... said by ds1 yesterday, after a lot of cooing and fussing over ds2 during grandparental visit. With ds2 changing so rapidly and doing so much at the moment it's sometimes hard for a four year old to grasp back the limelight, especially when said four year old has been quite difficult and naughty recently.
I've failed him terribly, of course. Despite all reassurances though about how much ds1's loved, the theme has carried on this morning with a long chat on the way to school.
He feels like we are always telling him off (I don't think we do - I've been very careful recently to try and ignore the bad and praise up the good and spend some extra one-on-one time with him, but obviously not enough) and that he's not wanted. I've explained that we tell him off because we care about him, that if we didn't care we wouldn't be bothered what he did, broke or whether he hurt himself (yeah, I wouldn't buy that as a four year old, either). I've given him the speech about how there's no-one else in the world quite like him and he is very special. Instead he just named another child who shares the same first name as him and has decided he should swap families with him. I've told him how upset that would make me, but I'm not sure it's sunk in.
Any suggestions gratefully received...