any suggestions on how to handle this?

[cheeryface]

ds2 (7) is stressing me out.

over christmas he was a bit off colour in so much as he was a bit off his food and a bit pale, and had tummyache one day when we were out which meant we had to come home. after that each night at bedtime this myterious tummyache reappeared.

he really looked genuine and i took him to the docs who couldn't find anything wrong.

Now, last week he was poorly with headachy sore throat type thing and for the last two days he has seemed o.k during the day but again getting himself worked up at night saying his head hurts, he feels bad , his tummy hurts etc etc.

i am now thinking that being ill worries him and at bedtime he is kind of imagining these things and they seem real to him.

the reason i say this is because a couple of years ago we had a bad experience with vomiting and a trip to the hospital which resulted in sudden panics that he was going to be sick and never actually was for a few month afterwards.

i took him to the doctors today who said try him with some antibiotics as his tonsils looked a bit enlarged, so, granted he isn't 100% , but, he has been laughing and playing!

i just don't know

thanx if you have read this

the way he describes whats wrong is odd too e.g tonight he said he felt like his tonsils were wobbling about!

over christmas it was that something felt strange in his tummy, that it wasn't tummyache it was something moving and it hurt???

Hmmmm, it is a tricky one with kids isn't it. I'm never sure if my two (charges) are putting it on sometimes? Maybe he was happy, because he had a reason to be able to stay at home with his mummy? I would give him the benefit of the doubt this time, and just monitor it a bit more x

i kept him off school today and apart from the fact that he didn't want his dinner he seemed fine, drove me mad in fact!

then , at bedtime he's all ill again. he seemed genuinely worried though that something is rong with him i caughyt him trying to look at his tonsils in the mirror. he picked up on what the doc said.
now, i don't know what to do about school tomorrow.

the other thing is sometimes he won't tell me when he feels ill.
he had been ill at school last week and he kept telling me he was fine when he obviously wasn't. it was only because his brother told me that i knew he has been crying with headache!

think i have kept him off school for nothing today. he must be blagging me

said he had a headache hen he got up and is now playing happily

is there an issue at school he is trying to avoid?

not really. he's just never been over keen.

DS is also 7.

he is rarely ill, maybe 2 or 3 sick days off school a year......one time, they called us to pick him up as he felt sick, and as he skipped down the road, DH turned him around and took him straight back to school ! turned out he was just hungry, not had much brekky and not wanted his fruit, so he felt sickly from lack of food ! he took it well !

your DS sounds like he is worried about his health, worried he is going to get really sick again and end up back in hospital.....the panic attacks must be playing on his mind

maybe he wants to be at home , he feels safer there with you, in case he is ill/sick.so is trying to make sure he is kept at home?

cheery - my ds is 7 and tends to get "ill" when something is bothering him that he doesn't want to talk about. sometimes he has physical symptoms that mysteriously vanish,then reappear periodically and suspiciously other times it is obvious he is faking.

either way eventually we get to the bottom of it and then he is fine.

maybe what you describe (hosptial etc)bothers your ds more than it seems to?

good luck.

kids eh?

i aggree, i am inclined to think that he is worrying about his health, probably starts thinking too much when he's alone in bed.

but, what the bloody hell do i do about it?

tell him he is imagining it? give in and make a fuss of it? i don't know!

neither of those !!

get some time together, just you and he..maybe take him out for some lunch over the weekend, just the two of you...and talk.....and listen..he might not talk about the issues per se,,but he will know that you are there for him , and he is ok

just allow him to open up to you in his own way