Children’s Grief Awareness Day 2020

What is Grief Awareness Day about?

• Grief Awareness Day is observed the Thursday beforeThanksgiving every year.
• Grief Awareness Day is a day focused on bringing to mind allaround us who have experienced the death of a loved one— especially children and teenagers, who typically feel veryalone in the journey of grief they travel.
• Grief Awareness Day is an opportunity to let the grievingknow that they’re not forgotten in the midst of their grief.

What can you do to help?

• Join us by wearing blue on November 19 to show your support forgrieving children all around us.
• Spread the word on social media – photograph your class wearing blueand post on Facebook or Instagram with the hashtag #childgriefday
• Create something artistic with students, whether it is a memory walldecorated with art paper, or Hope chains or thumb print tree.
• Engage in conversations with your students about grief so that you canlearn more about their own experiences.

10 things to know about grief

1. Grief is a natural and normal response to death.
2. Every person’s grief is unique.
3. Grief is not a disease.
4. Grief is a lifelong process that changes with time.
5. Children grieve differently than adults.
6. Children of different ages grieve differently.
7. Many adults who had lost a parent when they wereyoung describe the death as the defining momentof their lives.
8. Grieving children and adults need support.
9. We grieve because we love.
10. Grieving children and adults don’t “just get overit” but they can learn to integrate the death (theabsence of the one they love) into their lives.

THE WASHOE COUNTY SCHOOL DISTRICT OR THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES NEITHER ENDORSES NOR SPONSORS THE ORGANIZATION OR ACTIVITY REPRESENTED IN THIS DOCUMENT. THE DISTRIBUTION OF THIS MATERIAL IS PROVIDED AS A COMMUNITY SERVICE.