To feel so devastated by tragedies involving children

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I’m feeling really devastated and broken by the recent story of the poor little boy in the news. I burst into tears when I read the headline, and can’t stop imagining his last days, his confusion, how he was found cuddling his dad’s leg. I have tears in my eyes writing this!

Does anyone else struggle in the same way? I was doing some child safeguarding training the other day and the story of Baby P came up and I couldn’t stop myself from reading more about the details and feeling so disturbed that these things happen to babies and children. I even researched where his grave is to see if it would be possible for me to visit it (I’m not going to! It was just an impulse).

I’m a normal, functioning person in real life, I promise! I work with vulnerable children and have a 17 month old boy. I think having my own baby has made this all worse for me but when I read about these dreadful events I find it hard not to fall apart knowing some children are just born to suffer.

I’ve been in therapy for years so sadly that won’t make a difference to me. I would really just like to know if anyone else gets as deeply affected as I do? I feel so so sad.

And it’s even more sad because there are so many people desperate for a child of their own to love. Children like Arthur and Peter could have been adopted, no doubt, by devoted parents.

Just why, why, why.

I fantasise in my head about what I could do if I could go back in time and find them. Would I break into their home and rescue them?

I feel like I need to heal my soul a bit. I wish someone spiritual could convince me there’s an afterlife and that all of these children are without pain now.

I’m the same, purposefully avoided seeing the Arthur Labinjo-Hughes video because I knew it would make me cry, and sobbed over Baby P and Victoria Climbie. James Bulger still makes my blood run cold.

I can’t imagine how anyone could hurt a little child, I just can’t imagine it. I steer well clear of all stories like that because they disturb me so much.

Your level of empathy changes after having babies. I was a journalist in a former life and worked on very, very difficult stories involving children and vulnerable people. Of course I did feel very deeply sad but could maintain some emotional distance. Not a hope could I do that post-kids. I can't describe it, it's understanding the pull to your children, the fact that most would rather die than ever see their children hurt or worse.

Well said.

I don’t think being a parent really does impact it, although people like to think it does. I feel the same way as I did before having children. It’s normal for any human being to feel saddened by such devastating situations. I don’t know any adult - parent or not - who can read a story or watch it on the news and not feel emotion.

I think it is just better reported - there were some absolutely horrific Victorian cases, and honestly non-parent child murders used to be so much higher - look at all the small kids abducted raped and murdered by strangers in the 1970s-80s. Huge numbers compared to now.

YANBU I have a little boy and am the same way. I swear it's always little boys in the news since I've had mine!
Something that helps me is to turn away from the news but donate money to the NSPCC (which I did for Arthur) or the red cross (which I did for Gaza) It makes me feel as though I've done something and takes away the guilt of looking away from the details.

What a terrible death.

Your level of empathy may have changed. I dislike how some parents (not the OP) make it about them and their emotions and how they feel. That is not empathy at all.

I was really disturbed by the fact that the video has been made available for the public to see. I couldn’t watch it, I knew it would be too traumatising. But just knowing it exists saddens me so much.

I feel the same op, it's really upset me as well. It's the world at its most cruel. Things like this always made me sad but since having ds now 13 months it's more acutely painful because it taps into my biggest fear as a parent that a situation arises where I can't physically keep my child safe or where they'll be afraid and I can't give them comfort. I think it's just having empathy and knowing that the natural order of things is that children deserve to be kept safe. This was just an utter tragedy.

I'm exactly the same. Was in tears on and off all day on Thursday after I accidentally heard the news on the radio.

Normally I actively avoid the news - especially now - because I can't bear to hear about the horrors going on in the Middle East. It's too harrowing and I think some of the reporting is really irresponsible and traumatising for people.

I was casually scrolling Instagram the other day and in amongst all the nonsense was a video of a child in Gaza. I won't say any more than that because it was awful, but I was totally unprepared to see it. I don't think things like that should just be plonked in front of our eyes without warning. It's very damaging for people's mental health.

There are ways of reporting what's going on in the world without having to show traumatic images or go into unnecessary graphic detail.

You just hear it all the time now .
Abuse and murder of children
Nobody actually has to have them, why them if all you want to do is hurt them?

Makes no sense you end up fearing for your life in prison and looking over your shoulder all the time.
Life's alot easier when your kind.

These stories really affect me I still think of a particular little child I heard about on the news last year and it makes me feel ill with anxiety
I can't bear hearing these stories I keep thinking about what they've been through
I try not to read these stories now if I see the headlines and I avoid the news with these stories

I hope anyone that's ever hurt these poor children suffer every second of every day in prison and sleep with one eye open

Yes, I feel very affected by the deaths of thousands of children thousands of miles away in the current situation in Gaza. I'm not personally affected but I can't get my head round it.

I don't think researching where Baby P's grave is is normal, sorry.

I'm exactly the same and no it's not about me. I'm quietly torturing myself over it and not posting anywhere looking for likes. And yes I also have a 2 year old boy. But this little boy's death will not be in vain. This awareness will hopefully change communication in families especially single parents with young children.
I'm spiritual myself since a few tragic losses and Dolores Cannon has saved my life.
RIP Little Bronson and Dad 💔

I’m haunted by one case. I imagined what was going through the little boy’s mind, and it’s never left me.

Thank you for posting this. I have felt so desperately sad about this case. It's horrendous and I keep imagining him. I have a 4 year old. I can't shake these tragedies, they really affect me since I've had kids. Poor little boy, it's so utterly heartbreaking.

It is sad and tragic. A moment of sadness is normal.

But these stories are not our devastating stories. They belong to someone else. They are theirs to feel like that. These children are not our children.
I wonder if you have experienced emeshment because when we suck in emotions of others and feel them as if they are our own sometimes it comes from traumatic or misformed relational models.

Hope you can feel better soon OP. Give your little one a big cuddle.

What I always find interesting about posts like these is that the OP very often does nothing useful to support vulnerable children or families in ‘real life’ - being sad and devastated from a distance, in reality, will do very little to stop these incidents from happening again. Weirdly, it is often the case that people who do work with these extremely vulnerable, unpredictable and challenging families are the very people who are vilified during press reporting and online social media comments, e.g. ‘Why didn’t the social worker/police officer/ teacher/ health visitor do more?!?!’

I’m a clinical psychologist working in the NHS in a children’s service.

I feel this same way since having a child of my own, like other PP.

I cried to think how that poor baby must have felt, and the even greater horror id feel to think what if that happened to my own.

I, similarly, have wondered why that / any child should suffer in such a way. Why does “fate”, or whatever, allow them to be born only for such tragedy to arise? Why must they be so unlucky, not others etc.

Its a difficult concept to grasp, for me at least, as somebody that’s always trying to find meaning or understanding in things

It definitely lessons. Obviously still absolutely awful but when you have a baby or very similar age child it hits so much more personally. It's very natural.

Oh yes the same headline (most likely) had me in tears in the toilets at work! I didn’t even read the article. I just can’t cope with stories like this since I had my little boy.

At 17 months hormones are barely back to normal.
As a psychologist you may remember from your degree.
Honestly normal.