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Troubling issues with my daughter


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My daughter is 6, will be 7 next month. In the last week she has had 2 major hysterical crying episodes. Both have been about death. The first one was that I was going to die and leave her and never come back. The second (last night) was that she didn't want to grow up, get old and die. We are religious, go to church etc. and so told her that she would be in heaven and all would be fine. Her response was that there is no such thing and it wouldn't be the same. We were stunned...totally stunned. We asked her why she thought there was no heaven and she said it wouldnt be the same as being alive. I can't imagine where she got the idea that there is no heaven from but I also think perhaps she meant more the second part....it woudn't be the same. She is a deep thinker so I can see where that might come up and worry her. We were able to calm her down and assure her all would be well....not the least of which is that being 6 she hopefully will not have to worry about this for some time. Its just very odd and I am wondering if anyone else had this sort of trouble at this age...and if so, is it a phase that will pass, what did you do to help. Sunday school will be starting back up again soon and I will speak with her teacher which hopefully will help as well! Thanks for any thoughts!

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Has anyone close to you died recently or not so recently? Or is she around other kids who might have had such an experience? I ask because my 4yo had some issues last week (crying because she didn't want me to die and she didn't want to die herself). We were at my mom's house and she was trying to figure out why there was no Grandpa at Grandma's house. DS8 had innocently told her that Grandpa (my dad) was dead and no one would ever see him again. Well, that didn't go over well in her 4yo mind and we spent a few days dealing with it but it seems to have passed.

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My 8yo has had several bouts of hysteria regarding death in the past year or so. It is SO hard to watch. :grouphug:

 

We focus mostly on hugs and empathy, and do our best to reassure her that we will most likely be here for so many more years that she'll eventually get sick of us, without making any promises she's old enough to know we can't guarantee. We also reflect on how the people and pets we have lost in the past are still a part of our hearts, and our love never goes away.

 

We're not a religious family, so we don't have an afterlife to discuss. But it makes perfect sense (imo) for any small child to focus more on the tangible.

 

Lots and lots of :grouphug: to you both!

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When my son was that age he suddenly became very worried about us dying. Then that worry was added to about not wanting to go to a work house and not have enough to eat.

 

We realized he'd been watching Oliver.

 

My friend's daughter had similiar problems after watching Annie.

 

Has she read or watched something recently?

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Thanks to all!! No one close to us has died however a child in my day care has severe asthma that has required 2 trips to the ICU since June and had all of us concerned and worried. That may have brought this on to some extent. We just finished our year of studying the ancients....violent times, perhaps that also added to things. Otherwise it seems to have just come out of the blue which is what has us so troubled.

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:grouphug: That must have been so hard to deal with, for both of you.

 

I'm reading Nurture by Nature (Myers-Briggs as it relates to child raisng) right now, and I think I remember reading that one of the types was particularly sensitive in this way....INFP maybe? Might be a helpful book to reference for ideas on how to help your dd.

 

http://www.amazon.com/Nurture-Nature-Responsible-Children-Personality/dp/0316845132/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1283098558&sr=8-1

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DD6 is a deep thinker as well, loves Jesus, has accepted Christ, and she's been in church since she was born. But she's also a nervous child and has trouble having faith in God in times of worry. However, I'm the same way. Recently, in her nighttime prayers, she has begun to add the following:

 

"Please don't let mommy and daddy die or anyone that we know die. Please help our house not to catch on fire, or anyone else's house that we know either."

 

She's my oldest but I can't help but think that this is the age where life and death really becomes real to a child. Before this, I don't think they understood what death means. But now, it starts to become more clear.....you don't see the person again till heaven. For a child, being seperated from their parent is a terrifying thing, even if they have been taught that they are with God. All they can think of is that they won't be with their parents any longer.

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Speaking of the death part, deep thinking and emotions, I experienced this with my ds who is now 18. At age 6 he was SO afraid of losing me or both dh and I. He was an extremely deep thinker who couldn't fall asleep at night until he got all his thoughts out. This really concerned me and then I heard Bill Gates mother speak about him as a child and felt at ease as he sounded so much like my ds.

 

Now at 18, he's the most deep thinking, compassionate, loyal kid his age. He's got an imagination that's to be envied and is a gifted writer. It was a phase for him and it passed.

 

About heaven - don't remember that issue arising. One thing I was careful to do was NOT tell him I'd never leave him or something. Heaven forbid should I have said something like that and then died, or was taken, suddenly.

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Kids this age are at a difficult developmental phase. They are transitioning from concrete to abstract, particularly if they are very smart. Often, the bright kids struggle because their minds can conjure up thoughts that they are not emotionally equipped to handle or understand. Death is not a permanent concept to most kids the age because of the developmental stage they are in. She is not rejecting your religous beliefs. She is just trying to make sense of her thoughts and feelings. Lots of reassurance should help. Sometimes delving deeply into the topics makes an anxious child more anxious so I would answer her questions, provide reassurance and move on to something a bit more light hearted. Do watch what she is reading/watching on TV and keep her environment as "innocent" as possible. You can also ask her if she has any worries on her mind that she hasn't told you about. Kids often have a whole thought life that adults would be surprised by. (I'm a therapist specializing primarily in kids so I typically get a window into these thoughts in a way that most adults don't.)

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I can remember worrying about such things at that age. I too was a deep thinker and spent way too much time focusing on things out of my control, lol!

I grew up in a denominational church that had a lot of rules, and though I was a good rule follower then, God and heaven appeared very distant and cold to me.

 

Your dd is going to have a difficult time grasping the reality of heaven anyway~even if she believes in it.

I would focus on reinforcing God's love for her here and now.

 

She's not too young for scripture memory; I'd repeat Romans 8:38-39 (For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.) to her until it became a part of her.

 

I have seen my own young children comforted by scripture many times.

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:grouphug: That must have been so hard to deal with, for both of you.

 

I'm reading Nurture by Nature (Myers-Briggs as it relates to child raisng) right now, and I think I remember reading that one of the types was particularly sensitive in this way....INFP maybe? Might be a helpful book to reference for ideas on how to help your dd.

 

http://www.amazon.com/Nurture-Nature-Responsible-Children-Personality/dp/0316845132/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1283098558&sr=8-1

 

Makes sense--I think I'm INFP & I've always had issues with this. I know part of it is not being able to see/grasp exactly what it will be like, and what it is like will be PERMANENT--so then it gets thrown into "unknown/fear" category. I mean, I feel like I have a darn good idea of what it will be like, and I know that it will be much more familiar to me when I get there, but right now I don't have the picture of it in my brain so I freak out. I also have anxiety issues and get panic attacks, and this mostly just feeds in as one trigger for panic attacks. I know it's not really a logical fear at all--intellectually I have no fear/worry about it at all. At the pure emotional/anxiety-driven level, I have a lot. I'm the kid who stayed up until I passed out from pure exhaustion on the couch every night worried that there would be a fire & we would all die while we were sleeping. Dd is showing signs of anxiety like me but so far she is eerily accepting of death. (She has said in the past that she wants to die, because then she could get out of whatever she didn't want to do now & she'd be happy with Jesus instead.) So the flip side is a little odd, too. I don't know how to really fix the anxiety about death, as I still have anxiety issues, but the more spiritually sound I am, the more firmly & often I can pray for strength/peace, and THAT is the only thing that 100% fixes my anxiety, at least for a time. :grouphug:

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