Incog-

I'd try a Socrates act with dd to see what her real concern is about clones. Does she worry that YOU might be replaced by a clone? Maybe she doesn't understand that even a clone needs time to grow into an adult.

I'm not in favor of human cloning, but remember when "test tube babies" were big news? However the child is conceived, it still must go through all the usual patterns of growth and discovery. Cloned babies would not be born knowing all that their donors do, and they will not be adults any sooner than any other baby.

Do you think this would help?

Good advice. They do tend to take these ideas and run with them!!!
I think she was more worried about me or anyone else being replaced by a clone, good observation.

I think I put it in perspective, anyhow, she was bright and cheery this morning. It didn't seem to be an issue, once she got to sleep.

I'm clearly the one who is dragging from staying up to late worrying about her worrying!

Kriston was right, probably is more traumatic for me!


Incog

She sounds similar to my son. I had to stop watching the news so much because of his worries. Even though he would be in a different room playing a game he could still hear it and there was no doubt that he had been thinking about the things he heard--things that kids shouldn't worry about--because he would talk about it later.

He worried about things like cancer and then brain injury. He worried about terrorists. He worried that he wouldn't be able to tell if people were good and safe to be around because he thought nobody was either all good or all evil and someone could act like a nice person and really not be. He wondered out loud if there might be times when suicide is acceptable. He heard about people in my family getting divorced and remarried and worried about divorce at age nine and needed my advice on how to choose the right girl to marry just in case I wasn't around when he was old enough to marry. He worried that girls wouldn't like him because they might think he was nerdy. I read to him at night and every night there is something else that he needs to talk about. He is not a kid that will just read a book quietly and then go to sleep.

He has always had trouble sleeping and the only way I could get him to sleep sometimes was to wrap him in a blanket and "hug" him to sleep because he couldn't turn off his mind and relax enough to fall asleep any other way. So I always had to allow a lot of time for talking and hugging. If I listened to him talk long enough he would sometimes come up with his own ways of dealing with the worries.

I've always been very relieved an grateful that DS6 is so ridiculously logical. He rarely has any of the sort of irrational but very scary fears that HG+ kids usually have.

His biggest fear hit him when he was 3. The preschool guinea pig and his great-grandfather died within a month of one another, and the 1-2 punch was really devistating and terrifying for him. I think that because fearing death is not illogical and can't be waved away easily, it was all the more difficult for me to deal with. People really do die. He will one day really die. It's a valid fear.

I went with the standard, "everything that lives will die eventually, but you and Mommy and Daddy will all live a long, long time." It wasn't enough. He chewed on death for months, acting it out in his make-believe play, talking about it incessantly, and even having trouble going to sleep (which he never has trouble doing!). Hugs and reassurances, discussions of the science of death, talking about religious beliefs...nothing helped.

Eventually it just played itself out. I think he did what we all do and he decided not to let the fear of death keep him from living. But I can vividly recall how worried I was for him, how powerless I felt to help him.

Their fears become our worries, don't they?

Despite DS's extreme academic needs, he seems somewhat reserved about these more emotional issues. Our middle daughter though is our extreme child here. It makes me wonder what her true LOG would be without her LD's in the way.

I love the advice so far, and can use some of it with DD's multiple concern areas. She spent the first 10 minutes of 2008 literally crying her eyes out over missed opportunitie of 2007.

Ironically, one of DD13's first GT assignments (late 5th grade ID) involved a book about cloning. I read it too...very weird book, but the title slips my mind. I think it had "red" in it? I questioned what we'd gotten ourselves into at that point! I certainly don't recommend it in this case, LOL!

We've been there with the death issue, much like you Kriston. Its such a tough topic to tackle, especially when you're talking to a 5 year old. (thats when L was obsessed with it).

Incog, I think you handled it perfectly. I think the best thing for these kids, at least this is my opinion, is that when they ask about things like death or cloning or terrorists, that we answer them with honesty. Of course we can always be sensitive to their fears and concerns but for me just going ahead and talking with dd about issues helps her to work through it and ease her mind. I'm finding that sugar coating things insults my dd. She'd rather have the truth. Of course, not all kids are like this but this has been my experience.

So true!
When DD was afraid of burglars coming in the house during the night, I pointed to the houses across the street which are three times larger than ours.
I asked her if she was going to break into a house to steal stuff, which house would she choose.
She smiled as she immediately followed my logic and is not afraid of burglars breaking in anymore.
I roll with it pretty well most times. I really don't know what it was about last night that really tripped me up...........

We've dealt with the existential anxiety thing with both girls too, and they both did seem to "grow" out of it.

The clone thing jammed me up, though, not sure why. Probably has more to do with me than her.......:)

Incog

Well, clones would trip anyone up! I think you were smart to get to the heart of what was bothering her.

I think a lot of the fears these kids have are, at their foundation, exactly the same as any other kid might have: for example, what if Mommy isn't there anymore? That was really my DS6's fear of death and it was really your DD's fear of cloning. It's just their minds spin off so wildly and about such complex issues, it is much harder to know how to approach the fear.

And they freak out so thoroughly when they get scared of something, it's really quite scary for us as parents.

I think back to when DS6 had a bout of night terrors. The screams were just soul-rending to hear. But he was fine. It was just horrible on us! Same thing. They are so dramatic about their fears, but I really do think it's harder for us to watch than it is for them to go through it.

I don't have any memories of experiencing this sort of terror. Does anyone else? If someone does, it might prove me wrong...

I definately remeber having night terrors. I can actually remember a few of the dreams and when recalling I definately recall the emotion attatched to the memory.

Incog

My son was terrorized by his thoughts for a long time before I was able to pick that there was something wrong. He did not verbalize them easily.
One of the early worries, since we are around Christmas, was abouth Santa not being able to land safely on our roof. This was a real, real problem for the little guy.
See, our house has very uneven, multi level roof, and Ghost was calculating that with the speed the reindeers "must be going, to circle the world in two days" (he already knew about the time zones)there was na way they could all safely land on our roof. He was begging husband to build runway extensions in both directions. We were loughing secretely and later became a little unnoyed as he tried to collect wood for runway, but for him it was a huge, huge problem. A psychiatric case for someone who does not know better, right?
Incogneato - he still worries but is not overwhelmed by his worries any more. I think that the toughest time Ghost had at school, when the teachers had no idea why he worries about so many things. I had to explain that this is the problem he is actually having on his burner (the biggest one by far was leukemia), and they were all most likely thinking - what a weird european family. My european mom was however complaining that it was the american culture that was making my son so fragile and vulnerable :-)