9-year old DS says he "hates himself" - what do I do?

[ceeb]

I've known that he's been not as happy at school for about a year, and have been working with the school on trying to get little things in place, like a better seating arrangement. But when he said he "hates himself" tonight at bedtime, I asked when he started to feel this way and he said at the end of Year 2, which was 2 years ago now. He can't express why he feels this way, apart from saying that he's rubbish at everything. I have two brothers who have been severely depressed since their teens, and now am worrying about DS. Does anyone have any experience with depression in childhood and how to recognise it? Does anyone have experience with an unhappy child and how to help them?

PM'ed you.

I'm also very interested in this too. Would you please pm me with any information woodrunner?

Budge up.... I'm trying to get a referral to CAMHS. Will need 2 weeks just to get a telephone consult, argh!

I could have written your message with regards to my Ds1 almost word for word. He's 10 and says exactly the same things - he's not good at anything; nobody likes him; he's got no friends. He seems truly sad.

He suffers from anxiety and is seeing CAMHS but tbh the appointments are so far apart they don't seem to be having any impact. I don't know where to turn next. School have told me they can't help as he's not naughty so the school mental health person won't deal with him.

Is really appreciate knowing how yours getting on with this OP.

OP the first thing to do is to look at whether there are any current factors that are contributing to him feeling this way - problems at school, bullying,. anyone in his life giving him a difficult time etc, and address those, then if he still feels low consider extra help, but do seek to remove any current problems that he may have first. There may be specific things he is worried or unhappy about. Keep calm and gently support him to open up about his feelings to you. Good luck.

Ceeb, my heart goes out to you because I remember how awful it was when DS was going through this, when he was about eight. Every night he would cry and say he hated himself and that he deserved to die. I would agree with Selks that by listening to him calmly, you may be able to find out what's triggering this with your DS.

With mine, it turned out it was bullying. I tried to sort it out with the school but it was tricky because there was a gang of kids, with a ringleader who was good at lying convincingly to the teachers and getting other kids to do what she wanted. I think the teachers also seemed to struggle to understand that a girl could be bullying a boy. Just at the point where I had decided the only option was to take DS out of the school, the girl and her family moved out of the area. Once she was gone, the other kids left him alone and his confidence returned.

Its good he is communicating with you. If he has been unhappy at school for some time, and there are no obvious reasons, perhaps its worth getting a wisc 4 assessment via an ed psych, in case there appear to be any underlying learning issues which make school/life difficult. . I say this only because when my DD was severely depressed as a teen , she said she had always felt this way and thought it was normal . The assessment at age 15 did reveal ASD traits/memory processing issues, never picked up by us or teachers as she was very bright. I think if we had understood her better earlier, it might have helped. best of luck.