Grieving and the Nontraditional Family

by Ron Huxley, MS


"The nontraditional family of yesterday is the traditional family of today!"

Nontraditional families include single, divorced, step or blended, adoptive, foster parents, and grandparents raising grandchildren. They are quickly becoming the majority in today's society. Whether society/people consider them defective or less than "ideal" they are a reality and need special information and support. Most of the parenting programs available to nontraditional parents forget this reality. Consequently, the parenting programs apply only to traditional, two-parent, biologically based parents. Part of the problem is that nontraditional families have unique needs not usually experienced by traditional parents. One example of this is grief.

Grief is the state that individuals experience when a significant loss occurs in their life. The loss might occur as a result of death, divorce, and/or abandonement by a familiy member. It might be said that nontraditional families are born out of grief as they are formed as a result of a loss. This is not to say the traditional families do not experience grief but that nontraditional families have this experience, to one degree or another, in common.

Grief has predictable stages of development. This is beneficial to the nontraditional parent as they attempt to make sense of their grief experience. Most importantly they know that it will not last forever, at least not in the same intensity as when it started. Perhaps the best know framework for grief and loss are the stages listed in the work of Elisabeth Kubler-Ross who wrote the book On Death and Dying (1969). Her stages of grief include:

  • Denial
  • Anger
  • Bargaining
  • Depression
  • Acceptance

A useful metaphor for understanding grief are the waves of an ocean. When you are way out in the ocean, the waves are large and frightening. They pull you under and twist you about, creating a sense of hopelessness or fear of your future. This is similar to the stage of Denial or shock at the reality of the loss. When the waves pass and the ocean feels momentarily calm, this is called the stage of anger or bargaining. The shore represents the stage of acceptance. As nontraditional parents and children swim for the stage of acceptance, waves continue to crash over them, sometimes threatening to pull them under in denial and shock and at other times settling down and letting anger and bargaining propel them forward to the shore. The closer you come to the shore the less intense the waves. But even small waves, when standing on the edge of the ocean can unsettle and cause you to lose your balance.

Nontraditional parents can use this metaphor to help them balance love and limits with their children. Because they are in the ocean and not on the shore they cannot compare themselves to traditional parents. Rather than live up to society's expectation of what an ideal family should look like, nontraditional parents need to concentrate their energy on swimming for the shore.

Adoptive Parenting

Adoptive and foster parents deal with feelings of grief. These special parents are faced with the struggle of raising children who may have come from traumatic situations and/or have a different set of genetic traits than themselves. In order to adopt a child, parents may be forced to accept the reality that they cannot give birth to their own child. Not only does the adoptive child not look like the adoptive parent, but special needs, such as attention deficits or learning disabilities, may be present. Adoptive children also know grief. They must content with the fact that they were "given up" for adoption. They may wind up feeling unwanted and unlovable. In addition, these children may feel different from other children in their family if they are the only nonbiological children present. They may have different color skin, hair, eyes, etc. and so feel inferior. These children, when older, often search for their biological parents (which can create feelings of grief for the adoptive parents) to answer the question of why they were adopted. Many times the answer they find is unpleasant and painful.

Foster Parenting

Foster parents are faced with an ongoing series of grief: accepting a new child into their home, learning to adapt to the personalities and needs of that child, developing feelings of affection and love for that child, and the risk losing the child if their biological parents succeed in reunification or if someone chooses to adopt the child. Adoptive and foster parents are not immune to feelings of grief. They struggle with the realization that they are not, and never will meet societies idea of a traditional family. They must also deal with the personal realization that the child they care about is not their own (unless they chose to adopt the child) and the child may be forced to return to the same or further traumatic circumstances.

Grandparents Raising Grandchildren

Another nontraditional family that share feelings of loss are grandparents responsible for the raising of their grandchildren. Grandparents feel grief due to the fact that just when they are ready to retire and enjoy the "finer things" of life, they are faced with the responsibilities of caring for their grandchildren. Many grandparents feel they have failed as parents due to the fact that their own children are unable or unwilling to care for their own children. And grandparents, like single parents, may have less resources both emotionally and physically, to go through the act of re-parenting. Not only are they older and have less energy to take care of the needs of the children but they are also given less financial compensation and legal power to make decisions.

In some situations, grief actually keeps grandparents from taking the necessary legal measures to ensure the safety and well-being of their grandchildren. Because of their own remorse and hope that their child (the biological parent) will become more responsible and care for the grandchildren, they often fail to take certain legal measures that will ensure the grandchild's safety and well-being. Errant and irresponsible parents can take their children away from grandparents at any time, unless the grandparents have some legal right to make decisions in the lives of their grandchildren.

Grandchildren must also deal with feelings of grief. These children mourn the loss of their parents and may "act out" their pain in an aggressive and revengeful manner. Children tend to treat the world around them in the same manner they perceive they have been treated. Therefore, a grieving child may want to hurt self, others or property as an expression of their own pain. If professional help is not enlisted, these children may end up suffering major depression. Many children, in this situation, already experience depression, but it may go unnoticed due to the fact that depression, in children, may look different than depression does in adults.

Adults, who are depressed, may want to sleep, have little energy and eat, single-handedly, a whole quart of Haagen-Daz Ice Cream. In contrast, depressed children may wet the bed, have trouble concentrating in school, get into fights, refuse to cooperate, complain of headaches and stomach aches or have other symptoms not commonly understood, by adults, as depression. Grandparents will need the advice of a child counselor to determine if their grandchild is truly depressed and what is the best recourse for dealing with it.






"Grieving and the Nontraditional Family" was excerpted from:

"Love & Limits: Achieving a Balance in Parenting"
Singular Publishing Group, Inc.
© 1998

 

 

© 1995/2013 FCAC
Unauthorized Reproduction Prohibited
patek replica watches. swiss replica watches can be described as the oldest in geneva, an independent family-run watchmaking enterprises, independent status so that it cheap replica watch