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Is this "typical" or "normal" for a 4 year old...
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<blockquote data-quote="shutterbunny" data-source="post: 32510" data-attributes="member: 3568"><p>Dara,</p><p></p><p>thanks for your response...he basically will start most of the conversations with "I don't want to die." This can come out of nowhere or it may be initiated by something like explaining to him that he'll be going to a new school next year or daycare arrangements are changing during the week of spring break. This makes me think that sometimes it is a reaction to his difficulty with change. But I was told by the bus monitor (he takes a bus to preschool) that he told his afternoon driver that he was "old and needed to die." He also wants to know if we (his parents) will die and when, and when will he die, and why will he die and then back to the I don't want to die conversation. Once I made the HUGE mistake of drawing attention to a cemetery, he's asking who is in the cemetery, are there skeletons there, what happens to the people in there, will he be there when he dies, what do the stones say, why are the stones there, why do people visit a cemetery...etc...the barrage of questions is almost endless, and I do think that part of that is my fault because he's very interested in taking pictures (and he's pretty good and has a very interesting style even at 4) with me and when he heard me comment about wishing I had my camera (it was a rainy day and there was a large vulture perched on the iron gates...it was a very Poe kind of moment and I just commented out of habit as I often do when I see something that sparks my interest as far as a nice/interesting image). Anyway, I think that he heard mommy say she wanted to take pictures there and that's where it started as far as the cemetery. But I don't know where the "I want to see who was on the earth before us" comment stemmed from. He has been curious about dinosaurs for a long time and he understands that they are extinct (loves to use that word) and he understands what extinct means. He has often asked what caused their extinction and of course we reply that we're not really sure--he will then tell us it is because the world got sick and so the dinosaurs all died...he's quite the activist when it comes to littering and recycling, and no, he didn't see "An Inconvenient Truth" :smile: The one thing that I DO believe might have contributed to all of this is a Scooby Doo video he received for Christmas...it has mummies, and this has defnitely caused nightmares, and perhaps that's where all of this comes from. When I suggested we not watch that video anymore, he said "good mommy, it scares me." So there was no argument over having it taken away (he wanted to call his uncle and tell him why he got rid of the present, but we told him no, we'd let his uncle know to buy more upbeat presents in the future). As for school, I'm actually getting calls because he tells such gory stories to the kids about "killing" robots and mummies by "cutting their heads off" (this is NOT in the Scooby Doo video) and that some of the kids are having problems because of the tales they hear him telling. On the flip side of that, one of the kids who is supposedly so traumatized by my son's stories is the same child who wanted my son to watch Pirates of the Caribbean II...which I felt was completely inappropraite for a 4 year old...so if he's watching that, I'm not sure how much he might be fueling the scary story fire. (by the way, my son did NOT watch that movie, I caught it before it started and though there was QUITE the fight over not being allowed to watch it, we were very firm with NO, NO, NO on that front!)</p><p></p><p>The teachers say his "I don't want to die" usually comes after he's had a meltdown or after a long conversation about all of the things that are changing in his life...new school next year, new bus driver due to change in schedule, new doctors, new students in class, etc...they generally end the conversation with me about this by saying, he has so much on his mind. </p><p></p><p>I am not sure if that clarifies anything, but that's pretty much how the drill goes at home and daycare and school.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="shutterbunny, post: 32510, member: 3568"] Dara, thanks for your response...he basically will start most of the conversations with "I don't want to die." This can come out of nowhere or it may be initiated by something like explaining to him that he'll be going to a new school next year or daycare arrangements are changing during the week of spring break. This makes me think that sometimes it is a reaction to his difficulty with change. But I was told by the bus monitor (he takes a bus to preschool) that he told his afternoon driver that he was "old and needed to die." He also wants to know if we (his parents) will die and when, and when will he die, and why will he die and then back to the I don't want to die conversation. Once I made the HUGE mistake of drawing attention to a cemetery, he's asking who is in the cemetery, are there skeletons there, what happens to the people in there, will he be there when he dies, what do the stones say, why are the stones there, why do people visit a cemetery...etc...the barrage of questions is almost endless, and I do think that part of that is my fault because he's very interested in taking pictures (and he's pretty good and has a very interesting style even at 4) with me and when he heard me comment about wishing I had my camera (it was a rainy day and there was a large vulture perched on the iron gates...it was a very Poe kind of moment and I just commented out of habit as I often do when I see something that sparks my interest as far as a nice/interesting image). Anyway, I think that he heard mommy say she wanted to take pictures there and that's where it started as far as the cemetery. But I don't know where the "I want to see who was on the earth before us" comment stemmed from. He has been curious about dinosaurs for a long time and he understands that they are extinct (loves to use that word) and he understands what extinct means. He has often asked what caused their extinction and of course we reply that we're not really sure--he will then tell us it is because the world got sick and so the dinosaurs all died...he's quite the activist when it comes to littering and recycling, and no, he didn't see "An Inconvenient Truth" [img]:smile:[/img] The one thing that I DO believe might have contributed to all of this is a Scooby Doo video he received for Christmas...it has mummies, and this has defnitely caused nightmares, and perhaps that's where all of this comes from. When I suggested we not watch that video anymore, he said "good mommy, it scares me." So there was no argument over having it taken away (he wanted to call his uncle and tell him why he got rid of the present, but we told him no, we'd let his uncle know to buy more upbeat presents in the future). As for school, I'm actually getting calls because he tells such gory stories to the kids about "killing" robots and mummies by "cutting their heads off" (this is NOT in the Scooby Doo video) and that some of the kids are having problems because of the tales they hear him telling. On the flip side of that, one of the kids who is supposedly so traumatized by my son's stories is the same child who wanted my son to watch Pirates of the Caribbean II...which I felt was completely inappropraite for a 4 year old...so if he's watching that, I'm not sure how much he might be fueling the scary story fire. (by the way, my son did NOT watch that movie, I caught it before it started and though there was QUITE the fight over not being allowed to watch it, we were very firm with NO, NO, NO on that front!) The teachers say his "I don't want to die" usually comes after he's had a meltdown or after a long conversation about all of the things that are changing in his life...new school next year, new bus driver due to change in schedule, new doctors, new students in class, etc...they generally end the conversation with me about this by saying, he has so much on his mind. I am not sure if that clarifies anything, but that's pretty much how the drill goes at home and daycare and school. [/QUOTE]
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