ASK THE EXPERT:A child's fear of losing someone close to them is often predicated by some experience of death, writes DAVID COLEMAN
Q OUR ALMOST 10-year-old son has suddenly become very weepy and clingy. We have explored as many possibilities as possible with regard to bullying, etc but cannot find any evidence of that.
He told us after a week of this behaviour that he was worried about us dying and has asked numerous related questions since then, so I do think that is the root of his problem. I know it is a very common cause of worry in (younger?) children.
Thank God, there is no reason for him to worry about this and we have not been bereaved recently. We hope it is just a passing phase but how would you suggest we deal with him?
Although he is genuinely upset, sometimes it appears that he is really stringing this out and we wonder is the “softly softly” approach just prolonging the agony for him?
A YOU ARE absolutely right that fear of death or the fear of someone close dying is a very common fear among children. It is more often found among the five- to eight-year age group, but it can occur for any child at any age.
Usually the fear is predicated by some experience that a child has of death. This can be death of a pet, a relative or a close family friend. However, children are also exposed to death through the media.
If you think of most TV or radio news reports, death is reported upon on an almost daily basis and so children don’t need a personal experience of bereavement to have an awareness of death. This may be the case for your son.
Indeed the deaths reported upon in the media are often tragic, violent or gruesome deaths and so they can have a very significant effect on children who hear about them or see them.
Younger children, your son included, may have little or no coping mechanisms in place to cope with death. In fact, death is such an existential and unknown phenomenon that many people find it hard to cope with the uncertainty and apparently random nature of it.
Anxieties and fears are often more powerful when they are about things over which we have no control. Usually, if we have influence over an event then we can reduce our anxiety by taking some kind of action.
The other thing to bear in mind in relation to fears is that they can be “fluid” or “fixed”. Fluid fears are those which seem transitory and are often quite situational in nature.
That is to say that once the feared event occurs or seems unlikely to occur or can be controlled, the fear reduces or passes. Fixed fears are those that remain relatively constant and seem resistant to change.
I would guess from what you are describing that your son’s fear of death is fluid. It has arisen apparently suddenly and I believe that with the support you are already offering it will pass or diminish.
You may be correct that your empathetic responses to your son may be leading him to continue to experience the fear, perhaps, as you suggest, because he realises that you will always respond to him when he expresses the fear.
However, by listening to him and helping him to understand that he is afraid and by accepting that the fear is real and valid you actually give him the skills to cope with the fear.
Part of what may help him to deal with it further is to highlight the unlikely nature of his own death, or yours.
However, naturally, you cannot give him cast iron guarantees that none of you will die soon. Importantly, though, you can also help him to focus more on life and what can be achieved while we live and breathe.
In this way you are allowing him to really experience the fear but then not letting him wallow in it so that it becomes all pervasive.
Most of us who have ever contemplated death will eventually try to rationalise the likelihood of it happening. We also learn that because we can’t actually control death, we are better off not thinking about it all the time and so we put it to the back of our minds.
This is as much as you can offer to your son. Don’t stop your “softly softly” approach. While his anxieties about death are strong he needs you to continue to help him to buffer the feelings. He may feel overwhelmed by his fear and so by continuing to talk to him and to empathise with his fear you filter the feelings and reduce their intensity.
You are helping him to regulate his feeling of fear and it is important that you continue to help him in this way until he can regulate it himself. By listening to him, empathising with him and then distracting him to a focus on life, school, hobbies, friends and so on, you give him the best chance to learn to cope with, and minimise, his fear of death.
- David Coleman is a clinical psychologist and broadcaster with RTÉ television. Readers' queries are welcome and will be answered through the column, but David regrets he cannot enter into individual correspondence
- Questions should be e-mailed to healthsupplement@irishtimes.com