Behavioural Psychologists, what actually happens if children are exposed to concepts they're "too young for" (sex, death, etc)?

I’ll chime in as a child that dealt with the death of a parent at a young age (less than three).

I don’t remember my dad, and didn’t have a strong reaction to learning about his death. I did, however, show signs later on that it did affect me profoundly. Growing up, I had a crippling fear that I would suddenly lose my family members — especially my mom.

It was so bad that I would break down and cry in school fearing that she would die on the way to work or while I was at school. Back when the DC Sniper was in the news all the time, I noticed my mom’s van parked in a weird way at the top of the driveway and the door was left open. I convinced myself that she had been kidnapped and/or killed by the sniper.

I also was obsessed with The Lion King as a child. It’s probably still my favorite movie. Obviously looking back, I think the main character losing his dad to tragedy really resonated with me. And of course, in the film, the father got to reunite with his son posthumously in the form of a ghost.

Kids can have a really difficult time processing this stuff. Luckily by the time I was a little older I wasn’t as scared of random tragedy occurring in my life.

/r/AskReddit Thread