Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Too emotionally sensitive?

DS9 and DD6 fight all the time, like all siblings. Sometime, mean words are exchanged during fights (nothing major, e.g. I don't like you). I discourage those behaviors as best as I can.

DS9 is very sensitive about those comments from his sister (and others of him for that matter). Sometime, he gets so upset that he says he wants to kill himself. I try to tell him that we all love him regardless whether his sister does or not, tell his sister to apologize to DS, etc.

Before brushing it off as an attention seeking behavior, I want to see if anyone else has encountered this before.

TIA

I would encourage him to identify what emotion he is feeling in that moment (separating out the emotion from the situation), and using coping skills to decrease the intensity of the emotion.
I agree that it is not a good idea to brush it off, "attention seeking behavior" is simply a way children (and adults) express that they are in pain or have needs that they are having difficulty getting met.

Ditto

One of my children has said this when they are upset ("I want to kill myself") - although it's not a "real" thought - as in, she's not literally wanting to kill herself when she says it - it is an expression of a very real emotion that she's struggling with. My dd struggles with self-esteem, even though you'd never see it looking in from the outside.She's built up a protective wall to keep away those thoughts of self-doubt and approaches life with a lot of bravado. The thoughts of (and the verbalization of) "I want to kill myself" usually happens after a fight or when her emotional defenses have been threatened. Please know I'm not suggesting this is what's up with your ds, just illustrating what is happening with one kid when she says "I want to kill myself".

This may not apply, but fwiw, not all siblings "fight all the time". I have three kids, and also have a lot of nieces and nephews and friends with kids. Some siblings fight, some don't, rarely have I seen siblings who fight all the time. My two dds have polar opposite personalities and one is a bit of an antagonizer and they fight - way more than I want them to - but even with their contentious relationship they also have times that they play together and get along for periods of time. I have no idea if your children are literally fighting all the time or if that's just an expression and they're fighting now and then... but if they are fighting all the time, I'd try to think through what's at the root of the constant fighting.

Best wishes,

polarbear

"fight all the time" is more or less an expression. They actually get along better than my sibling and I did.

It's frustrating that once he is in that zone, it's hard for him to snap out of it. And he cares more about what others think of him than I care for, and that let to him caving into peer pressure and aforementioned breakdown.

I think it's worth getting professional opinion. My son had said some similar things. He has some sub-clinical anxiety, perfectionism, and ADHD which makes him impulsive and reduces his emotional control. For mine, ADHD is the root problem and treating it relieves the rest. However, I was unable to sort out was was going on. I couldn't tell if he was struggling with anxiety, depression, or ADHD - or a combination. I took my son to a psychologist who was able to sort it out in one session. I was amazed. The hassle and cost were well worth it. I slept easier knowing my son didn't have depression and he was blurting out statements trying to express the intensity of his emotion without, say, a suicidal intent. However, the statistics of depression and suicide in children is really alarming so I hesitate to comment because *what if* your child is one of the rare ones who is struggling deeply with suicidal intent.

I would suggest that while being reactive to suicidal and parasuicidal comments can encourage a child to continue to use them, labeling it as attention seeking can be a way that parents can slip into neglectful behaviors. The suicidal intent may not be real, but the child's emotional pain is real (even if brief).

A better way to frame it is that the intensity of emotion is greater than the child's current coping skills. Also a better way is to frame it as "difficulty", used as in livesinthebalance.org and corresponding book "The Explosive Child".

If he's unable to stop himself from a pattern of behavior, then that would be roughly categorized as "meltdown" versus a "tantrum" which a child stops the behavior when s/he has gotten what s/he wants. Meltdowns are not attention seeking, although we can accidentally train people to become attention seeking. Does that make sense?

We have had suicidal ideation and I am in the camp that says always take to seriously. It actually teaches children to not say these things lightheartedly or manipulatively, because not all the attention they get for it is positive! I treated the threat to self harm the way I'd treat a threat to seriously harm or kill any other child of mine - not acceptable, but we also explored what made him say these things and made him go to therapy for anxiety (which he didn't like at first but now does, he likes his therapist and having a chance to vent about his parents and under sibs). He hasn't been for a while because his therapist has been ill and has had scheduling issues, but we would insist on starting up again if he ever were to talk about self harm againl