Does anyone know what a six year old would go through after seeing someone close to her killed? What kind of stages of shock, especially if the situation is never acknowledged or dealt with by those around her.
Six year old who witnesses killing
- Thread starter Keyboard Hound
- Start date
johnnysannie
Banned
It would depend on many factors such as the maturity of the six year old, life experiences of the child thus far, and what the child has been taught (and not in school).
It's very variable.
It's very variable.
Heh. How coincidental. I saw someone die when I was precisely that age.
I was shoved out of the room but I was dying (sorry for the pun) to know what was going on. I heard all these noises, rushed into the room, got pushed out again and got seriously pissed off that no-one was telling me what was going on. I hung around for a bit, hid until 'the mess' got cleaned up and demanded to know what was going on.
So in my case it was more curiosity than fear.
A few months later though, I started having not exactly nightmares, because I couldn't get to sleep...but my dislike of the dark started, and I got scared about dying myself. Delayed reaction I suppose.
I was shoved out of the room but I was dying (sorry for the pun) to know what was going on. I heard all these noises, rushed into the room, got pushed out again and got seriously pissed off that no-one was telling me what was going on. I hung around for a bit, hid until 'the mess' got cleaned up and demanded to know what was going on.
So in my case it was more curiosity than fear.
A few months later though, I started having not exactly nightmares, because I couldn't get to sleep...but my dislike of the dark started, and I got scared about dying myself. Delayed reaction I suppose.
Well, are you looking to have the child experiencing "posttraumatic stress disorder" or "acute stress disorder" as a result of this exposure? If so, take a look at the American Psychiatric Association's "Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition, Text Revision." If you cannot access the actual book, there is a summary of diagnostic criteria under "anxiety disorder" at http://www.behavenet.com/capsules/disorders/dsm4TRclassification.htm
Are you suggesting I have a mental disease as a result of my witnessing death at the tender age of six? 
Not later post traumatic stress disorder as much as what the child would be going through right away and in the next few days, especially if the adults around her were too tied up with their own feelings to notice her distress.
I think a better question is how would the child in your story react to witnessing that. However s/he reacts it has to be fitting for the story of course. I've written a lot about kids myself and used to ask the same questions. Children are just as unpredictable as adults in those situations, maybe even more. Some children would run away, others would try to help, still others would just stand there. Just have to go with your gut feeling on some things.
Thanks you so much for answering. I'm not questioning what she would do at the time of the killing. It's the days and weeks following that I'm trying to figure out. the entire family will be so wrapped up in their own feelings, they pretty much ignore her and leave her to deal with her feelings on her own and the dead person was close kin. Would you have any idea how a youngster would react to that?
In my case, I asked questions but was told to shut up, it was none of my business, I needn't concern myself.
So I grew up not talking about things that bothered me. Anything. And I felt like a fool for being scared of death. In fact my mother made it clear any worries on my part were to be construed as a weakness, and she wouldn't tolerate me needing support.
So I grew up not talking about things that bothered me. Anything. And I felt like a fool for being scared of death. In fact my mother made it clear any worries on my part were to be construed as a weakness, and she wouldn't tolerate me needing support.
There are a lot of factors to it, as people have already pointed out....the violence of the killing, the maturity of the child, how the adults around her are acting, and whether she's gotten immediate care. PTSD is pretty likely, especially if it was violent. I worked with children between 1 and about 13 who had witnessed things I can't even imagine (and don't want to). Some of the really young ones wouldn't speak, even 6 months after the event. You'll see reactions ranging from screaming nightmares and crying fits, to an increased tendency to violent behavior, to complete silence.... or on the scale of the less dramatic, sometimes they regress back a few years; start sucking their thumb, if they've stopped, or push all their feelings onto an inanimate object like a doll.
It's a completely individual response. Sorry if that doesn't help much.
It's a completely individual response. Sorry if that doesn't help much.
There are a lot of factors to it, as people have already pointed out....the violence of the killing, the maturity of the child, how the adults around her are acting, and whether she's gotten immediate care. PTSD is pretty likely, especially if it was violent. I worked with children between 1 and about 13 who had witnessed things I can't even imagine (and don't want to). Some of the really young ones wouldn't speak, even 6 months after the event. You'll see reactions ranging from screaming nightmares and crying fits, to an increased tendency to violent behavior, to complete silence.... or on the scale of the less dramatic, sometimes they regress back a few years; start sucking their thumb, if they've stopped, or push all their feelings onto an inanimate object like a doll.
It's a completely individual response. Sorry if that doesn't help much.
It does help. Do any of these children ever manifest physical ailments and limitations, such as quitting walking?
Well, I don't have any psych training, so I can only speak to what I've seen and what little I understood of it...the physical manifestations I saw were a lot more subtle than that. Incontinence, headaches, panic attacks triggered by loud noises, arguments among the adults around them, etc. If you've never seen one, a really strong panic attack can be completely terrifying to watch.
One boy had a sort of "phantom pain" syndrome; he'd tell you his arm hurt, and point to the spot over and over when he was upset. We never could figure out what was going on, until we found a translator...turned out he saw his brother get shot in the arm, among other things, and that was apparently his way of telling us where it hurt, so to speak. To this day I still couldn't tell you if there was actual physical pain or not, but he insisted there was, and when we couldn't help him he'd just curl up in your lap with these big tears rolling down his face.
I'd recommend looking up PTSD in children; there's got to be a ton of stuff out there on it.
Wow, this is a hard one. I'd say - with it just happening in my city over the weekend - there should be plenty of facts available on the net. A woman was murdered by her BF in front of her 12 year old and 2 year old. News anchors just commented on how the children were extremely traumatized by this. Horrible.
Normally regression just means the child repeats a stage that they went through 1 or 2 years ago. So, they might lose some language skills. A child of 3 or 4 might forget their toilet training, but a 6-year-old would probably not.
The child might display new symptoms like bedwetting, thumbsucking, being mute, nightmares, dependence on a favorite toy, imaginary friend, etc.
If you need the child to stop walking, this might help: Conversion Disorder is a psychological diagnosis not limited to children. In Conversion Disorder, a person loses their vision or experiences partial paralysis, usually after a stressful event (or to avoid a stressful event.) They aren't faking it...they really lose the use of their arms or legs, hands or whatever. However, the person is neurologically healthy, so there's no physical reason for the paralysis. The paralysis may be partial or complete, and it may be accompanied by tingling or prickling sensations. For example, they may be unable to use their legs and feel that something is crawling on the legs.
Other Conversion Disorders include Aphonia (loss of voice and all but whispered speech) and Anosmia, complete or partial loss of the sense of smell.
They may also lose sensation in a part of the body, which is called Anesthesias.
Again, all of these occur in people who are physiologially healthy.
Here http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GSmid=46593074&GRid=12587119& is one such story. Doesn't answer your question except to say that the child took a long time to realize it, probably because the situation was not explained to the child.
Are you suggesting I have a mental disease as a result of my witnessing death at the tender age of six?
Nah, not because of that.
I don't have any expertise in this area. All I can offer is one of my wife's anecdotes from when she taught grade 2 in an inner city school with a very transient and largely disfunctional population.
On the first day of school after the Christmas break, little Johnny's mother called. He would have been about 7 or it. First she reassured my wife that her drug and alcohol problems were much improved. She went onto say that little Johhny might be a bit distressed (I paraphrase the mother's actual comments)
On Chritmas morning little Johhny had gone to the basement of their house and found the mother's boy friend hanging from a beam dead as the proverbial door nail.
My wife is also a social worker and so she had the expertise to monitor little Johhny over the balance of the school year.
The most disturbing thing about little Johhny was that he wasn't disturbed at all.
In anticipation of the obvious question, this was a bright kid, he knew what death was and that the boyfriend was never coming back. By all accounts he was very fond of the boyfriend.
On the first day of school after the Christmas break, little Johnny's mother called. He would have been about 7 or it. First she reassured my wife that her drug and alcohol problems were much improved. She went onto say that little Johhny might be a bit distressed (I paraphrase the mother's actual comments)
On Chritmas morning little Johhny had gone to the basement of their house and found the mother's boy friend hanging from a beam dead as the proverbial door nail.
My wife is also a social worker and so she had the expertise to monitor little Johhny over the balance of the school year.
The most disturbing thing about little Johhny was that he wasn't disturbed at all.
In anticipation of the obvious question, this was a bright kid, he knew what death was and that the boyfriend was never coming back. By all accounts he was very fond of the boyfriend.
An even more disturbing account is found in Act 1 of this http://www.thislife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?sched=1331 radio program.
- Joined
- Sep 10, 2009
- Messages
- 11,059
- Reaction score
- 2,659
My friend's daughter did this. It wasn't a long-term thing, just one afternoon she couldn't walk. It freaked everyone out, actually.
I think in your situation it depends (duh, everyone else says so as well) on what the details are and what she's told. Are you talking about grandma dying of cancer upstairs and she's being told, "It's okay because grandma's not in any pain anymore and she's in heaven with the angels and happy now," or are you talking something like an older sibling kills himself and no one talks to the kid because they don't know how to deal with it themselves? You might have a traumatized kid, but you might also have one who handles it well and just deals with missing grandma sometimes.
Kids do tend to be pretty resilient, however. At that age, for the most part the processing of negative emotions isn't expressed the same as with adults, however, so keep that in mind. Children tend to act out more and seem angrier. They might have mood swings, etc. Chances are, if she's really upset by it (requiring she's not the type to withdraw, I know nothing about the situation) she might find herself getting into more trouble and not really knowing why. Might also be fine. It all depends.