Hi there. Aibu to feel so sad for my negative son?
My son is nearly 9. He has a lovely life, a perfect life, a mum and dad who adore him, grandparents who adore him, a little sister, a pet dog, a lovely house, lovely food, lovely bedroom. He has everything he could possibly want and need but not spoiled. He has to earn treats etc.
Background.... We have had problems with him all of his life. He was an intense toddler. But happy. A fab big brother. When he started school the problems started almost immediately, mainly social such as obsessing over friends and not understanding social queues. Also lack of focus in class. I have had to have many conversations over the years with teachers. It is very stressful.
Over the years as he has matured his social side has improved dramatically. He has lots of friends. He still has trouble concentrating in class but really tries hard and is getting positive feedback from teachers and things in place to help him. We have a lot of involvement in school working together to get the best out of him.
We had a referral to cahms as school wanted us to as they suspected adhd or high functioning autism. Cahms assessed and said its anxiety. He sat quietly in the meetings and maintained eye contact with them they said. We were then referred to younger minds and he had 10 counselling sessions which did not work as he cannot /will not retain the information. But all of that is another story as he will never get a diagnosis due to cuts in funding etc they have discharged us and just left us to it.
Anyway, with other people he is the happiest boy you could meet. People comment to us all the time what a wonderful boy he is. So funny, caring, kind, confident, mature, a pleasure to have over at their houses. He's amazingly well behaved in public. Fine for other family members.
At home he is a different child. He is very solemn, negative, sad, moody, miserable. Doesn't want to play anything, join in with the family. Wants everything his way 100% of the time. If not he will have a massive fit of rage. He wants to control all situations at home and be the centre of attention 100% of the time.
If we have to tell him off or he doesn't a win a game or he's not allowed to watch TV or something, he tells us he hates us. We are the worst parents ever. As soon as he is 18 he is leaving and never going to see us again. We try to give him a wonderful life, everything as positive as we can. But if the slightest thing doesn't go his way this is what he will say to us. When he's calmed down after 10 minutes he will be fine again and loving towards us. But this happens many times per day. It is vary wearing.
We took them to disneyworld florida. It was absolutely amazing. He said he was bored, pulled his face a lot, didn't do as he was told, and was generally miserable the whole time.
He puts no effort into anything asked of him. He gets no joy out of anything. If we manage to coax him to play a game, or play outside, he will have a fun time and laugh and it's perfect and then it's like he remembers he needs to be negative and he will change how he's acting and spoil it all.
He will say to me he hates being a child. He can't wait to be an adult to do whatever he wants. I am so worried about his future. A childhood should be the happiest time and he has absolutely nothing to be so miserable about. Adulthood is not all fun and games and I worry how he will cope out in the real world and how he will treat us as he gets older. I worry he will be alone as no partner would willingly put up with how he acts. I worry how he will keep a job as he hates being told what to do. Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks