Part 3
Detective work for blaming yourself: Pie Charts
Some kids blame themselves during grief. Not everyone feels like it’s their fault. Please skip this if it doesn’t apply.
For example, Jamie thought ‘It is my fault my parents divorced’. Riley thought ‘I should have warned Charlie to stop the bike accident’.
It’s important to try detective work to see if the thoughts are true because thoughts are not facts. Thoughts may or may not be true.
A pie-chart can help with detective work.
First, do a pie-chart of what your usual thinking says. For Riley and Jamie, it looked like this:
To do detective work, Jamie and Riley asked themselves:
1. Aside from you, what are all the things that contributed?
They made a list of everything and everyone they could think of.
They thought about what a friend would say to them if they said it was their fault.
They also thought about what they would tell a friend who said it was their fault.
2. Thinking about all of these things, how much of a slice does each one have?
They added everything to a new pie-chart and made a slice for each.
Trying detective work to see if your thinking is true can help you to feel better.
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