7 year old severe death anxiety

[LessonsinGurning]

My 7 year old has anxiety around death and dying. He calls it "his worry" and it mostly comes out at night but sometimes he talks about it in the day. He wants to talk about it all the time but we've tried to limit it to short periods as it escalates. He has been crying about it saying how much it blocks his other happy thoughts. We both looked at stuff together that might help him. He was taken with the idea of meditation so has been listening to sleep stories for the past few nights which have helped him sleep, though last night he woke up crying.

I'm wondering if we're at a point where I need to contact the GP?

7 is when you start developing a concept around life and death, it's a normal developmental worry at that age. I'd be checking out how you as a parent respond to his anxieties. Validate his feelings but don't feed into it, keep discussions minimal. Maybe ask school to do a short piece of work with him/ the whole class using age appropriate resources.

Big bag of worries book

Huge bag.
And
What to Do When You Worry Too Much: A Kid's Guide to Overcoming Anxiety (What-to-Do Guides for Kids) amzn.eu/d/cma8pCA

This manifested in my three aground the same time when they moved to a c of e primary school and had serious concerns about heaven/hell and that they loved us so much that they were terrified of us dying…it didn’t interrupt day to day things such as biking everywhere but always appeared at bedtime when chatting about the day…it stopped after about a year when we firmly explained our atheism

You can get slices of wood with a hand print in them called worry stones. I'm not sure how effective they are, but I think the idea is the child puts there hand in and is meant to leave there worry's there, x

I used to teach Y2 and it was such a very common worry at that age as a pp has said. I'm fairly sure it must be a developmental thing. As well as the books mentioned above there is an Anthony Browne Worry Dolls one and for kid appropriate meditation the Zen Den by Cosmic Kids Yoga.. they are on youtube

Hi, my son has this admins I trawled through mumsnet of days gone by. There were suggestions on books to read and I bought this The Beautiful Way to Explain Death to Children amzn.eu/d/1t3zgf8 one.

it’s sad, but explains that in life we have a beginning, middle and end.

my son said it didn’t help, still made him sad, but he has a better understanding and seems less anxious to me. Doesn’t bring it up as much or cry at bedtime about dying (or me or his dad dying).

it’s hard, but he will get through it.