Hi
I've been mostly lurking so far, but reading everyone's posts has been so helpful.
Short intro: My DS (6.5, grade 1) was tested at the beginning of the year and has qualified for our local gifted program. We've declined this for now and are trying him our in the French Immersion school his older sister is at (and loves). His area of strength seems to be languages, and so far it seems to be going well...
Anyway, so this happened...
I was driving him to his karate class yesterday and he casually said to me "Mommy I wish I didn't exist".
Trying to stay calm (and drive without getting into an accident) I say "Oh yes, why is that?"
"I hate everything about myself and wish I didn't exist".
When I tried to get him to be more specific he went into his usual "everything" reply when he doesn't want to answer my questions (as in, "what do you like about this book?"; answer "everything"), and I didn't get anywhere.
He did come up with one thing when I asked him to name something he liked about himself. And I told him that his whole family loves him and thinks he's really great.
The thing is, he wasn't upset, just was so matter-of-fact about it. Then he went to karate had a good time and seemed normal the rest of the evening.
My DD has said something similar once, but then she was obviously upset and we knew the reason.
Has anything like this happened with your kids? What do you say/do??
