Rainbows

The boys have obviously been through a lot since Aaron and Noah have passed away.   At times they deal with things okay, and other times they struggle a lot. When we are busy and in a routine they seem to cope a lot better.   School holidays always seems to be harder for all of us, and there are lots more tears as we go out and do things that we used to love doing together as a family. 

With the boys' ages being so different they all deal with things so differently.  

Last week Harri was really upset and said 'I hate seeing people die! It's not fair that we've had two people die in our family' and I agreed with him. Sometimes I have just given him a hug and have said 'it's okay' and he will yell back at me 'it's not okay!' and I do have to agree.  I have learnt to just listen and not try to fix things, especially for Harri as he's at an age where he really understands things and just needs to talk about what he's been through.

When Kobe is really grieving his behaviour is terrible.  During the school holidays he has been really teary, and testing my patience a lot.   He argues a lot with the boys and isn't as resilient as he usually would be.   I've learnt that the best thing to do (even when I want to just scream at him...which sometimes happens) is to just give him a big cuddle.  Once I do, he always calms right down and then just cries and says 'I'm just missing Daddy so much'. 

Because Jalen is so much older he has found it the hardest, but at the moment he is coping the best out of all of the boys. 

Half way through last year Kobe was going through a really hard time, and I was really struggling to know how to help him.  I mentioned it to the Principal at school, and the next day she got an email about a twelve week program called 'Rainbows'.  It's a free program to help young people who are grieving and going through a life-altering crisis.  She asked me what I thought about the boys participating in the program, and I was so grateful as it seemed to come just at the right time. 

Both Harri and Kobe took part in the program at school with a couple of other students their age, and absolutely loved it.  The lady who ran it was lovely, and the boys loved telling me all the things they talked about.  They both got a special journal which they got to fill in each week, and each week covered a different topic.
I actually didn't expect it to help them very much, so I was surprised that it helped them a lot.   Both the boys really settled down while they were participating in the program, and Kobe went back to the old Kobe we knew and loved. 

The program finished a couple of weeks before the end of school last year, and the boys were excited to bring all their things home from the program.  On the last day they got to choose a teddy bear to keep, and had a special lunch together. 

The week after the program finished Harri was in tears again, and said that he wished he was still doing Rainbows.  All summer the boys have been talking about Rainbows and how they wished they were still doing it.  We are looking forward to school going back, as we have been told that the boys can do the program again, and I know it will help them a lot.