Four Thought Podcast: After a Parent Dies

Four Thought is a podcast hosted on Radio Four and this episode features Anna Wardley who argues that there should be better support for children who have faced parental suicide. Anna is a British endurance swimmer and she begins the podcast by talking about her experience in the dark waters of the English Channel as she attempts to swim non-stop around the Isle of Wight and she uses this event throughout her talk as a comparison to the darkness she felt after her father took his own life when she was a child.

Anna talks about various important topics surrounding child bereavement such as, it being very common for a child to try to minimise their feelings in order to allow the surviving parent to feel better. She refers back to her own experiences of many people thinking she wasn’t affected by her father’s death as she was trying to make things better for her mother. She also delves into the impact that parental suicide can have on their children growing up and how vital it is to end the taboo around people with children taking their own life, as the failure to talk about it doesn’t stop it from happening. This can cause problems for the future as children learn what is right and wrong to talk about from adults. 

Anna has since set up the Luna Foundation, which she discusses in depth in the podcast, to transform the support for children and young people who have lost a parent to suicide and views this as a vehicle for positive change. This podcast is very educational and honest and explores the impact of parental suicide which is often not spoken about enough.

We would recommend listening to this podcast for anyone who has lost a parent to suicide or wants to learn more about supporting a child  through their grieving process as Anna talks a lot about her own experience during this time and what would have helped her.