From the author: The world of adults is full of events that are sometimes incomprehensible to a child. Children, without receiving an explanation from adults, try to cope on their own. Often this leads to catastrophic changes. Depression in a child or the story of one boy who lost his father. A young woman is at the reception. She said over the phone that there were problems with her son, who went to school this year. She herself associates all her problems with learning difficulties. First meeting. A beautiful, well-groomed woman is looking at me. While she was telling me in detail what was happening to her son, I was trying to understand what she was feeling. Is she worried, or is she very angry, or is she confused. Her phrase brings me out of my thoughts: and now we have another problem - a week ago my husband died. The child's father? Yes. It finally became clear why I couldn’t figure out what the woman sitting in front of me was feeling. Grief. The grief that is kept inside. A grief that cannot be shared. Grief is always a mixture of feelings. They fight each other. On the one hand, for the right to be, and on the other, the right to be at the expense of suppressing the other. The problem is, the mother continues, that the son does not know about his father’s death, and I don’t know how to tell him about it. I will give a short excerpt from the session mother and son. The mother reported with surprise that after the previous session her son had been unusually quiet. Didn't ask questions. And he behaved as if he himself knew everything. And while his mother was talking about him, the boy began to draw. Then, abandoning this activity, he began to simply wander around the office. He stood by the window and looked out of the window sadly. We stopped mom and started commenting: sometimes, when you are waiting for someone, you want to look out the window. It seems that this is the only way you won’t miss the one you love. But when he doesn’t come for a long time, you want to break everything and tear everyone to pieces. When someone dies, it is always unfair. This makes me terribly angry. It scares. At this time, the boy approached the chair and began to rock it. Therapist – you feel so bad that you want to become small and be lulled to sleep like a baby. Maybe they picked him up, rocked him and sang a lullaby. The boy approached his mother and climbed into his arms. Therapist - maybe you want to be inside your mother again. It seems that only mom is safe inside and there is no need to protect herself from anyone. The boy began to cry. For the first time in many months. For the first time, he did not attack and was able to show his suffering. For a few more minutes they both cried: mother and son, hugging tightly, wiping each other's tears. Both who have lost a loved one. Both hiding their suffering. They were crying quietly. And we didn’t interfere with them. People often ask me: is the child depressed? It can not be. We give everything. He has the best toys. We try to provide tasty food. He is beautifully dressed. He has nothing to suffer from. Yes, perhaps, I agree. It is of course important to be well-fed and to have the opportunity to play with your favorite and perhaps fashionable toy at any time. It is important to be no worse than others. It may be more important for children to have a tasty meal, but next to their parents. Play with a toy, but with your father. A child, having learned something new at school, runs home to share this new thing with his parents. And yes, of course, we know this, and perhaps we haven’t even seen it from a book, but have seen it with our own eyes. But for a child this is new, it is exciting, and this is exciting and needs to be contained within oneself, to help process the excess of emotions. If we return to our family, then the parents sincerely believed that they were carefully hiding their conflict. For the sake of the child. Just so he doesn't worry. What is the child doing at this time? Usually children begin to fantasize. And in their fantasies they do not go far from themselves. And they quickly find the reason for the parents' quarrel - and it is himself. In fantasies, the child considers himself guilty because he was angry with them, was often angry, and maybe wished him death. And sometimes such fantasies can reach the idea that he is not worthy to live in this world. Wishing his father to die, all he can do is die. And loss is not always a real loss.