I don't know where to start so I'm just going to write and see if this makes sense. I could really use some feedback for myself and my SIL.
My 10 year old niece has been writing very graphic, gory stories in her journal. She writes about how a wife decided she hated her husband so she stabbed him in the neck until he bleed to death, and then buried him in the back yard. The wife feels guilty later and then kills herself with a knife too. Another story was about a butcher who hated his wife so much that he killed her, ground her into meat and then ate the meat. The butcher decided the meat tasted so good he started killing other people to sell their ground up bodies. He gets ground up as meat at the end of the story.
Normally my niece is an outgoing, extremely smart, class clown kinda of girl. This school year she is at a new school. She is having a hard time fitting in. She isn't the smartest girl in the class for the first time. She's struggling after being so popular at the school she grew up in, and being a wall flower at the new school.
On top of that, her parents are going through a very difficult time in their marriage. Most likely this marriage is going to end in divorce after 14 years. My SIL tells me that her and my brother bicker in the car, or don't talk at all, but most of the arguing is kept behind their bedroom door. My brother is the most uninvolved father you could imagine, so my SIL has basically been a single mom to 3 kids all along anyway.
My niece said the other day she was never getting married, and never wanted kids. She was adamant.
Is this normal? If we try to break down all the components going on in her life are these horror stories her way of venting her frustrations? My SIL was going to tell her to stop writing these stories, and especially stop reading them to her 6 year old sister, but I'm afraid if she tells her to stop writing she's going to act out a different way.
HELP? Any mamas with any advice is welcome advice.
TIA.
My 10 year old niece has been writing very graphic, gory stories in her journal. She writes about how a wife decided she hated her husband so she stabbed him in the neck until he bleed to death, and then buried him in the back yard. The wife feels guilty later and then kills herself with a knife too. Another story was about a butcher who hated his wife so much that he killed her, ground her into meat and then ate the meat. The butcher decided the meat tasted so good he started killing other people to sell their ground up bodies. He gets ground up as meat at the end of the story.
Normally my niece is an outgoing, extremely smart, class clown kinda of girl. This school year she is at a new school. She is having a hard time fitting in. She isn't the smartest girl in the class for the first time. She's struggling after being so popular at the school she grew up in, and being a wall flower at the new school.
On top of that, her parents are going through a very difficult time in their marriage. Most likely this marriage is going to end in divorce after 14 years. My SIL tells me that her and my brother bicker in the car, or don't talk at all, but most of the arguing is kept behind their bedroom door. My brother is the most uninvolved father you could imagine, so my SIL has basically been a single mom to 3 kids all along anyway.
My niece said the other day she was never getting married, and never wanted kids. She was adamant.
Is this normal? If we try to break down all the components going on in her life are these horror stories her way of venting her frustrations? My SIL was going to tell her to stop writing these stories, and especially stop reading them to her 6 year old sister, but I'm afraid if she tells her to stop writing she's going to act out a different way.
HELP? Any mamas with any advice is welcome advice.
TIA.
) but I would not want them read to the younger child... My 10yo has a similar imagination and while that is okay, I do not want him scaring the bejeebus out of ds2 (who is 6 as well). As long as she seems otherwise well balanced (in addition to the horror obsession, my 10yo also write love songs... no joke 
) then I would say its a acceptable creative outlet...
I really wanted to be a horror book writer at one time, about that age, so I would write stuff similiar to that. It was a phase. I am sure she is upset about what is going on in her life though. This may be a way to deal. I think she should possibly go see someone, even a school counselor, just to be on the safe side. My mom left me and my siblings when I was 11 just out of the blue. My sister was 7 at the time and she told me recently that when she was 8 she tried to think of ways to die and kill herself, and even jumped out of a tree to try to once. I never knew this as a child, and neither did my father......so she could be hiding stuff.
She's even got the twist endings! They're also similar to the sorts of things Roald Dahl wrote for adults, and significantly less disturbing than Sweeney Todd.
