childhood anxiety and fear

[Jenn42]

My seven year old son's best friend passed away last month from a rare form of childhood leukemia.  Ever since he died my son has exhibited more anxiety than usual (rightly so)...especially right before bed time.  I encourage him to talk about his feelings and he does talk openly with both his father and I.  But his fears are becoming more consuming:  he's afraid of getting sick, he's afraid of being poisoned, he's even become overcome with fear that someone is going to break into our home at night.  His anxiety usually only lasts about ten minutes or so and then he "gives in" and goes to bed.  He might get up one to two times within the first five minutes of lying down, but more often than not he still goes to sleep fairly easily (he's very active and that seems to help).  My question is:  how can I best ease his anxiety?  Our friend's death has been so traumatic and I know that the grieving process is individual and lengthy, but are there red flags that I should be watching for so that his grief doesn't turn into anxiety?

[Kevin Kennedy, Ph.D.]

Thus far your son is displaying a normal reaction; that is, he is responding in an understandable way to a difficult event in his life. Separation anxiety is the most common resonse in young children to the death (or other type of loss) of a friend. Respond in a patient, supportive manner, and you will likely see the responses wane over the weeks (remember, though, it's still early in the process). If your son's anxiety escalates and expands, and particularly if it interferes with his mastery of the various challenges that are typical for children his age, seek therapy for him. If this becomes necessary, don't wait until a crisis develops, but rather respond in a timely fashion. The gauge to use is whether the emotional reaction is expanding; at this point, the reaction should certainly still be evident, but plateauing.

[jd1419]

You may want to have him talk to a child psycologist or even maybe a priest--they sometimes have better ways of helping children deal with the concept of death.  Good Luck I am imagining how hard this must be to deal with.