When coping with a loss and a change in your family, it is really important for everyone to have a shared story. Often family members can remember things differently and are confused about what happened and when.

Sometimes it is difficult to talk in detail about specific traumatic events and the death itself. It can help instead to think about the whole journey of the family and put the death into context.

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You will need:

• A3 paper 
• Pencils
• Several smooth stones or pebbles of varying sizes
• Coloured permanent pens
• Acrylic or glitter paints
• Small pictures cut out from magazine pictures or stickers
• PVA glue or acrylic spray varnish

Instructions:

1. As a family, think about your ‘story so far’ and write a timeline of six to ten key events in your lives, which may include the bereavement as well as significant changes like starting school, births and happy events.

2. Choose a stone for each of the events on the timeline.

3. Decorate the stones with stickers, drawings in permanent marker, glued pictures from magazines or simply with the date of the event.

4. When the stones are dry, you can coat them with PVA glue or spray them with varnish (an adult should do this outside).

5. The stones can be kept in a special bag or memory box and added to in the future with each significant event in the family.

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Watch our short animated film which suggests ways children and young people can remember someone important to them who has died.