DS has always been very smiley and loving and gentle but also sensitive and cautious. He's the type to worry about a little thing for days before telling us. He's August - born but doing great at school, generally a lovely happy boy. He says nothing has happened at school to worry him.
This week he's told me that sometimes at night he gets 'bad thoughts' and his good thoughts aren't strong enough to zap them away. He has said more than once 'there's something wrong with my brain'. I've asked him what the bad thoughts are - are they worries? He says no, he can't understand the bad thoughts because they're in different languages. He doesn't know what they are but he knows they're bad. He says he can't actually hear them, they're in his brain and he can't stop them and it makes him sad.
He says all this in a calm way but it makes my heart go cold. Once he's asleep, which can take a while, he's fine, doesn't wake in the night, wakes up happy.
I'm veering between thinking this is just what 5 year olds do sometimes - maybe he's been watching too much Ninjago or just expressing himself in language that is more worrying than it needs to be - and worrying that he's going to have MH problems in the future, wondering what I can do to help him. He honestly is fine the rest of the time - he's been a bit tearful this week but then he's had less sleep. DH has been working abroad almost every week this year, but again he deals with it really well. I also wondered if he'd picked up on a line from the Twits which we have in our bathroom - the one about if you have lovely thoughts you will always look lovely. We listened to the audio book in the car recently.
I'm really over thinking this but I'd love some advice. Should I be worried? Anyone else had a sensitive child say similar things? DH and I have given him some great advice about how to zap his bad thoughts and how talking about worries makes them smaller, but I'm worried for him.