Just wondered what others think about my son's reaction recently... it has got me a little worried about his level of sensitivity. My dad was going through some old stuff at his house and found a poster-size picture of me with my ex-boyfriend, taken at a wedding years ago, and he asked me if I wanted it. I must have been about 21 at the time (before dh came along), and we were smiling and had our arms around each other. Anyway ds, being very interested in photographs, wanted to have a look at it.. I didn't think much of it and I went into another room and came back a few minutes later. DS was very quiet and when I looked at him, he had tears running down his face. I was quite taken aback & asked him what was wrong, but he didn't say anything. In fact it took about 5 minutes of me holding him on my lap & cuddling him, to get him to tell me. Eventually after I asked him why he was crying, he said "the picture." I said what about the picture, and he said "Mummy's with a man". He was really quite upset by it so all I could do was explain that it was a long time ago, and that the man was an old friend of Mummy's. He nodded his head and seemed to be ok after that.
My question is whether it is normal for a 3 year old to "read" something into a photograph like that... I thought he would just recognize that it was me in the photo, and that would be it. My friend seems to think that ds might have picked up on something he may've heard in a conversation between dh & I (maybe during an argument?) and might be feeling insecure. Either that, she said, or he's very sensitive and she thinks it might make him a target for bullies later on. DH totally disagrees with my friend & thinks ds was just confused by the absence of his dad in the photograph. Sorry for the long-winded story but I just thought that a kid of that age wouldn't really give a toss about who's in a photograph. Would appreciate some thoughts.. thanks.