I am trying to figure out what is up with my DD who just turned four. For the most part she is a very happy girl. Above all else, she is compliant. She has never thrown a tantrum in her entire life. She is very reasonable and will do as she is told, but I think discontent is stewing in her bones. I think am starting to see some of it boiling over.
I guess her biggest complaint is that life is boring. Everything we do is boring. I hear this every single day. She has big problems with time going too fast. She is always complaining that an activity was too short. Every evening she starts to get twitchy about the impending night. Every night she laments about how the day is already over. She has always wished to be a baby again. She says life only gets harder as you grow up.
She used to be heavily into wishing for things. But, in the past few months she says she doesn't care. For a few weeks she was making wishes that she was dead. This was very unsettling and seemingly out of the blue. I caught her whispering to God saying, "dear God, I wish I was dead," multiple times. Now, she has said that she has no wishes which actually seems even more hopeless. "I don't wish to live. I don't wish to die. I don't wish anything." And, many variances of that. "I don't care about living. I don't care about dying. I don't care if you die or live." etc.
She has also told me out of the blue that she does not believe in God. She asked why she should believe in something she has not seen. She asked if she should believe in monsters she has not seen. She asked why God does not give her what she asks for. (I should clarify that we are not that religious at all.)
She is very concerned about lying. She thinks I lie to her all the time. She has told me that whenever I say "one minute" it is always a different amount of time and therefore I am lying. She is also constantly wanting to know if I lied to my mom when I was little and why lying is so bad.
I am a pragmatist and she is wearing me out. I do not really care to explain the meaning of life. I want her to believe whatever she needs to be happy and whatever she needs to get as much out of life as she can. I keep telling her that you get out of life what you put into it. How do I make that sentiment understandable to a four-year-old who thinks like I described above?
She always wants to know the big ideas. Her thoughts are always of the bigger picture. She knows that we live in a city, that is in a state, that is a country, on a continent, in the world, and the world is round. She knows the sun is a star and there are many many stars out there. She knows about past, present, and future. She is obsessed with history. She knows what happens when you grow up. She knows about college. She knows that when she has a baby, I will be a grandma. And, she has known all this for a while.
Is this what is causing her sadness? Is this too much for a four-year-old?
I am worried about her emotional well-being especially as we go forward. How do I parent the well-behaved child who feels compelled to do as she is told in public but is brooding feelings of despair and angst in private? Should I be concerned? Is this normal? I do not even know where to begin. Is this depression in a four-year-old? Are there resources for this? Anyone go through something similar?
