Grief Experience Cards
Suggested Group(s): Teen
Purpose: To allow group members to express thoughts, feelings and memories about their grief experience.
Task/need: Moving toward the pain of the loss, converting the relationship…to one of memory, relating the loss to a context of meaning
Activity Setup Ideas:
- Note that card playing has become a popular activity for many people.
- Tell the group members that they are going to play their own version of cards.
- If using props like sunglasses & visors, pass one to anyone who wants one.
Materials:
- Deck of playing cards
- Question sheet with a question for each numbered card in the deck
- Optional — visors and sunglasses for each group member and volunteer
Description: Shuffle the cards, and place in the center of the table. Each child draws one card from the pile, and finds the question from the following list that corresponds to the number on the card. Beginning with the person with the highest card, each person answers the question corresponding to the number of his or her card. Ask others in the group to contribute their responses to the question to facilitate a full discussion. Continue around the table until everybody has had the option to answer their own question.
Activity Wrap Up Ideas:
- Thank the group members for sharing & ask how it feels to have somewhere to talk about these things.
Adaptation: Instead of using cards, the activity can be done using dice. The questions answered would then correspond to the numbers on two dice (sixteen through sixty-six.) If using in a larger group, the group can be split into smaller groups doing both activities to build in a 'casino night' theme. (Being sensitive to the fact that some family belief systems do not endorse gambling of any kind, even mock-gambling, and changing the activity if family members have such objections.)
