Are these questions from my child normal?

Question

my 6 year old son tells me he feels like his life is a dream and he looks in the mirror
and wonders if he is really alive and sometimes he doesnt feel like he is even real, like he is dreaming and he cant feel anything. he is a
deep thinker and creative and i wonder if he is just using his imagination. i responded by telling
him i understand that life is funny and its good to think about why we are here and how god works, then i tickeled him and asked
if he could feel that. i do hope he is ok though also. i know he may have some things he wants to avoid
as our family has been through quite a bit. ( moving, remarriage). Why would he think these things? imagination?

he is mostly a happy kid. he is definitly quirky and on a "different beat". i do worry is is dissasociating though. i dont want that to become a problem. thanks!

Answer 1

Sounds normal to me. I had thoughts like that when I was his age:
"is my house really still there when I can't see it, or just when I can?"
"what if there is no New York?"
"What if I am a figment in someone else's dream, or everything I experience is really a huge dream and I'll wake up one day?"
All sorts of existential stuff.

He's just working out the concepts of "reality", "fantasy", "fiction", etc. Sounds like a bright kid.

My parents divorced when I was 7, but I don't recall that having much affect on my imagination. It was always there.

Don't worry, you have a normal son.

PS - I was mostly an introvert until I got to college. I'm much more outgoing now. Some kids take a while to "bloom".

Answer 2

In light of all the changes that seem to be going on it is very normal for a child to basically start questioning things like reality and his identity. The way I would address it if I was you is to make sure to reassure hom of all that you can especially your presence. For example be specific and tell him, mommy is going out to work and she will pick you up from school at 3:30. And when you get there at 3:30 remind him that you had told him so. Things like that should help ground him and make him feel a little more secure with the new situations. Good luck, and feel free to e-mail me if you have further concerns.

Answer 3

I felt a twinge when he asked if he is real or if he's dreaming. Keep an open dialog with your child and stay close to him and ask his opinions and thoughts. He warrants all the love and attention you can give him. He is probably just weighed down by the stress you mentioned in the family. But don't You Start Feeling Guilty Mama, because you were listening and you are totally alert to your son and wonder about his thoughts. You are a great mother and I can tell by the way you write about him. He is in safe hands with you and the attention you show him. Always listen. Nothing is unimportant. You are doing fine, Mama. Carry on. (He's a lucky boy.)

Answer 4

i wouldn't worry too much about this kind of thing, when i was a kid i had all sorts of weird questions like your son's. Just let him grow up and try your best to not let it bother you. My mother just looked at these things and with a smile said "you're strange"...I can tell you that despite my difference i turned out just fine. I am 22 I live with my older brother and i am in the Military working with electronics. If anything feed his creativity so that it can grow with him and I'm sure he will turn out to be an intelligent successful person. If things get too weird for you don't take him to a psychiatrist that will only scare him and he will hide or bury his creativity, but try a hypnotherapist. If you do, I'm sure you will discover that he is a normal child just born with extra creativity.

Answer 5

Yep , me too ! I remember thinking that when I was little. I sometimes wondered if everyone else was really there too. I bet you did too and just don't remember !!! Haven't you ever heard someone ask " If a tree falls in the woods and there is no one there to hear it , does it still make a noise ? "Same kind of thinking ! I think your son is totally normal ! Wait for - "Mommy, what does the inside of the dog look like? " Then ,you may want to watch him more closely ! Ha, ha, just joking . I hope ! He's fine. Kids wonder,and say all kinds of stuff. I wish grown-ups were as open -minded, and used their brain as much as little children.

Answer 6

He sounds a lot like me as a young boy. I became aware of existential and intellectual stuff very early. Unfortunately, my parents didn't understand me one bit. They told me that I thought to much about weird stuff and to put trust in God. They never tried to channel my creative thoughtful nature into any kind of challenging or artistic directions, and I think they were disappointed that I wasn't more outgoing or better at sports. I don't know enough about your child to tell if there's something wrong with him, but don't screw him up but making him think that being a deep and creative thinker makes him weird or incapable of being understood. Get him involved in something that makes the best of his nature and talents. If my parents had done that, I think I would be a lot better off.

Answer 7

If he's not showing any signs of depression, anxiety, aggression toward self or others, excessive defiance (of course some is to be expected!), or other common childhood mental health problems, then you have nothing to worry about.

He may just be extremely imaginitive, perhaps even gifted (given that he's talking like a teenage poet at age six). (Not that I have enough information to have any idea whether your son is gifted, but giftedness does sometimes alarm parents. Gifted kids are so different from their peers, their behavior seems really weird sometimes.)

Answer 8

He is going through a lot of changes, according to your details, ans at such a young age, he might be trying to figure out of all of these changes ARE real. Maybe he longs for the way it used to be, especially if it was a very routine and scheduled way of life.

Just make sure to incorporate a new routine, and allow him to help in anyway he can. Make sure he knows he is loved (yes, verbally reassure him multiple times a day). If it doesn't clear up and he doesn't go back to "normal" within a feww weeks, or if it gets worse (he doesn't want to be "in reality" at all), then please schedule a visit with his pediatrician.

Good looking out. I hope he ends up all right.

Answer 9

He seems to be exploring his imagination but it's truth in a sense of moral absolutes, trying to find a true meaning to something..A lack of control of situation but unable to express them at that age can produce some miracluous attributes in a child which will help his coping techniques..I believe this is healthy and you should be proud of your son to express this side of his wonder so early..he has been exposed to a increase of certain senses that has him doing these things..He is an innocent child (mind)..When i was young my sister and I would stand in front of the mirrow and say that those people in there are copying us...that's kind of silly but we had fun...I would ofcourse monitor his moods and show Love and compassion

Answer 10

Both remarriage and moving can have this effect on a child, and it can be very negative, depending on the circumstances. Nothing prepares a child for the division of the family, which is always meant by God to be as one. This should not be overlooked.

People will often say things to make you feel better, or to try to make you feel more comfortable with the situation, but children are hit hard by it, and usually little can be done other than to allow time to heal the wounds. They say that children are resilient, again, this makes YOU feel better, but not the child. Nothing is going to make the child feel better, not even time.

Even in the best of circumstances, for instance, when the child is in a new, loving home and does not realize what they lost and gained, they seem to always know somehow that something very wrong has happened. We might see going from an abusive relationship to a better one as something good, something positive, but the child sees it as it really as, as something that was meant to be right, but was wrong, and something which was made worse instead of being fixed. Even when they come out better off, they still see it the way it really was.

Oftentimes, when parents or adults try to make the children feel better about such things, they tend to make them feel worse about it -- most of the time the children involved feel that it is their fault and this feeling of guilt increases even when the adults try to explain that this is not the case. The children often disassociate themselves with the rest of the world because, as they see it, they have been disassociated with the family, and the family is who they are; that is their identity. Part of their identity is also the surroundings that they are familiar with, which, in the case of moving, they have been disassociated from as well.

Is this the case for you and your child? Hard to say for sure, but it would not surprise me if this is what happened. Is it normal? Probably. Is it his imagination? Probably. Sounds to me like he is trying to figure out who he is, now that all who he is, is gone (or is not what it used to be).

No one likes to hear an answer like this, but it is like asking, "does it hurt if I hit my hand with a hammer?" and the answer is "yes it does." If at all possible, I suggest that you not hit your hand with a hammer again; and if you do, I would like to suggest that it will hurt again. Sometimes it just cannot be avoided.

Can one feel this way without the trauma and it be normal? Not usually. This is the usual way of dealing with some kind of trauma -- whether it is perceived by us as being trauma or not. These things can be very complicated and very hard to address in this short space and with such little knowledge of what is going on.

Children need to have a firm foundation, to develop healthy "roots". Just like a plant needs good soil, sunshine, and water, a child needs a good foundation, love, and lots of care. You might have a nice, healthy plant with a lot of good care and when you transplant it, it can lose all that vitality and sometimes it is nearly impossible to transplant them in such a way as for them to survive. Younger plants seem to survive this easier than older plants, so when we survive an experience, we assume that the child can too, often overlooking the fact that they are going through so much more than we might be. Sometimes the only solution is for the plant to be in its native soil and environment; and no amount of wishing or hoping, or even scientific application is going to change that. But sometimes, with a little analysis, and trying to reconstruct the native soil and environment properly, everything can turn out just fine.