Studio 5: Parenting With Grief and Joy

Our CEO and Founder, Kristin Hodson, was recently on KSL Studio 5 with Brooke Walker to talk about grief. You can watch the entire segment here.

If you’re a parent, you are experiencing many stages and phases with your children. For example, we are thrilled that they are walking but sad they are done crawling. We are so happy they are graduating from middle school, but feel sad they are in their final stretch of schooling before leaving the nest. Grief is part of parenting and often walks side-by-side with joy.

If you are in need of counseling for grief, our Utah-based counselors can help.

Studio 5: Parenting With Grief and Joy Segment Overview

As a child I knew grief from big moments like the death of my grandparents. I may have not even known it as formally as grief but it made me sad, mad and confused which I now recognize as passengers of grief. Those moments seemed big with big stretches of time because I was in the growing up part of my life. Everything felt possible and everything was new and always developing.

But as I have grown older, somewhere along the way, these moments of grief started to feel like passengers. Loss expanded beyond death but into loss of the world as I have known it, while simultaneously being in awe of the beauty, my aging parents and the shifts in their abilities while so grateful for all that they do and that they are in my life, my children graduating elementary or middle school and grieving the end of a stage while so excited for their growth! 

Utah father kissing his baby as he experiences grief and joy in parenting her.

I noticed and started to embrace that grief was just as present and important to me as joy, and they actually were more like traveling companions than working against each other. This year my son started highschool and I was really sad while so excited. We spent the night before going to dinner talking about how big he has gotten and how exciting that was, then after hugging before bed and sharing tears. We both felt all the feelings and made room for them all. 

What is Grief?

Grief can be present in anything that disrupts that normalcy and connections in our lives. The loss of a pet, the ending of an era, the changing of a neighborhood.  As a therapist or even a friend I often hear, “I don’t know why I’m having such a hard time with this” or “I’m so sad!” I often say, “I think it would be odd if you didn’t feel this way! Your feelings are completely valid for what you’ve experiencing.”  We simply can’t avoid the losses, wounds, disappointments and failures that come into our lives. What we can do is bring compassion to what arrives at our door and meet it with kindness and affection. We can become a good host. - Francis Weller

Each grief is unique 

“The grief response can be compared to snowflakes, where we can look at the flakes and identify them as ‘snow’ but when you look closer, the crystalline structure of each individual flake is unique, and there are an infinite number of patterns that can be found.”  Many people may not really know what grief feels like in their life. They may be looking for it in the BIG losses but not seeing in the daily. It might show up as lack of motivation for a bit, wanting to be alone, irritability, which all can be grief. 

Be in community with our grief

I used to take a back to school grief gift to my friend that grieved and celebrated each new school year. Each year meant her kids were growing a bit older (yay!)  and leaving a phase behind (both yay and sad!). I felt the same way so we would talk about it then wake up with joy as we celebrated their first days!

Create room for “both/and”

Give yourself to feel more than one feeling! Your grief doesn’t need to cancel out your joy! My daughter is the master of this. She often feels “nervicited” where she is both nervous AND excited. We don’t need to worry that if we feel the grief we will miss out on the moment. The grief may very well be what supports us in our excitement, anticipation and our joy. We can hold grief in one hand and gratitude in the other.

Reconciliation Over Resolution

This is truly how I made grief my companion. I’ve learned through a lot of loss there is no time line. Once I switched from “getting over it” to “making room for it” it’s allowed me to make room for grief just like I make room for joy. I noticed that as I started collecting mementos of grief it allowed me to feel those feelings but not live in the loss.  Grief has given me a softness that has fostered gratitude for the time I have, the relationships I’m in, and it’s let me really sink into being present with my life.