7 year old 'I want to die' - what is the best way to get him help?

[dilemma2013]

Name changing (semi) regular for reasons i'm sure are clear. Posting for high traffic.

Ds1 has had 2 close friend (A and B) since starting school 2 and a half years ago. They are all 7. Lately B has seemed quieter and less a part of the threesome than he used to be but I'd just put this down to the normal friendship fluxes that happen at this age, especially in groups of 3. He has also had a baby sister just before he turned 7. I'm mentioning this because it may or may not be relevant. We are friends with all the parents and socialise with them although not especially close to B's parents.

Ds1 has said to dh today, unprompted, that B has on several occasions said things like 'I want to die' and 'my parents don't love me anymore now they have my sister'. On gentle questioning by dh he said that B has cried a few times.

We are absolutely clear that we are not going to ignore this but are not sure what the best approach is. My gut reaction was to go round and speak to his parents tonight when he is in bed. As friends we'd want them to do this for us if it was ds1. Dh thought though, which hadn't crossed my mind, was that given that this seems to be about them perhaps we'd be better off speaking to the school who will have access to professional help that we clearly can't provide. However if they found out we'd done this without speaking to them it would be friendship changing for both us and possibly the boys.

Clearly we want to do what is best for B with his parents feelings (and our friendship) being a secondary concern. To clarify we've never seen any concern in the interactions between B and his parents and they seem like a normal loving family.

What would you do?

I am sorry you come from an abusive background Butterfly and I agree its an area that is often overlooked. I too come from a background of violence and abuse and often wondered how people didn't notice. the fact is that they did notice but never did anything about it - which is the truth in many cases.

However, the OP doesn't have concerns about the child other than the things her son has said the boy said to him. They are perfectly normal, if disturbing, types of things that children say.

Safeguarding is a minefield. One red flag on its own means nothing, we all show behaviours that are worrying to others at times. You need to look at the overall picture.

There are many, many unhappy children in this world and only a small percentage of them might be suffering abuse - unhappiness, voicing that unhappiness, isn't a crime unfortunately. We cannot assume that every unhappy child is being ill treated.

I'd fundamentally disagree that being concerned about a Childs mental health and that the parents aren't getting him appropriate help isn't a child safeguarding issue. Of course it is! If his parents aren't getting him help then that is neglect isn't it?

I totally agree that I won't necessarily know by what his parents do or don't say but I'll have to make my judgement on what I observe and what ds tells me. I'm massively reassured by the posters who've said this can be normal but equally he might be one of the rare cases where what he said is significant or a marker of something more serious going on. And parents aren't the only people to abuse children are they? It could be another relative or family friend. At this early stage it will only be with ongoing observation that we'll know which of these categories B falls into.

I'm not doing anything else now but if i'm concerned about him I'll do whatever necessary to make sure he's ok. That would involve talking to his parents again in the first instance but if i'm still worried about him i'm not going to ignore that.

The boy OP posted about is unhappy, that is the only fact we know. The cause could be the arrival of his new baby sister, it could be any number of other things (possibly trivial) or it could be abuse, the point is no-one knows and Dilemma is simply doing her best to ensure he is looked out for and is keeping an open mind about what may be causing his unhappiness

Yes butterfly. This is it exactly.

But how will you know if he is getting help or not..... That's the point here. You have decided that if you don't think he is getting proper help then you will take further action. YOU WON'T KNOW WHAT HELP HE IS OR ISN'T HAVING!!!!!!! Therefore you cannot make that judgment.

Even if he stays depressed and unhappy that is not an indicator that his parents aren't doing anything about it.

I don't think that 'shouting' at the OP in capital letters is helpful or in any way strengthens your argument .

No I won't know you are right. But I'll know if he seems better or worse and I'll know his parents reaction to me if I talk to them about it, and I'll base it on that.

Bit of a pointless argument anyway given that currently its a non issue....

The fact that your dh thought it "might be a problem with the parents and therefore to tell the school first and not the parents " is the bit I found difficult .. in the context of you knowing these people as friends I was surprised you were thinking they may be the problem rather than just alerting them to what he had said as a friend.

I can see you would feel responsible if the boy has said this and no one knew except you and then he harmed himself.

I think you having told the parents what he said will hopefully increase their awareness around his emotions and you could tell the teacher or head teacher the same comments that your ds heard him say, so that everyone is aware. I would keep it factual rather than your opinion though.

The school being aware would take the issue or responsibility out of your hands as they are trained to pick up safe guarding issues and know the child obviously much better than you do ( and the family).

For me, I found your tone a little overbearing and patronising towards your friends but accept this may be because its the Internet not normal conversation. Also you have already done what you felt was best just a short way into the thread.

The main thing is someone to support the family in their attempt to find out if their son is ok, and for the school to keep an eye on him.

The only drawback to having told the parents would be if there was actual abuse going on and then the parents were very angry or tried to hide things further. Or if they become very stressed about the discussion when they are not coping or have a lot on their plate.

Thanks for your comments blingitback. The bit about dh wondering about it being about the parents was more in a thinking out loud kind of way. As in when we were talking about what was the best approach it was a comment among the lines of 'do we think its possible they could be abusing him in which case clearly we should tell the school' thought process that we dismissed almost a quickly as we'd voiced it. Not because he thought it was likely. But for the reasons you said in your final paragraph we wanted to consider all angles. I see why you read it as you did though.

Regarding the fact that we decided what to do early in the thread.... I did say at the top of the op that I was posting here for the traffic. WE wanted to deal with it asap as clearly it could have potentially been very serious.dh suggested posting for opinions on here first which I did. If I'd been posting with a slower time scale in mind I wouldn't have put this in AIBU. Again I see that this looks as though I knew what I wanted and didn't really want to listen to others opinions. But at the point we left to tell them nearly everyone had said this was the approach they'd take.

Finally about our approach to the school. What you have said about being factual is exactly what we would do if we do speak to them. We'd tell them what B had said to ds and explain that we're concerned because if he meant it as an adult would that's pretty serious. Not that we'd go there ranting about his parents not doing what we thought they should and throwing accusations about.

I see why my posts came across as you took them given your comments. But reading your latest post I think you ate saying you'd do exactly what e are going to...

Have you actually done ANYTHING about it yet then?

And actually I know B rashly very well. Its only in the last couple of months that ds has become less close with him and closer with A. I know the parents less well as we met them though their son. We do know them pretty well but they are quite quiet and keep themselves to themselves a lot (not a criticism just a statement of fact) so we've not become as close to them as we have to other parents.

If you read the thread squeaky it's obvious

I actually think its very normal for a child to react in a negative way to a new baby sibling being born. I'm sure the parents aren't aware of how he is feeling, or perhaps they are. How do you know he doesn't ay it to them as well?

I think speaking to the school and ruining your friendship is a bit over the top. If the child had said his parents were hurting him then yes, but I think this is a simple reaction to him not getting all the focus on him as he was before she was born. If he has been an only child for 7 yrs, then his nose may well be very out of joint!

Speak to the parents and just casually mention what their son said to yours.

My dd (yr 7, age 11) has a lot going on at the moment (best friend might be moving away, boy at school saying cruel stuff to her about her frizzy hair, not being able to sleep etc) and regularly tells us life is not worth living and she want to die. That is often what kids say but at age 11 we think she is depressed. At age 7 though, it's much less likely for a child to be depressed and actually aware of how serious saying you want to die is.

Cat to the parents and they can give him a bit more attention.

From your OP, I honestly don't know how you could instantly think the child might be being abused???

Obviously you know the parents but blimey, if you heard what my two said (I want a new mummy, I want to go and live in a children's home like Tracey Beaker, I don't feel happy, you don't love me, you are a witch etc), then you would come up with the same conclusion. Just because a child says they are unhappy, doesn't mean they are being abused!

loopy, I don't see where OP has stated that they instantly thought the child might be being abused.

Part way through thread OP said she & DH had discussed the issue that talking to parents wouldn't be a good idea if abuse was involved, but they didn't think that was the case here.

OP has spoken to parents about her concerns.

Loopy at sparkly said things have moved on somewhat so it might be an idea to actually read the thread first...

Sorry sparky not sparkly!