Four Tasks of Grief for Berreaved Youth (S. Fox)*

Recently two psychologists, William Worden, Ph.D. and Sandra Fox, Ph.D. have developed the tasks that grieving adults and children need to accomplish for their grief to be good grief.  (Good grief is that which enhances or allows the person to rurn to their previous level of functioning.)

1. Understanding:  Knowing the loss really happened and is real
2. Grieving:  Working through the various feelings that are a part of mourning.
3. Commemorating:  Some way of remembering, observing, or memorializing the loss.  Provides an opportunity for affirming the value or the life of the person-or other type of loss
4. Going on:  Permission is needed from significant others that it is OK to get on with life and OK to “regrieve” should the feelings return

  *From Good Grief:  Helping Groups of Children When A friend Dies, Sandra Fox, The New England Association for the Educaton of Young Children, 35 Pilgrim Road, Boston, MA  02215, 1985