Your Kids Will Grieve

When I really get to thinking about it, I've probably had less change in my life than a majority of Americans.

I mean I live on a farm, and we already strive to stay home and not eat out and just ... be.

What else are any of us doing right now but just ... be-ing. 

My husband's job has not any major changes.

Our financial situation hasn't been altered. 

I was already homeschooling. My kids were home with me all the time anyways.

And yet, folks, this is hard. 

Like: hard.

Let's use capital letters: HARD.

H
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R
D

We, as a people, have never faced anything like this before in our lifetime. Even small pockets of things we've faced can't mimic what is going on in our world right now. 

I've had a couple of good, hard cries. I figure you probably have too? 

And I think we have to give ourself permission to just GRIEVE. 

But more than us grieving, we must allow our children to grieve. And if you've never sat alongside a grieving child, you may not be familiar with the fact that they do NOT grieve like we do. They often cannot put into words what their grief is. They can't explain it. And they don't even know that they are actually grieving. 

Children will NOT grieve the way we grieve. They will act out. They will wet the bed. They will regress in things you thought you'd conquered. Children thrive on consistency. And now, their consistency has been ripped out from underneath them. 

Yesterday, while doing our normal homeschooling with the Kotynski family (who is quarantining with us), we watched as nearly all our kids had a moment of anger, weeping, frustration ... Aunt Hannah was more on top of it than me. I looked at her with a: "What is going on?!" face. 

This is 

H
A
R
D. 

We, as adults, have words and language and experience to deal with our grief. Our children often, do not. 

So while we kept schooling, we majorly loosened the reigns. We did a lot more playing and just being. And we plan to keep on doing that. 

I encourage you to watch this video from Max Lucado and reach out to someone you love during this time. Get on FaceTime or MarcoPolo. CALL THEM! We are NOT alone. We have each other. And God is going to use this time in our history for something GREAT!