How might a typical 7 year old boy and 4 year old girl cope with the death of their mother? My story will take place about a year after her death and I'm trying to be a little more realistic in there psyche. Thanks.

I think everyone deals with it differently. A four-year old might not really understand death, but 7 is probably old enough to know more. Some kids get depressed, some kids act out and rebel.

Actually, this question might help me with my script, too. Here's hoping more people have some answers (calling all child psychologists!).

"How do you know I'm mad?" said Alice.
"You must be," said the Cat, "or you wouldn't have come here."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%C3%BCbler-Ross_model
Might help.
http://changingminds.org/disciplines/change_management/kubler_ross/accep...
Basically the same thing if you don't like Wikipedia. :]
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cause i couldn't cry
cause i turned away
couldn't see the score
didn't know the pain
of leaving yesterday really far behind

-steve conte

Thanks, these help.
______
"You cannot depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus."
-Mark Twain

www.mattswritesite.com

Nano '06 WINNER as "Fook"
Nano '07 WINNER as "BillieTrident"
Screnzy '06 DNF

I was a bit older when a close relative died (not my mother, but someone who lived with us), and I dealt with it by becoming more affectionate and clingier. Another friend's little sister saw the death of her baby cousin and also became extremely over affectionate and had extreme separation anxiety.
But it does really depend on the person, and that's just the way I chose to deal with it.
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Life is a disease: sexually transmitted, and invariably fatal. - Neil Gaiman

Thank you thank you than you...I now have a complete character. You are all awesome.
______
"You cannot depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus."
-Mark Twain

www.mattswritesite.com

Nano '06 WINNER as "Fook"
Nano '07 WINNER as "BillieTrident"
Screnzy '06 DNF

Ok, I know you said thanks, but I would like to point out that there are some who end up just kind of becoming cold- almost like they don't care anymore. They don't act out. They don't rebel. They don't cling. They just go through the motions and clam up any time a topic that even remotely relates to the lost one. My dad's a psychologist and teaches abnormal psych at a university. I've read some of the textbooks he teaches out of.

I can't speak for the seven year old- but the four year old, I can.

First, she will go into disbelief. She thinks, at funeral, that her mother is being kidnapped (when they take away the hearse). She will attempt to run after the hearse, screaming herself hoarse. She will stick to her father like glue, never leaving his side. She will get into fights with other kids, who will tease her, asking "where's your mommy? Can't you find her?" She will become extremely sensitive to death, and cry for hours over the death of a goldfish. She will pretend that other people, aunts, neighbors, friends' mothers, are her mother, and she will lie with straight face when people ask where her mother is. In the case of suicide, she will blame herself much more than if it was homicide or accidental. She will begin to believe that her mother is still on earth, as a ghost or angel. She will talk to her, and beleive that her mother is helping her. She will refuse to speak of her death except with her family, and will always cry when it comes up. She will slowly forget all about her mother, and by the time that she is seven or eight, ahe will remember only blurs and shadows. She will not be able to speak freely about it until she is around ten or eleven.

Well, at least that's what I did, ;)

I can create a world, out of letters and words. I can make you believe something in a paragraph. I can make you love someone in a page. I can make you go places that don't exist in a book. That's all the magic I need.

I was 8 when my father died unexpectedly in a car accident. My brother was in it too, and we had fought over who was going to go with him, so I had some guilt, even at that age. For a long time...even sometimes today(I'm 24 now), I blamed myself for what had happened: if only I'd fought harder to be the one that went, the timing would've been different, so maybe it wouldn't have happened, etc...

But as for the right then, at the moment I found out, I just felt very numb. The walk from the hospital entrance where my grandparents and I met up with my mom (she'd gone ahead with the police who came with the news he'd been in an accident, I stayed with neighbors until my grandparents could come get me) to the children's hospital where my brother was is still completely vivid in my memory; I can see everything, I just don't remember hearing anything during that walk. The only similar experience I had to cling to was a book where the character's grandmother died, and certainly this didn't compare. Later my mom and a child doctor sat me down to explain how my younger brother was doing, and I nodded a lot and clutched a little stuffed cat they gave me. Soon after basically both sides of my entire family arrived, and during the evening, I remember my aunt trying to distract me by letting me wheel myself around the halls of the children's hospital in a wheelchair. I distinctly remember telling her I was "getting away from the emotional people." That night/early morning, I stayed with my mom in a hotel near the hospital and tried to be reassuring, saying now Dad was in Heaven. I don't remember anyone telling me that; I came up with that conclusion on my own.

My grandparents took me back the next day, and two days later was the funeral. I didn't cry at all, and I was really proud of that. Looking back now, I can see it's because seeing all of those grown-ups bawling their eyes out scared the crap out of me. I still don't deal well with overt displays of emotion, especially not crying, though I wish I did. The whole time was very chaotic; I missed the last four days of school, though I did go back to get my stuff on the second to last day and my classmates had made me a bunch of cards and my teachers had put together a little care package for me full of books(even then I spent most of my free time reading) and stickers and things.

It was a very surreal experience all around, and mostly I just listened and observed and was generally pretty quiet, because I had no idea what else to do. I didn't pretend it didn't happen, but sometimes I just didn't acknowledge it for the sake of not having to deal with it--for example, a couple weeks later, while my brother was still in the hospital two hours away and I was being shuffled around various relatives, another aunt enrolled me and my cousin in swim lessons at the Y. I didn't tell anyone about my dad or my mom or my brother there, because it was a nice escape. I guess you could say I compartmentalized.

But different people handle things different ways. *shrug* If you've got any more questions, I'm happy to answer whatever I can. Just PM me.

~Lori

Wow,

I am so glad for the stories you have all shared. I know how difficult the death of a loved one can be and it has been eye opening to hear you experiences. When I began this thread, I had no idea how haunting an experience writing a script could become. I'm not sure if it is necessary, but I would love to share a little about how my story was born. If nothing else, I hope everyone will see that I am not taking the emotions and psychological effects of such an experience lightly.

My story was born out of a terribly vivid dream. I rarely dream at night, my mind spends boring days completing that task. So, when I do dream I pay a little more attention to what was going on. I have a wonderful wife and three beautiful children. In my dream I was in a small house in the middle of a desert, I was preparing to leave...quickly. My children were outside playing as I packed. My wife was helping me, but I soon realized that she was not actually there. She had passed and I was very much alone. Some of the things she said to me were too real to ignore and I woke up very uneasy.

The next night, the dream continued. This time a shadow of a man stood at the foot of the front steps staring at the door. In the distance, lights were moving toward the house across the expanse between my house and the mountains. I knew that my family was in terrible danger and I waited out the night with a gun in hand. In the dream, I was woken by my four year old, who asked me what I was doing. I told her nothing and got up to fix breakfast. Then she asked me who the shadow man was. I woke up.

Since those nights, I have tried to understand the meaning of my dream; to bring some sense of closure and resolution to it. Till this day it haunts me and the only way I can think of to settle it is to...quite literally...finish the story.

All of your input has served to convince me that my story needs to be written, not that it should, or that it sounds interesting; I have no choice. I must finsih this story.

______
"You cannot depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus."
-Mark Twain

www.mattswritesite.com

Nano '06 WINNER as "Fook"
Nano '07 WINNER as "BillieTrident"
Screnzy '06 DNF

I'm glad to hear your reason for writing this... and I must say I completely understand your need to finish it. I almost must say I think that's a wonderful reason for needing to finish. :) Break a pencil. ;)