 Rituals and customs. 3.7 How will Mummy breath and who will feed her? 3.8 I can't write to Daddy. 3.9 Heavenly bodies. 3.10 Value of hospitalized children's artwork. 3.11 Additional resources 3.12 Books for bereaved children. 3.13 Children's booklist. 3.14. Educator's and adult's booklist. Useful addresses. Attributions.

These books not only provide excellent ideas and guidance for helping grieving people, they also illustrate the huge diversity of human experiences which can be put under the heading of loss. I was so impressed by these books that I felt it was a privilege to be asked to review them.