Memory books and gender roles

The past month or so I've been working on the curriculum for the 6 session grief group I'm facilitating starting in Sept. I have to say that I missed this part of ministry... the education and facilitation of discussion. I've grown lazy the past 6 months or so when it comes to keeping up with my profession and the ideas and theories out there. So, dredging up the content from seminary and CPE and putting my own twist to it has been fun.

I'm putting in several parts to it, education, sharing/discussion, and activities. I'm not the most artistic person in the world, but I enjoy artsy-craftsy things and trying to find simple low-budget things to do with them.

Not surprisingly I've found most of my ideas in kids bereavement group suggestions. We don't expect kids to be as cerebrally focused as adults. I'm not going to have them create masks of their feelings or sing songs about being sad. However, I did like the idea of including the choice of drawing activities in the assignments at home.

I'm also giving them a simple folder/journal and suggesting activities they can do on their own. I've found some really neat ideas. One of them is based on creating a memory book about the deceased. I've read ideas before about encouraging people to take up as a project interviewing people for stories about the loved one. But this one suggested creating a cook book of favorite food memories, stories intermingled with recipes. I love it!

This springboarded (is that really a verb?) my brain into thinking of other variations... find the person's favorite hobby and focus the memory book around that... say chess or bridge or quilting or puzzles or gardening. So many ways one could spin off from that.

I'm also contemplating working up one of my group study plans for the corporate office. Some of the stuff (ok, most of it) they put out for us to use is so outdated and based on stereotypes that contemporary pyscho-social theory don't take as seriously anymore. It makes me gag... I'm mean, seriously. One of them is on how men and women grieve differently. Yes, a valid conversation.

However, the language was very definitive and authoritative on stereotypical gender roles... as if all men are introverts about ready to burst from bottled up emotions and all women are extraverts who have to gush their emotions all over everyone else in order to function in emotionally stressful situations. PUH-LEEZ. Let's take into account some contemporary thoughts on gender roles and emotional development/personality.

I do have to remember that my hospice doesn't require an MDiv or any CPE to be a chaplain and bereavement coordinator. And so much of the bible school and church school training would reinforce viewpoints I disagree with.

With that in mind, as I was planning a grief group session on why/how people grieve differently, I'm not only covering basic introvert/extravert stuff, etc. I'm using Rev. Gary Chapman's Love Languages... because I know not everyone in the world is jonzing to use psycho-social tools to understand his/her journey. Not everyone has to think like me... I SWEAR!