Guiding Children through Fears of Death & Dying: A Mom & Child Therapist Walk Through

Over the past 6 months, my littlest (6y) has had growing worries in the still moments before she falls asleep. She tells me she’s had a “bad awake dream”, like scary or sad thoughts that appear and are hard to control. They’re usually about death, bugs, or bad guys.

Is this a concern?

This is super common for her age, and even for kiddos a little younger and a little older than her. I’m not overly concerned about these worries, because these are expected fears.

I've started noticing though, that her fears are turning into avoidance - for example, asking us to not say the word “forever” because it makes her think about the impossibility of living forever.

I’ve also started noticing that it’s impacting her sleep, specifically, how long it takes her to fall asleep. These worries pop up in those quiet, still moments at bedtime, which reduces her sleep time a bit each night. A little bit of lost sleep isn’t overly concerning, but compounded over time, it can take a toll. These bedtime worries have been growing over the past 6 months.

How I Support My Child with Growing Worries

Last night, as I snuggled my littlest in her bed, she turned to me quickly, with worry in her eyes. Fighting back tears, she said “I had another bad awake dream, mommy.” Her quivering bottom lip breaks me.

She tells me she’s had a dream that I died. She tells me that we had a house fire, she got out, but I didn’t. She crumbled onto my chest sobbing, wrapping her tiny arm tightly around my shoulder.

I felt like crying, too. My eyes began filling with tears. I knew that she needs my calm nervous system right now. I guided myself first, by reminding myself that my emotions are important too, and that I will feel and hold my emotions later.

I slowed my breathing… I held her, never letting go first. I comforted her with my soft body language, my soft voice, and I validated these big feelings.

I said…

“Oh hunny, that is a really sad dream, isn’t it…”

Then I took another big, slow, deep breath. I kept holding her while she cried.

When I noticed her crying start to slow, her breathing started to deepen, her body start to soften, I told a gentle, familiar story.

I told her, “I had dreams like that when I was a kid. I ran to Nanny and cried, just like you.”

“You had sad dreams about Nanny dying when you were little?” she asked.

“Oh yes… they’re hard to shake off.”

“Yeah, they are…” she said, as she stared off into a distance.

She sat quietly for a moment. I stayed present - facing her, my arms are open, my face soft, my energy calm and nurturing. I was ready for whatever came next.

She took a quick breath, and said something so unexpected…

“Did you know that axolotls eat tropical fish?” she asked, with a deep investment in this memory that’s popped into her mind.

“They do? That’s so interesting…”

I said, waiting for her to make the connection for me…

“Ya, it’s kids gross.” she said.

“I agree, super gross.” I said.

She snuggled back under her blanket, pulled down her eye-mask, and asked me to rub her back. I rubbed her back, and she fell asleep a few minutes later.

All snuggled up and fast asleep ❤️

I sat there in the dark, noticing her cheeks relax into that sweet sleepy slumber.

In my mind, I walked through that interaction again. We went from a huge tragic fear to a Minecraft fact - she doesn’t even play Minecraft, her older sister does. I wondered if the galaxy light projecting onto her bedroom walls reminded her of the axolotl pond her sister built earlier today.

What I Did

I replayed the moments…

• She had the sad worry.

• She panicked.

• She told me about it.

• I wanted to cry, distract her, or reassure her, because of my own discomfort.

• I shifted gears for myself. Then for her.

• I softened my body, my breathing, my voice.

• I listened fully.

• I invited her in for comfort.

• I held her.

• I validated her feelings.

• I told her a connected story, showing her this is common… and survivable.

• Then she stared off into the distance…. She remembered something she wanted to tell me. That’s when she was able to let her mind follow a different trail.

• Then she settled in.

Her mind was able to follow a different trail because she wasn’t trying to push a sad and scary thought away, that would have just kept coming back, like a boomerang.

Her emotions settled faster because they were given the space they needed, and held with nurturance.

What I Didn’t Do

I didn’t “fix” her worry.

I didn’t deny it.

I didn’t resist it.

• I didn’t tell her that she “doesn’t need to worry about that” because that tells her she should just shut the worry off (which never works - speaking from experience here).

• I didn’t tell her that “we’re going to live a very long life”. That’s a promise I can’t keep.

• I didn’t distract her with a silly story, a book, or a new thought. The worry would just come back later when she needed to settle agai (ps - distraction is perfectly fine at times, like delaying a reaction, when you need to hold the emotion later.)

I wanted to do those things, especially because I’m an emotional wreck about death. I was also tired, overstimulated, and frustrated that bedtime takes way too long lately. It would’ve been easier to shut it down.

…but I know where that’ll take her, as an adult with anxiety that I’ve managed since I was a child. I know anxiety is hereditary, too. So it’s even more important that I help her manage worries now.

My daughter was able to sit with her emotions, to really feel them, to reach a resolution, and to settle herself back in. None of this was something she’d been taught, it was an emotion’s natural course.

She has many emotion regulation skills that she uses. Those strategies work for other worries, frustrations, and disappointments. We had been trying her other strategies in previous nights, when she’d had other “bad awake dreams”.  They kept happening.

So this time, I skipped all of the strategies and started where we usually end each night - permission to feel, comfort, connection.

By starting with co-regulation, she moved through her big emotions more quickly, and with less intensity.

Honestly, she moved through her emotion so much faster this way. It was probably 5 minutes in total. Usually, we would try 1-2 other strategies first, she would sometimes get frustrated when it didn’t work, and the emotion would return after anyway. It would take 15-20 minutes to settle her, sometimes longer. We were able to avoid those secondary emotions, of frustration when other strategies didn’t work.

With this experience of co-regulation, we’ve built a neural pathway in her brain that we can continue to strengthen, over and over again. With hundreds of repetitions over the years, that neural pathway will be so strong that it will become her default way of processing emotions. She will be able to regulate her emotions on her own.

The most important piece, out of all the things that worked last night, was beginning with my own inner process.

She didn’t need to make the sad and scary thought go away (even though that’s what she said she wanted)… she needed me to help her with this super uncomfortable feeling in her body. She needed to borrow my calm nervous system, so she could show her own nervous system that we can handle this. This is the power of co-regulation… a beautiful science.

My Inner Work

Children can’t self-regulate until they’ve had hundreds of experiences being co-regulated. I can’t offer co-regulation until I’ve learned how to regulate my own emotions. This is no simple task for our generation of parents - may of our parents didn’t have the knowledge nor the supports they needed, either. This is how we break generational cycles.

I noticed my own resistance, notice my own emotions, regulate my own emotions in that moment - validate my own need for emotional processing but delay mine, so she can have the full focus.

I shifted my state, and embody the wise and nurturing elder (cozy grandmother vibes) that I want to offer my children.

I processed my emotions about that later with a trusted grown up.

I reflected on the whole thing - and notice a feeling of relief and pride that I was able to support my daughter in a way that aligns with my values as a parent - in a way that has felt impossible for many years.

My daughter and I on her first day of grade 1 ❤️

It’s taken us a long time to get here. Lots of practice, lots of inner work. Lots of imperfect attempts. Even as a therapist, parenting kids with big emotions is hard. So please don’t be hard on yourself.

It’s so hard… but it’s possible.

I have so much more to share about this. I’m working on a few projects to support more parents who find themselves in similar situations.

Until then, deep breaths… you’ve got this.

Katherine White, BSW, MEd, MSW, RSW

Child & Parent Therapist