When Your Child Dies

Tools for Mending Parents' Broken Hearts

by Avril Nagel and Randie Clark, MA, CCC

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The death of your child is devastating. No parent feels that he or she should outlive his or her child. However, the sad fact is that every minute around the world, some 15 children die according to the World Health Organization. The psychological and emotional impact following sudden and traumatic death can inhibit parents' grief and, without appropriate treatment, develop into Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).

When Your Child Dies provides grief-stricken parents with the tools to navigate the grieving process and addresses the challenges of the intrusion of the media, the justice system, medical system and coroners. Grieving parents will learn how to reduce anxiety and depression and promote healthy self-soothing, identify and address issues that linger and cause emotional pain following the child’s death and incorporate their loss into their lives in healthy ways. There are suggestions for talking with surviving children about death and grief, how to handle the impact on extended family systems and social relationships, how to foster a continued loving relationship in their lives with the dead child's memory, among other practical advice, as well as providing a comprehensive list of resources and reading for ongoing support.

In addition to professional backgrounds, Nagel and Clark have both experienced the traumatic loss of a child and speak with compassion and empathy directly to the reader, parent-to-parent, as well as providing insightful psychological guidance and support. When Your Child Dies is a comprehensive handbook for grief-stricken parents, grief counseling organizations, resource centers and library grief collections.

"The authors...provide readers with compassionate, pragmatic tools..."
      — BOOKVIEWS by Alan Caruba

"Nagel and Clark speak from awful experience."
      — The Victoria Times Colonist

Avril Nagel is a freelance writer living in Victoria, British Columbia with her husband and two young children. She graduated from McGill University, Montreal, Canada and has a professional specialization in emergency management. As a project manager and planner she has researched, written and edited numerous publications for the government and not-for profit sectors. Avril and her husband lost their son Alden when his heart stopped suddenly during birth.

Randie Clark is a therapist/counselor for adults and an on-call Emergency Mental Health Response worker. She also leads workshops for first responders, professionals and community members in intervention assessment and treatment approaches for victims of trauma, sudden and traumatic loss and individuals experiencing mental health crises. She maintains a private practice working with individuals and couples, specializing in complicated issues of loss and grief. She holds a masters degree in psychology with a focus on post traumatic stress syndrome and traumatic loss and grief from Antioch University, Seattle, Washington. Randie's twenty-six year old son David was stabbed to death in a street robbery. She and her husband reside on Salt Spring Island, British Columbia, Canada.

Nonfiction, 5 1/2 x 8 1/2, 240 pages
Self-help/Caregiving & Grief
LC #2012932039, world rights
ISBN-13: 978-0-88282-391-1, (pb), $14.95
ISBN-13: 978-0-88282-411-6, (eBook), $14.95