Teen Tuesday: Grief

How do you deal with the unexpected suicide of a teenager in the community of the students in your class? Do you ignore it, or do you teach a lesson that will help them deal with it? Teen Tuesday posts are written by Danielle Ringold. The basic lesson plan with scripture and questions are in the download for this post.

These were the questions I was faced with this week. I had originally prepared to wrap up my quarter of lessons in teaching my students about how Jesus is qualified to be our High Priest through the temptations He faced while on earth. 

Then, three hours before class started a request was made to me to address the suicide of a teenager in the community. I agreed. It has to be talked about. Teenagers are fragile emotionally and I can't pretend something major didn't happen. So, in a very short amount of time I created a discussion, therapeutic type lesson that was based on scripture that I believed would help my students.

The first thing I did was rearrange the seating. There needed to be a feel that discussion was priority. I removed all of the tables and formed a circle with the chairs. I then found 5 passages from the Bible that related to dealing with grief and made 5 posters. Each poster had the scripture at the top and two discussion questions. Print the basic lesson plan, scriptures, and questions here.

We began our class with prayer and then read Ephesians 4:29. We talked a little about what our words should do for each other before moving into the meat of the lesson. I then had the students count off by 5 and sent them to the corresponding posters. The students would read the passage, put the passage in their own words, and then discuss the questions. The students really enjoyed this!

Finally, after the students had rotated through all of the posters, we formed a circle again and as a group discussed one question from each poster. This was my favorite part. I loved hearing the thoughts of my students on this difficult topic. They were so insightful!

I encourage all teachers to be aware of what is going on in their student's lives and differentiate based on what they know their students need. They will be so thankful that you did. Close with a prayer. Print the basic lesson plan, scriptures, and questions here.

Hello! My name is Danielle Ringold. You may recognize the children in the picture because my mom is Debbie Jackson, the owner of the Bible Fun for Kids website.