How to help my son (11) who’s scared of dying

[SofaKingStressed]

Please help, I’m in over my head here. My just turned 11 year old DS has developed a fear of dying. It started last summer, I’m not sure what triggered it but he mentioned it a few times and got himself really worked up everytime, I gave him a lot of reassurance and it calmed down.

However the panicking has started back up in the last week or so. He gets hysterical everytime we drive past a funeral home (which is pretty unavoidable, they’re everywhere!), on Monday he got himself so upset he was on the verge of a panic attack. I gave him so much reassurance about having nothing to be scared of, it’s nothing he needs to worry about etc. Once he’d calmed down I asked him where this worry had come from and he said he didn’t know and that the thought pops into his head and he can’t get it away. We talked about distraction techniques etc but he says he tries to distract himself but can’t.

He stayed my parents house last night and I got an hysterical call from him at 10.30 crying Down the phone that he was scared Again. I calmed him down and called my mum
who went into him.

I am at a total loss and I’m so upset that my little boy is even thinking these thoughts at such a young age. We have had a loss in our family, we lost a grandparent, an aunt and a niece 3 years ago (however my niece had been poorly since birthday and had a short life expectancy, has not at ALL made the loss any less difficult, tragic or heartbreaking but just to put into context that he hasn’t seen a healthy child suddenly die).

Can anyone give me any advice? I did look at some books online but I honestly don’t think they’d help him. He has dyspraxia which I know can make kids more sensitive and he is a very, very sensitive boy already. But my heart breaks for him 😢

It’s very normal for them to worry about this stuff but the extremity of his reaction is more than I’ve experienced.

telling him not to worry and he he has nothing to fear probably isn’t going to help, albeit it comes from a good place. Because you have had a child in the family die. We see on the news that children die. So he knows it can happen.

My daughter is 12 and has fears about death that stop her sleeping. When it comes on I sit with her and hold her. I remind her that right now she is healthy, safe, and surrounded by love.

when she’s calmer, the next day, we talk about what brought it on, often it’s nothing specific. It’s just a feeling.

one thing she enjoyed is reading Kay’s marvellous medicine and Kay’s anatomy. Books aimed at kids about the human body and how it works. Somehow having that knowledge helped ease things.

i know it’s hard, it breaks your heart, but just be there for him. Tell him you understand and that it’s normal, and give him time. And if it’s getting worse maybe consider some counselling? To me it sounds very much like a type of anxiety.

Hi! My 10yo DS has been through very similar but with a focus on us his parents dying. It came out of the blue but we think maybe partially from anxiety from overhearing news about war and bombing. It was incredibly tough as he stopped sleeping alone, was crying and had panic attacks, terrified of sudden noises, car journeys. The tireder he got the worse.

we were extremely worried that the episode would last forever but it did pass after a lot of reassurance combined with tough love about school attendance.

the one thing that really helped him was the realisation that everyone had times when they had these scary thoughts but they were able to forget them and feel relaxed again, and that he would get to that point too.

he now sometimes talks about how he felt over the summer and how it does not worry him as it did before.

Thank you, I’m glad (not sure that’s the right word!) to know that it’s totally normal. He is definitely an anxious person and worries a lot. I told him everyone gets scared and it’s totally normal. I think the other kids at school have been talking about things on the news and it’s been playing on his mind.

I have thought about counselling before due to his anxiety but he already feels totally abnormal because of his dyspraxia and the adaptions that have been put into place for that at school so I know he’ll just think he’s done something wrong or isn’t ‘normal’ which again is heartbreaking. Plus he moves up to high school this September and right now he is so far away from being ready for that 😭. I’m going to have a big chat with him tonight.

It’s a red flag for ASC I think. Some kids can really really struggle with managing their response to realising people will die and can have very bleak and obsessive thoughts and depersonalise in response. It’s very difficult ti manage. Could you get him some counselling?

its really hard. My youngest is having counselling at the moment. We had a conversation about how it wasn’t about ‘fixing’ him as there wasn’t anything wrong, but it was about finding him the tools to deal with what is worrying him. It’s hard when they feel different.

I'd agree about it being a feature of autism. My own and my 9 year old's definitely. It was incredibly difficult for me to cope with as a child and my daughter struggles similarly.

Talk through his fears with him perhaps.

Is he afraid of the process of dying or of being dead?

I wonder if he needs some grief counselling op....3 deaths in the family is quite a lot to deal with at a fairly young age.

Hi just wanted to say that i went through something similar when i was 10 had panic attacks and was scared of dying this was because my grandma died and i saw her body at the funeral and then my cousin died at 14 we were the same age and so i used to get nightmares. My mum use to distract me and take me places it did not work at the beginning but i got lots of emotional support from my mum who reassured me i had nothing to fear and focused on the things i enjoyed i grew out of it in the end it was just a phase as it was my first experience of death as a child. I hope your son grows out of it keep doing what u r doing and i am sure with time he will grow out of it xx

Hi just found this thread and wondered how things are for your son now? My son is also 10 and having similar with a different fear though. Just wondered what has helped for you?

Seeing a psychologist is normal. A psychologist can reassure him of this. Do you know any adults who have seen a psychologist or counsellor who can talk to him about this.

A male friend of mine kindly shared that he used to have similar difficulties that my son is going through now, and I think it’s helped my son to know that this perfectly normal, successful man used to be like him.