Sesame Street Has A Resource Kit For Grieving Military Families That We Wish Didn't Have To Exist

Sesame Workshop, the non-profit behind the long-running children's television icon "Sesame Street," has released an appropriately somber, but perhaps incredibly helpful, resource kit for grieving military families.

The kit, titled "When Families Grieve," is part of Sesame Street's Military Families initiative, which began in 2006. "Now, in continued support of military families, Sesame Workshop addresses the difficult subject of the death of a parent," the packet states in its introductory materials.

Included in the kit are a DVD for helping explain the loss of a loved one to children, a children's book, and an in-depth pamphlet for adults that explains how best to cope with grief with a child.

Additional resources, such as printable activities and even videos of Elmo dealing with the loss of a loved one, are also available at the "When Families Grieve" web page.

Sesame Workshop's Military Families initiative includes resources aimed at helping children in military families through through the constant relocations that sometimes come with military life, and at preparing children for a parent's homecoming from deployment. The initiative also includes mobile apps and downloadable PDFs for families.

Below, we have included images of the "When Families Grieve" kit.

The children's book, "Something Small," is about Jesse, who lost her father, trying to find ways to keep the memory of her father alive.

The pamphlet for adults, "When Families Grieve," provides invaluable resources for how to properly deal with grief for both parents and children - including how to properly say goodbye and find comfort together.

The Military Families initiative is part of a series of resources that Sesame Street provides to help families deal with challenging situations. There are also resource packs for helping children deal with divorce and the incarceration of a care giver.

As of July 1, 2014, 6,808 U.S. soldiers have died in operations in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya. Although the U.S. force in Afghanistan is in the process of drawing down, the U.S. military is not scheduled to leave the country until 2016.

In Iraq, U.S. military personnel are being deployed to help the central government deal with the jihadist group ISIS, although the force will not be sent into combat.