Did you know that at any given moment in time, there are typically around 140,000 teenagers in the United States foster care system? In other words, there are over 140,000 youth across the nation who are currently experiencing deep loss that, whether verbalized or not, results in deep grief.
Before we can talk about grief, though, we need to talk about loss. There are two kinds of loss for those who find themselves in the care of the state: direct and indirect. The latter is also often known as ambiguous loss.
- Direct: A direct loss is that of personal relationships, daily routines, yearly traditions, culture, birth order (for some), medical information, family history, familiarity with surroundings, etc. - just to name a loaded few.
- Indirect (Ambiguous): An ambiguous loss encompasses that which is still unclear, confusing, and unpredictable. It includes the “what-ifs” and “if... then...” scenarios that pile into the category of all that’s unknown. For example, “Will I go back home? Does my mom think of me on my birthday? If I move again, will my siblings go with me?” These kinds of losses lack resolution and as a result, often understandably perpetuate a teen’s grieving process.
It’s important to note that from the very moment of entering foster care until the day of permanency and even beyond, every teenager experiences both direct and indirect loss.
With that said, what does grief look like, sound like, and act like in our teenagers from hard places? While this is not an all-inclusive list, our teens go through the stages of grief just like anyone else, which include the following:
- Denial or Shock: Denial can oftentimes be a defense mechanism for our teens in foster care. They might figuratively (or literally) try to run back to all that’s familiar... or even remember and narrate their previous situation through rose-colored glasses.
- Anger: Anger is often the external expression of grief, but contrary to what many believe, anger isn’t always a primarily negative emotion. Instead, it’s oftentimes what we do with anger – how it’s expressed externally – that can be seen as challenging on many fronts. For teens from hard places, loss might be grieved in physical, verbal, emotional, and/or physiological ways.
- Bargaining and Negotiating: For some, this can look like trying to “perform” their way out of foster care in anything from doing well in school – to taking care of their siblings - to bending the truth about who they are and where they come from.
- Depression: This is the internal expression of grief. Some teens might lack energy, find it hard to be motivated, and/or choose to remain in the shadows. While this can often be seen as more manageable, silence and sadness are ultimately a cry for help.
- Understanding and Acceptance: Although there are moments of understanding and acceptance for some teens, grieving and healing often does take a lifetime.
It’s important to note that while there are unhealthy ways to grieve deep loss, grief is a process that is essential to healing. The above stages of grief can be felt in any order and at any time in the grief process. In other words, grief doesn’t often keep to a tidy schedule, but rather comes and goes in its own way and in its own timing.
Helping our teens by facilitating the grieving process through care, consistency, and communication is crucial to not only forming a secondary attachment with them, but to helping them understand their own story. How can we help our teenagers grieve well?
- We can help our teens by creating a safe space through acknowledging their loss, asking good questions at the right timing, and listening to/validating their experience. If something is unmentionable to our teens, it is also likely unmanageable for them.
- We can help our teens by allowing them the privilege of having deep emotions! We can’t go around, under, or over grief and loss... we can only go through it. Sometimes this will look messy, but we’d always rather “messy and authentic” than “put-together and inauthentic”.
- Sometimes our teens need more support than what we can provide for them. It’s always okay to seek support from a trauma-informed therapist who can help our teens understand their story and the impacts of it.
Helping (and allowing) our teens to grieve well is necessary to the bigger picture of how their story impacts their daily lives. To keep the conversation about loss and grief on the table - even in difficult or challenging moments - is to hold a teens story with them as they intricately navigate the loss that they’ve endured and the impacts of it.