Atlanta fair offers free support for grieving children

I want to take you to a really important story. This is probably one of the more important stories we're going to cover today, and it has to do with children coping with grief. And it's a chance for them to reconnect, play, and just be kids. And so Experience Camps is hosting its first ever It's Not Fair, Fair Today, a free event for grieving children and their families. And our Eila Jordan joins us now live with all the details this morning. Eila, this is a really important thing that goes on because children experiencing grief I mean, that's just a hard thing for anyone to experience, but it's better when they are being helped through it by professionals. It's definitely a tedious emotion to handle for, you know, children to be experiencing grief. I mean, they don't have the vocabulary for it. And also, too, they just don't have the experience, emotional experience to really, you know, fathom what has happened and how to process it. And I think, you know, a lot of parents, a lot of caregivers tend to forget to, you know, sit down and talk to their children about grief because it can be very, very uncomfortable. And that's what Experience Camps is trying to help, you know, get kids to talk about it or, you know, have them, you know, realize that there's other kids out there experiencing it. We encourage talks amongst, excuse me, themselves about it. And joining me right now is Katie, she's the communications manager with Experience Camps. Katie, thank you very much. Thank you. And so tell me, what all is going on here today? You've got a 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. event going on, and what all is happening? So this is the It's Not Fair Fair. We see some of these issues have taken place in the last So we're throwing a fair and it's the opportunity couple of years. We're also seeing a lot of negative feedback, particularly for us to support children who are grieving from people that are not comfortable with a certain as well as their families to understand that grief experience. I think this is a very powerful thing to do, to take advantage and joy can coexist and that it's okay of. I think that's just a very for us to talk about it. important part of the It's okay for us to see things like someone died situation. I think that's just a very important part of the and to talk about those feelings and situation. We're seeing a lot of positive feedback, and we're how we get through. able to see that, because And so, I mean, you've got a lot of events here. that's something that we're able to do in a very I mean, it's not just, you know, coming and hanging out, collaborative way. Thank you very much for but I mean, there's some things giving us your time. to let some emotion loose and also just, If you have any other questions, please feel free to follow us on Twitter. you know, kind of express how they're feeling We're also going to have You know, there's... There's outside, you know, event, you know, I got some stations to go to, but right here, what do we have going on here? So this is called Grief Can Be a Monster, and this is where kids can take a ball of clay and they can create a face that shows what their grief looks like. Sometimes, especially for younger children, being able to create grief into something that is tangible helps. And also, too, just putting a face to grief, I think a lot of people don't even think about doing that. And that can really give us some identity and help people put it in their place. Yeah, we don't often ask, what does your grief look like? And something, too, since, you know, this begins at 10 and this is right before it starts, but, you know, there's some misnomers. I guess Elisabeth Kübler-Ross back in 69 said there's five stages of grief that we've been following for decades. That was originally for the dying, not the survivors, correct? Right, right. And it's a lot more complicated than just five stages to get through, isn't it? Very much so. Grief is very complicated. 6.6 million children are going to experience the death of a parent, sibling, or primary caregiver before they turn 18 years old. That's one in 11 kids. And so it's important for us to understand that everyone grieves differently, and it's important for us to allow children the opportunity to figure out what works best for them for their grief. What do you hope kids and I guess, you know, parents with them will walk away from this today as, you know, as they attend this and experience it and head home? What do you hope? We want them to go home with coping mechanisms, but we also want them to realize that grief and joy can coexist. Grief isn't just about being sad. You can talk about your person and still find joy. So often we don't talk about grief or we don't talk about that person who died because we're afraid it's going to make our kids sad, but ultimately it is a part of our life and that grief is going to live with them forever. And I mean, like you said, I mean, you could be laughing and crying at the same time when you're thinking about somebody. Absolutely. And I mean, that's therapeutic because you're letting some of this, you know, tight, bundled up. Absolutely, yeah. And, you know, we were speaking about, you know, a lot of kids who don't deal with grief. I mean, they can end up in, you know, various circumstances as they get older, correct? Absolutely. We understand that children who aren't able to deal with their emotions often find themselves in some kind of... I want to be sure that we're supporting kids and we're supporting the next generation coming into the world. Well, Well, awesome. Katie Baxter with Experience Camps here for the It's Not Fair Fair. It starts up at 10 a.m., goes until 2, and there's a lot to it, a lot of different stations. We're going to be showing you around this morning, but we're out here at Trees Atlanta at the Treehouse, and this is a free event. They already got 500 people signed up. Yeah, but they got... You know, a rage room here, Tyler, and they got a lot of other, like, a campfire set where you can go and, like, maybe chat with other teens who will be showing up and just talking about what they're processing and dealing with. And maybe just out here just to have a good time and maybe forget about a little bit of what's been on their mind. But we'll be out checking it all out. They're just getting things all set up. I'm here in the little lobby area of the tree house here at Trees Atlanta. But there's a lot of stuff outside. And so we'll be checking it out as the morning goes on. Tyler, I'll kick it back in. Certainly an important event that is going on today. Eli Jordan live for us. We'll be checking in with you throughout the morning and into the afternoon.