7 yr old constantly terrified by thought of me dying....

[Moz50]

My 7 year old son has woken twice this week in absolute terror at the thought of me dying. He says when I die he will kill himself. No amount of calming and reassurance seems to work. He doesn't want to be hugged as he says this makes it worse because it makes him think about how much he loves me and how much he would miss me when I die. He is an only child and I am a single parent, 43 yrs old. No other signs of separation anxiety, in fact in the mornings, despite his tiredness, he runs happily into school ahead of me. My mother died at a young age as did his paternal grandfather, so I have had to be honest about it not only being very old people who die. Hopefully I've done this in a senitive but matter of fact manner. In the past he's asked many questions about death, afterlife, burial and cremation, but without any alarm bells. Now I am becoming concerned given the level of his distress. Please help ..

[lost4words]

If you are a lone parent, is his fear of you dying anything to do with that? my child went through a phase of worrying about my death when I split from her father and he stopped seeing her for a while. DC was worried about me leaving, too. Got quite worked up for a while, but eventually calmed down. Still asks lots of questions about death, but they are less focussed on my demise (my dad died and it fascinated DC.... talking about it with geniunely fascinated individual was cathartic in a way)

[Romanarama]

Not sure if this helps, but my 7 yr old has real terrors about dying himself. Real distress. He says he knows it's irrational but can't help thinking about it.

[cory]

Let's face it, it is scary when we first come to face the thought of our own mortality. It's only because we've had so many years of getting used to it that most adults are fairly blase about the concept.

Be as calm and comforting as you can, and be on the lookout for signs that it is affecting his overall ability to enjoy life, but other than that I think it probably is something he has to work through- we all have at some stage.