Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Young child doesn't want to grow up

Thanks Platypus101. For me the problem isn't trying to better understand how DD5 feels, it's that there is no response I can give her that will fix it the unfixable - that life is meaningless, time is relative, and even though she's got 100 years of living to look forward to, it will pass, and once it's passed it will be as if it never happened. I've been dealing with the same feelings since I was a kid. I read the Dabrowski article, it wasn't anything new to me. The way I deal with it is pretty basic: I believe that being alive is better than being dead. So, the best thing to do is to enjoy what you can while you're here and keep yourself distracted from the existential questioning. But talking about the joys and freedoms of adulthood isn't going to fix things. I don't want to lay my nihilistic outlook on her just yet, so I think lying about death might be the way to go here. At least for a while, until she's old enough to develop her own philosophy on life, or discover religion, or boys or something else that keeps her distracted...