“What if mom dies?”: what to do with teenage anxiety

Fear of death or separation?

Concerns about the health of parents and the fear of their sudden death are common in early adolescence, at 12-14 years old. But these fears are an indicator that a readiness for separation (separation) from parents is ripening in the psyche.

In the old days, at this age, a girl could already be married off, and she herself became a mother. And the young man was sent to distant relatives for training, as an apprentice.

Today’s teenagers have a different situation. For a long time, parents were the foundation of their lives, their roots. But the graduation at school is getting closer, and the door to the huge world will open before the grown-up guy or girl. The probability of an early parting is very frightening (although most people hide this behind bravado).

It seems to children, and parents as well, that this is not a gradual separation from the family of a growing child, conceived by nature, but alienation forever. That the connection is broken and no one and nothing can replace the child’s parents, no matter how difficult the relationship between them.

In this vein, separation really looks like death and even expulsion from paradise. The fear that one of the parents may die is increasingly visiting a teenager. The brain paints pictures of incurable diseases, accidents and tragic funeral scenes.

Nature of fear

If a teenager asks you questions: “Mom, have you been tested for a long time, are you sure you don’t have cancer?”, “Dad, don’t you drive drunk? And then you will crash in a car, ”try not to explode from his words, he is not rude. And don’t discount with an answer like, “You’re not little anymore, what are you thinking?” Consider that he confesses his concern for your life, the fear of parting with you and starting his own independent life.

Talk to him heart to heart. Explain that he’s okay. And with you too. And fear is emotions that are stronger than the mind and logic, we do not control them. All mentally healthy people are afraid of something. This is a normal reaction that protects us from dangers.

A teenager’s fear of being left without parents is similar to a three-year-old’s fear of the dark. The kid does not want to go to the toilet at night, because he sees monsters in the dark corridor. The human brain has learned this fear since ancient times. Once upon a time, a small child would surely have died if he had left the cave at night without adults. But we know that there are no monsters. And objective reasons to be afraid for life — too.

A special case is if the fear of death in a teenager is associated with past losses of people dear to the heart, pets. Or in his environment someone recently lost their parents. Then you need to consult a psychologist to help sort out feelings, complete the experience of grief and step into a new, adult stage of life without fear.

«Bad dreams» — a bad sign or a cure?

To cope with severe anxiety, a teenager is helped by his “bad” dreams, in which he lives with the loss of his parents and learns to live with it further. This is not a figment of fantasy, not winding yourself up. So the brain looks for ways to cope with possible unbearable grief.

Harvard psychology professor and sleep researcher Deirdre Barrett says, “Dreams that revolve around difficult and frightening situations are actually our brains trying to find a way out.”

Emotions after sleep can be so strong that a teenager walks under the impression of them all school day — although he understands that everything is not true, in reality everyone is alive. But the experience of overcoming the loss is fixed in neural connections.

In Why We Sleep, neuroscientist Matthew Walker writes that REM sleep is the only period when the brain is not affected by the stress hormone norepinephrine. But at this time, those areas of the brain that are responsible for emotions and memory are active. So the brain re-processes unpleasant emotions received during the day, but in the most calm mode. In this phase of sleep, we find solutions to problems that seemed unsolvable.

In one of Walker’s experiments, participants went through the maze twice. It turned out better for those who had time to sleep between attempts. Sleepers were periodically awakened and asked what they were dreaming about. Those who said they dreamed about the maze did 10 times better on the second attempt than those who dreamed about something else.

Dry numbers

How real is a teenager’s fear for his parents? So that he does not worry in vain, invite him to think about the statistics. It may seem boring, but it is clear.

According to UNICEF, less than 1% of children in the world have become orphans, having lost both parents. Most of them are from poor countries where there is famine, epidemics and wars. The rest are the so-called «social» orphans, whose parents are alive, but cannot take care of the children.

As of June 1, 2020, 32,8 million children live in Russia. According to the Ministry of Education, just over 100 children (0,3%) have lost their parents due to death. That’s three cases per 1000 children.

Anxiety of a teenager is not a deviation, the fear of death is inherent in us evolutionarily. But, as you can see from the statistics, anxiety is greatly exaggerated by a rich imagination (and in adolescence, the area of ​​uXNUMXbuXNUMXbthe brain responsible for creativity just begins to mature).

Parents did their duty

Do not gloss over the topic of death in communication with a teenager. Let him openly express his feelings and recognize the right to them. Help assess whether the fear is real. If necessary, see a specialist to manage your anxiety. Then the child will be able to grow up calmly, with the confidence that he will not lose warmth in relations with you, even when he becomes an adult and independent.

You, the parents, have already done your duty. They gave everything they could so that the son or daughter felt support under their feet and walked boldly through life, and did not hold on to you forever. After all, they have an interesting life ahead of them!