Bunnies and bears help children face grief
Puppet show provides safe place for questions
"I don't want to go to no stupid funeral." These words uttered by a key character in a puppet show convinced Penne Williams, LCSW, an instructor at University of South Florida at Lakeland, that the puppet show used by LifePath Hospice and Palliative Care in Tampa, FL, is exactly what is needed to help many children handle their grief.
"These words are real. They are the same words used by children who have experienced the death of a parent, family member, or friend," says Williams.
The puppet show, "The Loss of Locci," was written by Karl Knox, LMHC, a LifePath staff member. "I wrote the show when I worked at another hospice but brought it with me when I came to Lifepath," Knox explains.
While there are many grief counselors that use puppets on a one-on-one basis with children, he has not seen another show produced specifically for children through a hospice. "It is difficult for some children to talk about their grief or put their feelings into words," he explains. "The puppet show is designed to provide a safe place for children to ask questions that they might not normally ask."
The three-act play focuses on two bunnies and a bear cub that have to deal with grief when the bear cub's mother dies. "In the first act, the bunnies visit their bear friend and learn that Mama Bear is sick," says Knox. In the second act, the bunnies find out that Mama Bear died, and the third act follows the funeral, he says. In between each act, the narrator leads the children in a brief discussion, during which questions such as: Have you ever been sick? How do you think Locci is feeling? "We ask the children if it is OK to be sad or angry, or we ask how they think his friends should behave," he says. All of the questions are designed to give children permission to ask questions they may have thought they shouldn't ask, he adds.
Even when the questions are about the characters in the play, they often reflect the children's unasked questions, points out Knox. "We often have children ask if the bear's father is going to get married again, or if the little bear will have to move away from his friends," he says. These are questions that children may not ask about their own situation because they don't want to upset their families or appear to be selfish, he explains.
The use of animal characters is critical to the success of the puppet show, Williams says. The children relate to the puppets as peers, she says. "One counselor told me that a child came up to her after the show to tell her that 'the brown bunny said everything was OK, it wasn't my fault my mom died'," she relates. "Even though counselors and family members may have said the same thing, it meant more to the child when the brown bunny said it."
The children even talk to the puppets after the show when the puppeteers come out from behind the stage, holding the puppets, says Williams. The adult is standing there with the puppet and the child talks directly to the puppet, she says. "They want to pet them and offer them advice on how to handle their loss," Williams adds.
With six main characters and a narrator, the show requires at least five and preferably eight people to put it on, says Knox. "They don't all have to be grief counselors, but they do need to be trained on how to answer questions from the children," he says. Because children are unpredictable, there are always some questions that are hard to handle, Knox admits. "Questions about God, religion, or heaven are difficult because we are presenting to a group of children from different backgrounds," he says.
When these questions are asked, the puppet or the narrator often turns the question back around to the child by asking, "What do you think?" This technique often elicits an answer from the child that asked the question as well as others in the group, he adds.
Although volunteers can be trained, Williams prefers to use counselors. "I've had one incident when a volunteer responded inappropriately to a question by making light of the child's question," she says. In this case, a child asked about the possibility that the parent would date again, and the puppeteer made a joke about the parent finding a friend for the puppet so they could double-date, she explains. Not only did the puppeteer's response not answer the child's question, but it also trivialized the issue that might make the child avoid asking other questions because they might be silly.
"It is very important that the answer address the question without raising other issues," Williams says. "This was a good time to turn the question back to the child and ask how the parent dating would make the child feel."
The portable stage and puppets can be moved easily, so the show can be presented at grief camps, community groups, or school groups. "We used to present the show to children up to ages 11 or 12, but we found that they [the older children] were bored," admits Williams. "Even though the script is developmentally appropriate for 11- and 12-year-olds, these children are exposed to so much more sophisticated entertainment that it doesn't hold their interest."
There are few things Knox would change about the puppet show, but he does admit that he would use fewer characters if he wrote another script. "Fewer characters would require fewer puppeteers. This would make the production simpler," he says.
Even with the success of the puppet show, Knox warns that it is only one tool for grief counselors to use. "The show may give children permission and a safe place to express thoughts they haven't shared before, but a counselor needs to follow up with the child to make sure all issues are addressed," he says.
Need More Information?
For more information about The Loss of Locci or the use of puppets in grief counseling, contact:
- Karl Knox, LMHC, LifePath Hospice and Palliative Care, 12973 Telecom Parkway, Suite 100, Temple Terrace, FL 33637. Telephone: (813) 871-8111. E-mail: [email protected].
- Penne Williams, LCSW, Instructor, University of South Florida-Lakeland, 3433 Winter Lake Road, Lakeland, FL 33803. Telephone: (863) 667-7000. Fax: (863) 667-7096. E-mail: [email protected].
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