(This is the blog that you should follow, it will make you use your noodle and that is probably a good thing. Have a question? e-mail me and I will answer)
Question: Recently my husband died unexpectedly. I have been a mess but my 12 year old son, who was my husband's step son for 7 years, doesn't even seem to be bothered. At first I thought he was in shock, because the last interaction he had with my husband was a fight about his chores. Now it has been three weeks and still nothing. The other day I confronted him and he said, "It's no big deal Mom, it's like when Sadie [our former dog] died, you're sad for awhile but you get over it." I feel like a failure as a parent. I cannot believe my son compared my husband to an F$#@ing dog. Have I raised some sort of heartless monster? Should I make him go to counseling, is there even any point?
Answer: Your first impulse was right, your son is in shock. He is having the most reasonable reaction he can handle to an unbearable situation.
The research indicates that when a child your son's age loses a primary care giver it takes 4 to 7 years to move fully through the stages of grief from shock/denial all the way to acceptance. Accordingly, it should be no surprise that three weeks after the death of such an important figure he has still barely scratched the surface of the first stage.
When any new event happens in our life our brain uses a process called scaffolding to link that event to the closest memory it has access to. Just because your son compared the loss of your husband to that of the dog does not mean he values their lives equally, it is just the closest link he has in his limited experience on this planet.
At this stage it is to his advantage to minimize what he acknowledges as the impact of this loss. 90% of the time when I hear a kid say "I don't care." What they really mean is "I don't want to care." Caring can hurt me, and if I pretend long enough and loud enough that this doesn't bother me, maybe it won't. Can we blame him for this wishful thinking?.
Your son's brain is also conspiring to keep him from feeling at this stage. On a winter day if he stayed out in the cold too long he would not be able to feel his ears. Just because they were numb it would not mean he was not impacted, but if you asked him if he felt anything he could honestly say that he didn't. His brain had stopped sending the pain signal because it was ineffective in getting him to change his situation. Eventually when he comes inside his ears will begin to thaw, and burn, but that is a pain you only have the luxury of feeling if you can get out of the cold.
Right now your son is still out in the cold. Once again the brain does us the favor of limiting our exposure to the pain until we are in a place that is safe enough for us to begin to handle it. If your son was able to fully grasp this loss he would probably be unable to get out of bed or bathe himself. To feel anything means risking touching a bottomless pit of grief and guilt.
I would highly encourage you to exposure your son to some form of therapy, but do not be surprised if he is not ready to talk about his feelings for several years. At his age art or music therapy tend to be far more effective in allowing boys to express feelings that they do not yet have the emotional equipment to form into words. I would also encourage you to make sure that you are in some form of counseling to address your own feelings of loss and role model for him that sharing his feelings with a someone is nothing to be ashamed of.
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