DD "doesn't have the sad emotion"

[MayorGundersonsDogRufus]

Would love some points of view about emotional development in kids. DD just turned 8 and she said this to me the other day. We've had a very difficult year - I lost my mum unexpectedly in March and we've had to relocate from another country to live with my disabled dad while we try and sort out care arrangements for him. DD has been a little ray of sunshine through all this and coped brilliantly.

The night she said this something relatively minor had happened that had made me sad and she gave me a hug and said, "cuddles make everything better!" A few hours later she almost confessed to me that she is worried she doesn't have the 'sad' emotion. She said she can see whether other people are sad but it doesn't make her feel sad and when grandma died she didn't feel sad. She wondered if there was something wrong with her and asked when I developed the sad emotion.

It was a very unexpected thing to hear and I explained that I thought it was normal and that what was good was that she noticed when other people were sad and comforted them. We talked about how disappointment is like feeling sad and that she knew what that felt like and would probably grow to understand other people's sadness more as she got older.

But I don't actually know - is this normal for an 8yo? Do your 8 yo's have empathy yet? Do they feel sadness and loss? It's not something you really see in other people's kids so it's really got me thinking. Did I say the right thing? Would love some other perspectives. Thank you!

Empathy starts to develop around 2 so not having empathy at 8 is not neurotypical.

Does she cry at sad films? Feel bad for injured people or animals? Worry about friends who are struggling?

Have the school or anyone else raised concerns?

It may not be that she can't feel sad.

But that she expects it to feel different. She may for example of felt numb, when your mum died. It may have been a lot to take in, especially with having to move etc.

I know when my nana died, I just felt numb. But as an adult I recognised it was shock, that my brain just wouldn't let me process it.

I felt numb for a few years. Could it be that she expects sad to feel one way and it doesn't feel how she expects.

No, one has raised concerns. She gets upset if she thinks she has hurt someone or something. But someone else feeling sad doesn't make her feel sad. She notices it, and knows to comfort them, but doesn't make her sad. And she wasn't upset at my mum dying. She wanted me to be ok, and she comforted my dad at the funeral because she said he needed her the most, but it didn't upset her. It's really got me thinking.

She has empathy! She comforts you and is sensitive to those around her. My guess is that she’s actually had a bit of a traumatic year and is struggling to process it.

Could she just be confused at levels of sad? I lost my grandfather around that age (maybe closer to 10) and genuinely didn't cry at all until the funeral. I worried a lot for a few years because my parents and siblings cried a lot (understandably) and I didn't, I didn't even feel particularly sad, and I thought there was something wrong with me because I wasn't more upset like they were.

I think I assumed that when someone died I should feel devestated and be crying all the time, whereas I don't think I actually understood the gravity of death and loss until a point where I was actually faced with it (eg. The funeral, or when we did a special activity my DGF would normally have done with just me). We also had pets from as soon as I could remember so I was almost 'used' to processing death.

I was also quite 'hard hearted' until my teens... I now cry if someone near me is crying, I cry at books and films, and when I lost other family members last year I cried for them all. I wouldn't necessarily worry about the 'sad emotion' in isolation, look at it as part of a bigger picture.

Does she feel sad on her own account? If a friend is mean to her, or she breaks a favourite toy?

She gets upset if she thinks she has hurt someone or something.

That's good. That's a form of empathy.

And grief is very weird, even in children. I felt almost nothing when my DGM who I adored, died. Months later I found myself weeping into the washing up. Understanding and processing death is very different to 'sadness'.

Is she more the type to go into practical mode? If someone is hurt would she fetch them something / go get an adult / organise a solution?

Because this is me

I was / am like this. She will make a great nurse / doctor 😁

I didn't feel sad even as an adult when my grandparents died, they were very old and its natural for people to die.

I cried for a stranger, a young man whose car I saw smash into a HGV after the driver had a stroke, I can't watch the footage of 9/11 or the Indian ocean tsunami although I remember it vividly, I cried during the big Covid concert. I think I cry at the magnitude of loss more so than on an individual level. And then sometimes I cry at insignificant things like City of Angels and Marley and Me.

MrsBumm - yes, she does get sad if she has lost something or if someone has been mean to her. And dancemom- yes, I think that's her - although often her practical thing will be to give someone a hug because she knows it's comforting for them.

Thank you for all these replies, they are really helpful.

Oh and reading other posts I'm also very practical in a time of need, don't lose my head doing first aid etc, perhaps it's linked to that reading other people's posts.

Someone upthread asked if she cries at sad films - she doesn't like watching films because she finds them too stressful - she made us turn off Coco because the grandma shouted at the little boy. She wasn't bothered by the skeletons.

I didn't feel sad when my grandparents died. We weren't close despite being in each others lives. I wouldn't worry OP. She cares about socially appropriate ways of responding.

I also think she has had a really unsettling year and perhaps will process it later. It sounds like you have a wonderful bond and you said the right thing.

Sounds like she equates crying with sadness, and maybe because she doesn't cry at things other people cry because of, she thinks she's not sad.
You lived in a different country, I'm guessing you didn't see your partens often, so she wasn't very close to them? Hard to be extremely emotional about someone you didn't know that well dying.

I’m not sure why she should feel sad if someone else is sad - if that person is sad, she can comfort them but maybe she thinks she should be feeling the same emotion as well, which isn’t actually true.

Maybe she wasn’t sad when grandma died for all sorts of reasons? Had you prepared her for it already? Did she have a good relationship with grandma? Etc?

I was /am a bit like that. I don’t really get upset if my elderly relatives die as I just see it as part of life and there’s not anything I can do about it.

I get upset at other people’s emotions over it things because I can’t take their pain away. Up until I had my child, I was more like your daughter and didn’t really feel much, if that makes sense.

Yes, she had a good relationship with her grandma - although we couldn't visit during the pandemic they used to do regular video calls where she would read to my mum, or she would do music or cooking classes during lockdown. My mum was as involved as she could possibly be and DD always looked forward to seeing her.

This has actually made me reflect that I was not very empathetic until much later in life. I was quite cold as a teenager and young adult and struggled to process my emotions. I think she's actually more emotionally aware than I was!

If your DD just turned 8 & you’ve been living in a different country then how close was your DD to your DM? I wasn’t close to either of my grandmothers so personally felt no loss or sadness when they died.

I can understand how your daughter feels. I feel sadness and empathy for other people, but I rarely feel sad or down for myself. I’ve often wondered if that’s normal.

For example when my grandfather died, I cried thinking about how sad granny must feel. I think about him often in a fond way and I miss him, I think it’s sad that he’s not here anymore, but I don’t feel sad about my own loss.

I can feel strong emotions of sadness when I see or hear terrible tragedies in the news. I work with children and can empathise with them and comfort them easily.

However, when things go wrong in my own life, I rarely give them headspace. For example, I was cheated on by a partner of five years, I lived with him, I thought he was wonderful. When I found out, I went into practical mode, moved out, shook myself off told everyone I was fine and just moved on. I’ve behaved in such a way with every event in my life where someone might expect me to be sad. Lots of friends comment on how resilient I appear, but I really just don’t feel sad or down when things happen to me.

I would echo others here.

She may well have been experiencing numbness before, and similarly when she sees you sad. This can be a way of our minds self protecting, because the sadness will be too overwhelming. Grief is in general a strange beast that doesn't behave as our cultural scripts make us feel it should, and this can lead to many people, including adults, questioning their feelings. She may still need to self protect if you only moved in the last 6 months, thatcould have been quite destabilizing for her.

I would also say that she is 8. We aren't always good at locating and naming our feeling states at 8 (many of us aren't as adults). Talking about how sadness feels in the body, and talking about how it occurs for you, might also help her start to identify it within herself.

Normalization of feelings is very helpful. Validation and acceptance of her current feelings is likely to be useful, as it sounds like she is confused and ashamed about the difference between how she is feeling and how she "should" be feeling. Well done for doing this.

As well as agreeing with PP - especially about the going into practical mode which is me all over - I wonder if your DD is seeing you express your emotions and thinking that that is what "sad" is and she doesn't feel quite like that so therefore isn't "sad" whereas the loss she feels at 8 when a grandmother she isn't particularly close to dies will be very different to what you felt when your mother died and what you express.

Lots of good answers here - another person here who didn't feel sad when grandparents died. Even as an adult i still don't seem to grieve in ways I thought everybody did. I don't think it makes me a psychopath.