Magical thinking over the Years

On the anniversary of 9/11 there was an interesting article in the Boston Globe about a family in which the father was killed . The article mentioned how a school age child struggled to understand what happened to his father. For several years after the death he had a difficult time understanding that his father could not come back to life. In his imagination he created many ways in which his father could come home. We expect that by the time a child is 6 or 7 they would begin to understand that death is final. This may be true in the abstract but in the reality of every day life how does this work? As I thought about this I realized that even as adults we struggle with this reality. I think of Joan Didion's book The Year of Magical Thinking. She wrote about her struggle for almost a year until she was able to accept that her husband was really gone. We don't talk about it, but there is a remnant of magical thinking in all of us. I am reminded of a high school senior who told me that she was upset that her mother was gong to get married again. This was 10 years after her father died and for her the marriage made the finality of his loss very real. She was now able to reflect on her dilemma about accepting this new reality when she thought about how old she was when he died. She could now talk about her thoughts about his death in a different way.

Who was she when she was 8? A school age child's ability to reflect on this own behavior is limited. They are just learning to think about their own thoughts. Their repertoire for naming and expressing feelings is growing, but still limited. They can acknowledge only one feeling at a time. They can begin to see the relationship between how one thing can lead to another, and to see what part they play in making things happen. They are very literal and concrete in terms of what they do and in their relationship with others. They begin to ask about death, what it means to be dead. They may ask questions but it does not mean that they understand the answers. They may need to hearagain and again that there is no returning from the grave. It is important to realize school age children will revisit this many time over the years often without ever saying a word to their surviving parent. I am reminded of a 7 year old who did not want to go back to school but could not tell anyone why. He was finally able to tell his mother what was bothering him. His closest friend told him that if he was really sad about his father dying he would be crying all the time. He did not know how to meet his friend's expectations, not could he understand that his friend was trying to figure out what It means to grieve. They were both very concrete. Neither his teacher nor his mother could understand what was making him so reluctant to go to school until finally he told his mother about this conversation with his friend. Mother told him that people grieve in different way and his friend was trying to understand this. Friendship at this age is often seen in the service of a child's own needs and what is good for him or her. He could begin to understand that his friend was not trying to hurt him, only after his mother put it into words for him.

School age children need support and the reassurance of others as they begin to define their sense of who they are. They need to learn that the world can continue in the face of the death of one of their parents. At this age when a parent dies a child loses someone who acted in the service of the child's own needs. For example a child will ask: "Who will take care of me?" "Who will take me to school?" My high school senior at age 8 saw her father as someone who made her laugh, who played with her, and who made her feel special.

I am not sure how to bring together the various thoughts in this blog. I think It does come together as we realize that to understand how children react we need to look at where they are developmentally, that is how they view and relate to their world. This is not static over time. However, even as adults there are still remnants of the child in each us, especially when we deal with death and what comes with it.

I have a question that is the result of my thinking about what help was available, after 9/11, to the many children who lost a parent in this disaster. On various occasions these children met each other and I assume realized that they were not alone. Children I typically meet often talk about the feeling of being the only child they know whose parent died. They talk about feeling isolated and alone in school. They are excited when they participate in a program for grieving children and perhaps for the first time meet others like themselves. Did the 9/11 children have the same feeling of aloneness and isolation? How was it different for them?