ds aged 9 not coping well 1 year after granny died

[ErnestTheBavarian]

Lovely mil died of cancer a year ago.

Ds1 is a sensitive wee soul anyway. Now he won't sleep alone - same room ot even good enough - has to sleep in same bed as bro. If he's in the dark, he starts crying and says he has 'bad thoughts' (about one of his family getting sick or dying). I was just putting baby into bed. Though we were having a nice intimate snuggly time and suddenly he's in floods of tears.

I don't know how to help him get over this. He seems to be getting worse gardually, like he's building up more and more in his head. They all have their own room. He hasn't been sleeping with brother all the time the whole year, but now he HAS to.

I don't want him to carry on building it up and making himself worse and worse and developing full on phobias or something. How on earth do you deal with it?

[PhantomOfTheChocolateCakeAvena]

Poor thing. I would go to the GP and ask for some bereavement couselling for him. It's not just for adults.

[ErnestTheBavarian]

The thing tonight was when I was putting baby to bed, so a good 1 to 2 hours before his bedtime, so def. unrelated. He doesn't talk about her much, tho i mention her as in remmebr when we went to that castle with her or something, so just a natural part of conversation rather than a big talk about her. Not got picture, might do that.

I didn't realise the sleeping together was related, just thought they enjoyed whispering at bed time and sharing books, but now I see he gets very enxious at the idea of sleeping alone.
Thank goodness he's so close to his briother, so has the friendship & closeness he needs, but am concerned can't even sit in a dimmed room bf baby without him bursting into tears

[runningoutofsteam]

You could try Winston's Wish - lovely organisation for bereaved children. Advice on website and phone number to speak to someone to get ideas to help your Ds.

www.winstonswish.org.uk

Sorry you lost MIL and still having difficult time, best wishes to your family x

[geekgirl]

oh bless him

no bright ideas from me tbh - but you should be able to get some counselling for him.
I do know how hard it is to watch your child grieve and how helpless it makes you feel - my mum died almost a year ago and dd1 (also 9) misses her terribly and still cries for her on an almost weekly basis. We have books like 'Badger's Parting gifts' and 'Always and Forever' but they just set her off, whereas ds (4) finds it all fascinating and almost exciting.

I am very sorry for your loss.

[ErnestTheBavarian]

guess I need to reassure him soehow we're not all going to drop down dead.

will check out ww, ta. he's up now giggling and gernerally being a pain with naughty bro. Which is a good thing.

[ErnestTheBavarian]

Hmm, I've had a baby recentlyish, and he visited me, so I'm sure he understands that. He said today that he hates being alone for more than a minute - in fact getting him to practise his drums is a nightmare, cos he won't go downstairs to do the 20 minutes recquired daily practise unless someone comes with him, and for obvious reasons, no one really fancies doing so.

it's not normal to never want to be alone, is it? SIgh.

[catweazle]

My DS1 was almost 9 when my dad died and was the hardest-hit by it of my 4 children. We contacted CRUSE and a lovely lady came to the house once a week until she judged he was better.

It seems to be a particularly bad age to lose someone.