Ep. 12: Finding Hope and Living with Grief After Trauma in Your Teens. With Mark Lemon.

If your child has experienced the loss of a parent, or someone very close to them, I hope this episode will help. My guest in this episode is Mark Lemon, an award-winning children’s author who talks openly about his own grief after the murder of his Dad.

A bit about Mark Lemon

Mark is the host of the brilliant podcast, Grief is My Superpower, where he chats with his guests about their losses, in the hope of helping children and families come to terms with their own bereavements, and find a way through sadness.

He has also turned his own tragedy into a massive positive, by writing The Magical Wood, a book for bereaved children. The book has recently received recognition from Prince Harry, who was just 12 – the same age as Mark - when his mother Diana also died in shocking circumstances.

We discussed:

The article Mark wrote for The Guardian that was to be the beginning of his advocacy for bereaved children, and ultimately the drive towards his award winning book.

How Mark has opened up his social channels to allow his followers a place to see his sadness, and to share their own.

What happened to Mark’s father, and how the death of a parent can shatter a child’s world.

How teenagers often box up their emotions, finding it difficult to open up, and how important it is to support them to do that, rather than grief being channelled in more troubled ways.

How important it is for teachers and parents to support children through tricky behaviours while they're processing trauma.

How Mark has coped with trauma and grief - finding purpose through passion, and a career in music. How doing things they love can help a reluctant teen to find purpose and to start to talk about their feelings.

How important it was for Mark to step away from his father’s murderer, rather than dwelling on anger and revenge.

Mark also told me that you never really get rid of grief - have a listen to his brilliant way of describing how his own grief differs day to day, and how he manages that.

Where to connect with Mark

• Instagram @marklemonofficial
• Twitter @lemondropbooks
• Mark's website Lemon Drop Books

You can also now buy The Magical Wood as an audiobook, with £2 from each sale going to palliative, neurological and bereavement support charity, Sue Ryder.

Support for bereaved children

• Cruse Bereavement Care
• Winston’s Wish, for which Mark is an ambassador.

More teen mental health resources

Thank you so much for listening! Subscribe now to the Teenage Kicks podcast to hear all my new episodes. I'll be talking to some fabulous guests about difficult things that happened to them as teenagers - including overcoming a stammer, becoming a young carer, and being hospitalised with mental health problems - and how they overcame things to move on with their lives.

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