Talking to children about their grief can be difficult and you may feel as though you can't choose a ‘good’ time. Maybe there isn’t a good time to talk about grief, sometimes your child might ask questions at awkward times or not want to address the topic at all. A suggestions f for trying to talk to the child about their grief is to carry out an activity at the same time as bringing up their emotions.

This activity is a simple arts and crafts project to help you decorate for the Halloween season or any time of the year if you’re fans of spiderwebs!

You can start the activity as you would at any other time, then try to begin a conversation about fears and emotions. Children often become fearful of lots of different things during their developmental years, and for a grieving child it is normal to develop a fear of death. Spiders can be a common fear, so this activity may be a time when talking about fears doesn’t feel so out of the blue.

You could then lead into a conversation by asking “what else are you scared of?” to try to discuss their feelings of fear. If it feels okay to do so, you might ask, “when you think about your special person, what emotions do you feel?”.

It can be difficult to be prepared for their questions and answers when children are talking about grief and big emotions. If you don’t know the answer or how to respond, be honest with them and say that you’ll think about it and come back to that later.

For advice on how to start this conversation with the child, please see our resources on supporting a bereaved child, where you will also find information on children's understanding of death at different ages. 

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You will need:

• Paper
• Scissors
• String or thread

Instructions to make a spider web:

1. Start with a sheet of A4/printer size (or bigger) paper and lay it flat on a surface.

2. Fold one of the corners diagonally across the paper to align the edges together (the corners won’t meet but the folded section should create a perfect triangle).

3. Trim off the excess paper at the bottom below the triangle shape.

4. Fold the triangle in half again to create a smaller triangle and then fold again.

5. Ask an adult or use safety scissors to trim off the excess - you should end up with a triangle that has two very long sides and one short side. 

6. On the short side, ask an adult or use safety scissors to cut a curve or an arc from edge to edge.

7. Make sure to only cut from one of the long edges and don’t cut all the way across. Cut out thin rectangles across the triangle – these rectangles will create the lines of the web.

8. Gently unfold your triangles to reveal your spider web!

Instructions to make a paper spider:

1. Using black paper or paper you’ve coloured in, cut out one small circle and one larger oval shape – these will be the head and body of your spider

2. Cut four long thin rectangles. They should be much longer than the oval body – these will be your legs

3. Glue the circle onto the top edge of the oval shape.

4. Take your four long thin rectangles and glue them across the oval shape so they hang off each side of the spider’s body.

5. Make a fold by bending halfway along the thin rectangles to make the shape of spider legs.

6. Then fold or crease the parts of the legs that are closest to the body to make sure your spider can stand up

7. If you have  some googly eyes, you can stick them onto the head. If not, you could draw them on or cut out small white circles and glue them on.

If you’d like to, take a photo and tag us on social media – we’d love to see your Halloween spiderweb decorations!