Today my 6yo DD said "my head is telling me you're stupid mummy but you're not"...

[Pesha]

...and burst in tears.

She says her feelings are mean to her.

She has talked about her 'feelings' and her 'head' before but never so clearly as this. I asked if it was like a voice or voices talking to her and she said yes. I told her she can tell me if they say anything to her. We hugged and then ds2, who was on my lap bfing at the time, farted and she laughed and it was all forgotten! She is now at her dad's for the weekend.

She has had a lot of upheaval in her life. Her dad came back into her life after a 3 year absence just a few months ago, this is only the 4th time she has gone to stay with him.

She is very sensitive and emotional and always has been. I feel awful as ds2 is 4 months old and I know I have been more short tempered with her. The last year or so she has been very whingy and bursts into tears over slightest thing, sometimes genuine crying sometimes fake, and has been lying and sneaky about things. This is why I've not taken any notice of the comments about her 'head' and her 'feelings' as I thought they were an excuse, although she's never been as explicit as today.

I have googled and have seen various statistics from 2-8% of children hearing voices, most going after 3 years. recent research suggests that treating it as normal and not something to worry about and talking back to the voices all helps. Some professor said that hearing voices can no more be cured than left-handedness or homosexuality, it is about coping not curing. And i have read about very good methods of therapy but seems these are new, traditional methods seem more about suppressing the voices.

Not sure what to do, want help from a really good child therapist/psychiatrist type person but dont want to risk a bad one fucking things up and making worse. Maybe I could see dr without her and just talk about it and decide where to go from there.

Feel so sad for dd and so guilty that the poor little girl has had this voice or voices in her head being 'mean to her' and I've done nothing but shout at her. feel I've let her down so badly.

Will try hard not to let her see I'm worried though nor make a big deal of it as seems this can exacerbate the problem but need to let her know I'm there for her now.

Her feelings being mean to her is eating me up

Wow Pesha.

No advice but I just need to send a big hug to both you and your daughter!

Thankyou, dont normally do hugs but feel like I need one tonight!

Aw Pesha, that is heart-rending. Poor dd. And poor you.

It can be very scary for both of you when they come out with things like that.

I had similar comments from dd1 when she was 5/6 which worried me sick (she's now 7). I came to the conclusion that she was an intelligent child trying to explain difficult feelings when she didn't yet have the equipment to do so. I may be wrong, but apart from occasional oddities (like a bloody menagerie of invisible friends, including a unicorn), she seems fine, sociable, and most importantly she's happy most of the time. But I do keep an eye on her. Could your dd be doing that, trying to put feelings into words when she doesn't really have the maturity yet?

I don't know very much about children hearing voices, pesha, but wanted to send lots of sympathy to you and your daughter. It sounds like she's having a bit of a rough time adjusting to some new circumstances in her life and that the "voice" is appearing as a consequence. (I do think it's important to bear in mind that these changes will most probably turn out to be v positive in the longer term though- interested Dads and little brothers are good things to have really, just a bit of a shock when they first arrive and cause everyone in the family to feel all shook up for a while.)

I've worked with quite a lot of adults who hear voices (I'm a social worker in mental health) and it sometimes seems like even when the voices are saying quite muddled and strange things, they may reflect very normal emotions- like sadness, anger, fear, joy. This sounds like it may be true for your little girl too- that in some sense she is externalising her feelings and attributing them to an outside force, maybe because she is a bit taken aback by feeling negative towards her lovely mum sometimes. I would guess you are doing exactly the right thing by allowing her some space to express those emotions to you- maybe you could explicitly say that it really is ok and normal to sometimes feel angry with people we love and to feel churned up and anxious at times of change- without showing too much intense concern about voices and discussing those in quite a low key, matter of fact way, if at all. She sounds like a clever, sensitive and imaginative child and I would not worry too much about the cause of the voice or be concerned that it bodes ill for her future mental health. She sounds very much in touch with reality, just struggling to deal with a shake up to her world. A bit of humour may even help: "You tell your head that you're old mum is not stupid, just a bit frazzled and short tempered because of ds2 and wanting to spend a bit of time with YOU as soon as he's napping. What shall we do?" sort of idea?

I do hope things imporve for you both. I'm sure they will.

Brandnewhelsy - it could be that but the way she reacted to what it said earlier (completely out the blue btw) it really did seem like it was a seperate voice that was telling her things she didnt want to hear. But it probably is all down to having so many overwhelming feelings and not really understanding them.
She also used to have a whole group of imaginary friends when she was about 4/5, all with names - most normal names, jenny i think was one, but there was also one called blood in the neck They've not been mentioned for a while now though.

Scummymummy - i do think - from my own natural interpretation of things and what i have read - that it is a way of expressing her feelings, we all have an 'inner voice' and thoughts and feelings and can feel one part of us wanting something different to another part. It just seems that her inner voice is more literal than most.
I think you're right that I should try and talk to her about how she is feeling - something I've not really done for a little while. I've thought about it and discussed it with other people but somehow overlooked actually talking to her

'A bit of humour may even help: "You tell your head that you're old mum is not stupid, just a bit frazzled and short tempered because of ds2 and wanting to spend a bit of time with YOU as soon as he's napping.'

Will definitely try this - I can actually picture myself saying this to her and see her giggling! I have already promised her that i will get dp to take ds1 off for the day soon, or afternoon at least, to do 'boy things' (I suggested drinking beer and scratching themselves! ) and we will have a 'girly day' and do each others hair and nails and have face packs and things. And we spent this morning making raspberry jam and champagne and strawberry ice cream after fruit picking yesterday as I had already decided I really needed to be making more of an effort to do things with her. I think as the oldest she gets abit of a rough deal as she is expected to know better and behave better etc. And she is so eloquent and also argumentative and independant at times that its easy to forget that she is still only 6 years old.

Wow pesha- strawberry and champagne ice cream sounds amazing! Hope you have a lovely time doing equally fab girly bonding stuff together over the next few weeks and months. I really do think that some quite low key extra attention and chats about feelings and emotions might well do the trick and help her through this, you know.

If you continued to feel worried in the longer term, it could be worth having a chat with your GP and asking for a referral to Children and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) as they should certainly have some people who are skilled in this area and able to help. But, for the moment, I think if it was me I'd chalk it down to a slightly quirky and original response (and therefore a sign of high intelligence and fabness) to feeling normally stressed at a big transition point.

Thanks scummymummy I think thats what I'll do. My first response was right I'll go see dr but actually now I agree its probably best not to make a big deal just yet and try and sort this ourselves by talking and listening a bit more and making an extra effort to have fun with her!

(Ice cream was gorgeous btw! Abit too gorgeous actually - have eaten far too much! )