how do i take this? my son broke me today :-(

[buttonortwo]

after a lovely morning together, we got home, i had some strong words with him for not listening.. he went very quiet and started sobbing on the spot.. left him to it and said to calm down and when he was ready we could talk.. he then tells me he doesnt feel he has a place on planet earth and feels he is useless.. i tried to keep it in, but did not know how to react.. he said he knew what he was going to tell me would upset me, i didnt push it, but this is what he told me.. he then seemed to feel better and told me not to tell anyone... i said i am pleased he shared and to not bottle things up . he said he had a "speech bubble" in his head with these thoughts... oh dear me.. he is 6 and normally fine, but he had me in tears.. he was almost testing me and kind of smiling? how would you react? do i just leave it, or bring it up again? tia

[Grockle]

I would leave it for him to bring up again but make a point of telling him how proud you are of him for doing X, Y, Z, how much you love him, how clever, funny, whatever he is. Lots of positive stuff & telling him you love him, even if you are cross with him.

My DS was making suicidal comments when he'd just turned 7. It was awful

I informed his school because I was scared - they put him in their nurture group. I also managed to get some support for him from Young Carers (i'm not well) and eventually from CAMHS but they were useless.

[DarkKnight123]

I agree that promoting your son's self esteem with praise and acknowledgement of his good points is something you should be doing. Also continue with the discipline part of parenting; enforcing boundaries around his behavior will also be reassuring to him.

The school do need to be notified, they will be in a position to offer patrol support. In your shoes i would ask for a meeting with the head and follow up with regular further meetings to see how he's doing.

CAHMS can be a funny organisation to deal with. It may be better if the referral came from your GP rather than yourself. I do agree an assessment needs to be undertaken.

[DarkKnight123]

sorry for spelling error...second paragraph should read school should offer 'pastoral' support...d'ooh.

[Monetbyhimself]

It's do hard to hear your baby come out with something lkke that but he obviously trusts you to be able to tell you. Loads if cuddles and reassurance. Do you think that anythingnin particular has triggered how he is feeliing right now ?

[Marraskuu]

On a parenting course (designed for adopters but could be helpful?) we learned how powerful it can be to a) drip-feed specific praise all day long, and b)make it part of the bedtime routine to praise ten things about them just before they go to sleep. They need to be un-arguable things, so they believe you, like "It was so helpful when you put your plate in the dishwasher, that really made me feel like we're a team". Doing it just before sleep means it sinks in more and helps them feel a bit calmer. You need to do it reliably and even on the days when it might be hard to think of ten things (!) but it helps.

[Russianfudge]

Just to add, it seems common at six/7 for them to start questioning where they fit in to the world and what it's all about.
My dd said something similar to that and when I mentioned it in the playground it turned out they're all at it in year 2/3.

It's something to do with the frontal lobes of the brain having a huge change at that age and making them more aware of emotions and the whys of life.

It's fairly typical for boys to withdraw around that time so carry on encouraging him to talk about his feelings and try not to get upset when he shares

[TheTruffleHunter]

This is weird but I started telling my DH earlier about something similar that happened to me when I was 9 -something just bubbled up in me and I tried to express it to my DM who just squashed my comment, maybe she didn't know how to react but neither of us ever brought it up again. I can't tell you how that crushed me. Now I'm 38 and trying to make sure this never happens with our kids...

Ask him how feels about it tomorrow, or in a few days. It's not good to feel like that when you're so small, you feel like you have no power to 'fix' these things and if you raise it with no response it feels like your Mum doesn't give a shit.

It may be a passing thing that he won't remember or worry about in a couple of days, but it may not be. Don't risk it, please

[cestlavielife]

refelctive lsitening - how to t alk has good ideas. www.amazon.co.uk/How-Talk-Kids-Will-Listen/dp/1848123094?tag=mumsnet&ascsubtag=mnforum-21 was recomended to me by child psychologist dd also went thru saying things like this
some areas have a telephone consutlation service available witha child psychologist can be useful
mention to GP - and school - if you get a referral to CAMHS etc but by then he hasnt mentioned it again you can cancel appt but better to be proactive. CAMHs variable but if you can get a good child therapist it can be really good. they use play therapy etc to help the child