Transcript for
Working with children affected by suicide – part two

Ben Shannahan (00:00): I think a really important guiding principle, or at least something that’s been important to my work, is to trust in the ability of children, young people and families, to find ways through this. If we ask the right questions, “Are you finding ways of engaging with young people who’s creativity with what is important to them, what matters to them with the skills and the knowledge and the values that they have, and connecting those with significant relationships in their life and exploring the history of these?” These are all really important realms, I think, to be helping people to connect with when they’re making sense of experiences that they’ve been through. 

 

Narrator (00:41): Welcome to the Emerging Minds podcast. 

 

Chris Dolman (00:48): Hi everyone. My name is Chris Dolman, and you’ve just heard from Ben Shannahan. Ben’s a narrative family therapist based in Perth with Anglicare’s CYPRESS service, which is a suicide bereavement service for children and young people. Our conversation was recorded on the lands of the Kaurna people in South Australia and Whadjuk Country in Western Australia. In bringing this to you, we pay respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, their ancestors and elders past, present, and emerging from the different First Nations across Australia. This is the second of a two-part series. In the first episode, among other things, Ben spoke about helping parents navigate conversations with children about the suicide of a loved one, as well as the place of understanding and honouring the relationship between the child and the person who’s died. 

 

(01:33): In this episode, Ben will speak about some of the ideas surrounding suicide that can be potentially unhelpful for families, as well as the importance of not underestimating children’s wisdom and creativity in navigating these difficult times. You’ll hear some lovely stories of practise in this episode too, and that’s what’s ahead. And as always, we hope you find it of interest and supportive of your practise in working with children and young people and their families. 

 

(01:58): So Ben, you mentioned earlier that sometimes parents have this idea that talking about the suicide of a loved one with children and young people means that they may be more likely to engage in suicide thinking themselves, for example. I was wondering if you could speak a bit more about some of those other ideas about suicide that can be potentially unhelpful for families. 

 

Ben Shannahan (02:18): So I guess we want to make room for people to talk about or to help us understand what their worries are and where these worries come from. And this may be because there’s a belief in a family that we can’t have this happen. There may be another experience of suicide in a community where no one has spoken about it and that this could be other reasons. So there could be other reasons why people don’t talk about suicide, of course. And these are, sort of we think about the historical factors that have contributed to silence around suicide and this being something new, but that can’t be spoken about is the suicide was a crime not so long ago, that it’s a sin or a serious transgression in many different faiths. 

 

(03:05): And so this can bring great shame to families and rob them of dignity, and also rob the person of dignity who died. So this is something that people don’t want to be talking about or to be made public. And there are good intentions that families have. They want to protect their children as well. So the value of protecting our children can be something that sort of feeds into that. So we know though that the more that we talk about suicide, the more safety can be created. So if it’s something that can’t be spoken about, then it can mean that when people are captured by thoughts of ending their own life or by other, not just about thoughts of ending their life, but also captured by the different effects of being bereaved by suicide, that because suicide is not something that can be spoken about. It can also contribute to people thinking well, that they can’t talk about what they’re experiencing, which can really get in the way of healing, and it can isolate people from each other. It can rob families of opportunities to be able to find ways of supporting each other. 

 

(04:17): I think there’s a belief sometimes that children are not going to be able to cope with the reality or how painful this is, because it’s such a painful and confusing event for families to navigate and wouldn’t want for a moment to say this is not a profoundly painful and confusing situation for families to navigate. But I think what gets underestimated sometimes is the wisdom and the creativity and the skills that children bring to navigating and responding to hardship, and this being one of the most profound hardships that kids may face and confusing hardships that they may face. 

 

Chris Dolman (04:58): Yes. And so that wisdom and creativity that children bring to responding to this profound hardship, is that something that you’re really keen on exploring? 

 

Ben Shannahan (05:06): Yeah, very much so. I guess in many ways it is… I guess being interested in that is something that really helps to sustain me in this work and my team. And I mean, there’s so much I can say about that. 

 

Chris Dolman (05:24): Okay. Well, how do you start to bring forward children’s wisdom and creativity then in the context of the suicide of a loved one? 

 

Ben Shannahan (05:32): I guess there’s a few things. I guess young people that I work with are often offering so much, and my job is just to listen really closely to what they’re bringing and staying close to what… and sort of pulling on little threads that they’re offering me. So this six-year-old boy that I meet with wasn’t talking to me much at all. And he said to me one day, “I wear a patch over my left eye. I don’t see very well, so I have to wear a patch. I look like a pirate. I’ve got a beard.” And so it’s great working with kids having this. And he said to me, one of the few occasions that he was talking to me or he would say anything, he said, “What’s your real name?” I said, “Well, my real name’s Ben.” And he said, “No, no. What’s your real, real name” And I said, “Oh, its…” He said, “Your pirate name.” I said, “Oh, my pirate name.” And I said, “Well, it’s Captain Brown Beard.” And he said, “Oh, okay.” And then he sort of moved on to the next theme and playing something else. 

 

(06:39): And then it was towards the end of the session, I was seeing him the next week, and I realised after the session, I thought, “I’ve missed an opportunity here.” So when I met with him the next week with his nan, I said to him, “Look, I’m really sorry. I really wish I’d asked you a question when we met last week, but I didn’t ask it, and can I ask it today?” And he nodded. And I said, “I didn’t ask you what your real, real name is and what your pirate name would be.” And he sort of shrugged his shoulders. I was anticipating that, and I’ll call him Bob. So I said, “Well, could it be Captain Bob?” And he nodded, and he wrote Captain Bob down on a piece of paper. And then I said, “Well, what about your nan? What would her real name be?” He shrugged his shoulders again. And I said, “Hmm.” He said, “I don’t know about this, but could it be Captain No Beard?” And he smiled, he said, “Yes.” And so he wrote Captain No Beard down, and then he wrote Captain Brown Beard. 

 

(07:39): And we talked about being… I said, “Well, if we were a pirate crew, what would be the best way of us talking?” Because he was just not talking to me. And I said, “Should we write each other notes?” Because he would usually write sort of yes or no answers on this. And he shook his head, and he said, “No.” And I said, “Well, why?” And he said, “Well, because they get blown away and they get wet.” I said, “Okay.” I said, “Well, should we whisper to each other?” And he said, “No, that’s no good either.” And I said, “Well, why not?” He said, “Well, because it’d be too windy and the waves would be too noisy. We wouldn’t be able to hear each other.” “And what would be the best way of us talking or communicating so we can steer the ship?” So he said, “Well, we should shout at each other.” And then he told me… I said, “Well, can you show me how loud we should shout?” So he showed me, this was quite a good volume. 

 

(08:33): So we had a metaphor of being on a ship together, and then we could think about what some of the obstacles would be. And he said that, fast forwarding, we talked about, he started talking to me, was the headline from this. I couldn’t shut him up then, but he talked about confusion being something that was really big for him and that it was like a storm. And so we talked about who we needed to have in the ship to navigate this storm of confusion. And so I guess to answer your question, when we get these little sort of glimmers of kids being playful about things, and sometimes I had no idea where this was going to go when I was asking him about this. But sometimes just trusting that the knowledge that kids have, their ability to engage with metaphor, be playful with it, that it could take us somewhere useful, and really allowing the metaphors to do the work sometimes can be really useful. 

 

(09:40): So yeah, we were able to have conversations about this confusion and about the questions that were coming out of the confusion and how we could sort of start to settle the storm a bit. And we’re having conversations about things that he hadn’t spoken about, questions that he didn’t really have words for that we could speculate about as well. And he could tell us whether that was something he was interested in or not, or this would be something that would help calm the storm or not. 

 

Chris Dolman (10:04): Thanks, Ben. Yeah, that’s a really beautiful story. I love how this nan, or should I say Captain No Beard really joined in with this, and it was a meaningful metaphor because it sprung from his imagination. And so once that metaphor was established, so to speak, what was it that you were really keen to explore or understand or bring forward in your conversation with them? 

 

Ben Shannahan (10:27): I guess one of the things that I wanted to… one of my intentions was to run with the idea that he wasn’t alone on this ship, that there was a crew of people trying to sort of sail through this storm and that they were there to help him, but he was also there to help them and that he could choose who he had on the ship. This was something… There’s some agency there. He could turn to these people if he ever had questions, even if they didn’t know the answers. This is another big thing, a big topic for families that we work with is that kids have a wonderful timing in asking really curveball questions at the most inopportune times, as people are getting ready for school or at a very… And then they ask this curveball question that’s really hard to answer. So we talked about how his nan always wanted him to ask questions. There was never a question that he couldn’t as., and even if she might not have the answer right there then, but if she didn’t have the answer, then she would think about it. 

 

(11:39): Maybe she could talk with other people about it and maybe she could come back to him about it. And maybe there might be questions that he has, that she won’t be able to answer at the moment, but they might be questions that she can answer when he’s a bit older. But she always wants him to know that he can ask these questions, any questions. So I’m digressing a little bit from what you were asking, but I guess one of the things is him not being alone. The other was to think about some of the skills and the knowledge that he has, that when it comes to what you need to do to navigate a storm about the things… If you were driving a ship, what would you need to be mindful of and how you need to work with others to make that happen? 

 

(12:24): Often, metaphors come out of things that kids know a bit about already, whether it’s sport, whether it’s ballet, whether it’s computer games, that these are realms where kids have some know-how, where they know what they’re doing so that these can be really useful things to lean into. 

 

Chris Dolman (12:42): How important is that in the work of your team, Ben, to be positioning yourselves so that you can lean into these metaphors, lean into children’s wisdom and creativity? 

 

Ben Shannahan (12:51): I think a really important guiding principle, or at least something that’s been important to my work, is to trust in the ability of children, young people and families, to find ways through this. I don’t see it as my job to tell them what they need to do to get through this. I think that’s a burden or it’s a responsibility that one weighs very heavy on us, not just in the suicide bereavement context, but in other contexts when we feel that we’ve got to have the solutions to offer to people to get through things. 

 

(13:23): But I guess to be trusting that people will be able to find a way through this if we ask the right questions. And I guess we are talking a lot today about being playful with or engaging, finding ways of engaging with young people’s creativity with what is important to them, what matters to them, with the skills and the knowledge and the values that they have, and connecting those with significant relationships in their life and exploring the history of these. These are all really important realms, I think, to be helping people to connect with when they’re making sense of the experiences that they’ve been through. 

 

Chris Dolman (14:07): Is there anything else you’d like to speak to, Ben, that is an important or guiding idea of yours and the work of your team? 

 

Ben Shannahan (14:15): I guess an important thing that comes up when I’m talking with children and young people is I might ask, “Do you think that grief is something that people ever get over?” This is an idea that people have to get over grief or that you can get over the suicide of a loved one. And because this is an idea, there’s quite a dominant idea that from other people who are just observing this, “Well, why…” But people may not say this, but there could be a feeling sometimes that families have from others. “Well, it’s time to move on. It’s time to get over this.” And when I sort of explore this with young people, and not just teenagers, but ten-year-olds, nine-year-olds, they’re often very, very quick to tell me that this is not something that you can ever get over, but you can find ways of living with it and it’s something that will change over time. 

 

(15:05): And I said, “Well, what is it you think that means that this is something that we can’t ever get over? Or what is it that means that there will always be some sadness or some pain or some… I mean some real mixed bag of feelings?” And as we’re exploring this often that it comes back to love, that their love for this person who is no longer with them physically, the fact that grief goes on forever because love goes on forever. So this is a really important idea, I think, which both helps people to escape from the idea that they need to get over it, to be accepting and acknowledging that they will be visited by waves of pain and sadness and longing and loneliness and lots of different feelings. And whilst laughing and remembering happy memories as well, and this is sort of in more than four seasons in a day, four seasons at the same time sometimes. 

 

(16:11): And that’s okay. And I had a young person the other day writing something and he said that he was writing something to another family about his experience, and he said that it was really important that whatever you are feeling is normal. And so it’s okay because so often, it feels like this is not a normal territory or certainly not a familiar territory, hopefully for families to be navigating. So everything feels a bit abnormal. And the response from a family to this letter, it was so great to hear that what we’re feeling is normal when everything feels so abnormal. 

 

Chris Dolman (16:57): And to be able to facilitate that young person being able to contribute something of his knowledge, his experience to assist another family going through a tough time is fantastic. 

 

(17:08): Ben, thank you for sharing some of your reflections from your work, the work of your team with children and young people and their families. 

 

Ben Shannahan (17:16): Thank you. It’s been a pleasure to talk with you about it. Yeah. 

 

Chris Dolman (17:21): Well, that brings us to the end of this second episode on working with Children affected by suicide. Thanks again to our guest, Ben Shannahan from The CYPRESS Service. And just a reminder that Emerging Minds has a large range of free resources to support your work with children and their families. This includes our free online courses around engaging children, practise strategies for working with children, working with kids in relation to trauma, and many others. So thank you so much for joining us today, and we look forward to your company next time. 

 

Narrator (17:51): Visit our website at emergingminds.com.au to access a range of resources to assist your practise, brought to you by the National Workforce Centre for Child Mental Health. Led by Emerging Minds, the Centre is funded by the Australian Government Department of Health and Aged Care under the National Support for Child and Youth Mental Health Programme.