How to cope with guilt after a student passes away
Teachers dealing with the death of a student often experience heavy regret over not checking in more often or knowing them better. This overwhelming guilt makes it difficult to process the personal loss while figuring out how to break the news to the rest of the class.
What people tried
Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.
- 1trying not to second guess or replay what you could have done differently
- 2giving yourself grace right now
In their words
Unedited, most upvoted first, each linked to the thread it came from.
“I wish I had more time to know her. I wish I checked up on her more often than greeting/check in at the door. I wish I checked in with her more about absences. I’m feeling a lot of guilt and regret and I was wondering how to cope with that, as well as what to do when my students come to know of the news sooner or later.”source ↗
“I had a friend commit suicide about ten years ago and I started going back over all the times I didn’t check in on her or this or that.”source ↗
Where this came up
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