What we treat
Grief Counseling in Spokane Valley, WA — Children, Teens & Adults
Child, Marriage & Family Counseling provides grief counseling in Spokane Valley, WA for children, teens, adults, and whole families — support after the death of a loved one, and for the other griefs (divorce, moves, diagnoses) that families carry.
Grief doesn’t follow the pamphlet
The five stages make grief sound like an airport walkway. Real grief loops, ambushes, and goes quiet for weeks before showing up at a stoplight. Counseling doesn’t speed grief up — it makes sure no one has to carry it alone, and that it doesn’t get stuck.
Grief we sit with
- Death of a parent, grandparent, sibling, or friend
- Anticipatory grief during a family member’s illness
- Divorce — the grief children rarely get permission to name
- Pet loss, moves, and other “small” losses that aren’t small to a child
- Miscarriage and pregnancy loss
How we work with grief
- Children: play, art, and sand tray work — memory boxes, drawings, worlds built and rebuilt
- Teens & adults: room to say the unsayable — anger at the person who died, relief, guilt — without being managed out of it
- Families: shared sessions that let a household grieve together instead of in seven separate rooms
Getting started
Meet our counselors or send us a message — whenever you’re ready is the right time.
Common questions
- How do children grieve differently from adults?
- In bursts. A child may sob, then ask to play ten minutes later — that's normal, not denial. Children also re-grieve at each developmental stage as they newly understand the loss, and often express grief through behavior and play rather than words.
- When is grief something to get help for?
- Grief itself isn't a disorder, and there's no deadline for it. Counseling helps when grief is stuck — months of numbness, guilt that won't ease, a child whose behavior or school life has derailed, or a family that can't talk about the person at all.
- Do you do grief counseling for the whole family?
- Yes. A family that loses someone loses them together, but each member grieves alone and differently. Family grief sessions help a household mourn in the same room — often for the first time.