My beautiful ds keeps saying he's ugly.

[KTNoo]

I'm worried about my ds who is 6. Over the last 6 months or so he has said quite a few times that he has an ugly face. I don't know where this has come from. I have always told him he's handsome, clever, lovely etc.

Today we went to an indoor play centre. Mostly ds and dd played well but there was a slight scuffle with 2 other boys there. After we left ds commented that he thought the other boy was being mean to him because he had an ugly face. I reassured him that this was definitely NOT the case.

He's a sensitive little thing, can be quite a handful at times, a deep thinker, and quite emotional. He cried the other day because one of the ducks we were feeding at the park hadn't managed to get any of the bread. He also has a temper - I've posted on here before about how to handle his rages.

Is it normal for children to say things like this? I have started to wonder if I've said or done something to make him think like that - I have lost my temper with him on occasion and shouted but I have never said anything about his looks.

[bubblagirl]

it could be childish banter that someone has said your ugly as some children do your ds sounds like such a sensitive soul is there any way you could ask about getting him a councillor at all someone who can help him with his thoughts and correcting his way of thinking

im no professional and have no way to think of helping apart from getting someone on the outside to help him

first thing though do not blame yourself is there anything else in his behaviour that worries you or just the sensitiveness?

[GrapefruitMoon]

One tip I've heard before is to get some lovely professional photos done - a good photographer should give your ds lots of compliments while taking the photos and hopefully once you've displayed them around the house, visitors will ooh and aah about them and he will feel better about himself?

[WhereTheWildThingsWere]

Have you read How to Talk so Kids Will Listen?

It's fantastic for this kind of stuff, the natural reaction when children say this kind of stuff is to say 'don't be silly you're beautiful' aparently this is the worst thing you can do.

Honestly the book is amazing it's competely changed my relationship with ds 5.

[gorionine]

Does he have a specific thing he does not like on his face (I used to hate my nose) or is it all of it? I think at some point in our lives we do all get a bit ennoyed at some of our features . DS2 was very anxious about the size of his feet. He was in year 1 at the time so probably thesame age as your DS.

It turned out after several weeks of gentle questioning that a teacher had told him "oh you have big feet!" meaning it as a "you are very grown up" but it took a while to undo as he was actually convinced his feet where far to big compared to the rest of his body. I always thought this age was a bit like teenage years, taking really at heart what people think about you or what YOU think they percieve you like.

Eventually DH "cured" him by drawing very long people with ridiculously short feet and asking DS if he thought they would be able to walk correctly. I think the humourous side of it did it!

I like the sound of WTWTW's book!

[KTNoo]

Thanks everyone.

Grapefruitmoon, he will hardly every pose for photos, but I like the idea in principle.

I have the How to Talk book, must look at it again. When I ask him why he thinks he's ugly, he just says he doesn't like his face, he hasn't mentioned anyone else saying it.

He far from a shrinking violet, can give as good as he gets etc.

I'm starting to over-analyse now, which is prob not helpful. I remember him going through a phase of tucking his school trousers into his socks as he didn't like the feel of them flapping against his ankles, and I think I might have told him it looked silly. But I don't know if he would have got to ugly from there.

Do you really think he needs a counsellor? I have never thought about that. I do think he's an emotional boy, but not abnormally so. When I think about it, he didn't seem particularly upset whenever he said he thought he was ugly. He's usually very "heart on his sleeve" and the emotions come bursting out right away, which is why I was surprised to hear the ugly comments out of the blue.