What do we do With the Empty Desk? (IN: Beyond the Innocence of Childhood: Helping Children and Adolescents Cope With Death and Bereavement, edited by D W Adams & E J Deveau)

This chapter has 2 focuses: 1) to outline the important steps in telling children that one of their classmates is dead; & 2) to explore ways of promoting healthy healing following the death of a classmate. This includes a discussion of facilitating goodbye rituals & delineating between a ritual of goodbye, a commemoration of the life lost, & a memorialization. Suggestions & examples will be given. Common potential pitfalls are identified. (6 refs.)