Is it normal for an almost 8 year old to be emotional?

[confusedallday]

Hi,

My son is almost 8 and he is just very reactive to everything.

He can get nippy with people (only family really) and cheeky.

He can also get emotional, thankfully not in public and gets up multiple times at night with a wide variety of reasons.

We are just back from two weeks away and he was upset that he can’t continue to spent as much time with us when we go back to work.

This is just a recent thing, he’s adamant that there’s no issues at school. He’s confident and outgoing generally but at night he changes. He has a number of friends at school, does several clubs where he has also made friends. He’s doing well in class, no issues there either.

Please tell me this is a phase? Or at least that he’s not the only one that’s this way 🤞I’m really concerned at this point.
Thank you

Ds2 was the biggest drama llama at 8 years old. He'd cry over spilt milk before it had even spilled. Had a lot of weird phobias and a total hypochondriac.

He's perfectly normal now at almost 27. A doctor who is happily married to his husband with his own house and his own dog. As far as I know, he doesn't cry anymore than anybody else these days.

Kids are people. They have their own personalites. Some are more emotional than others and as long as there aren't any other comorbid problems, that's perfectly fine.

My son is 9 and went through a major phase of this when he was 7. Very emotional and needing to connect. I think it’s developmental. He also was great in the day but it all came out at night. We actually took him for therapy as we had some big changes around then and he became very anxious and turns out that is very normal behaviour as they can’t distract themselves so their real feelings come out at night or they get tired of masking them. Our solution was lots of hugs, hearing him out, talking in the day (walks or car rides were best for this) and he settled down with that extra reassurance. It actually massively improved our relationship!

thank you for your replies, they have really made me feel better ☺️

My eldest son (12) was/still is sometimes the same, he actually came downstairs at night a couple weeks ago upset because he was “growing up too fast and didn’t want to leave home” 😂 bless him, just reassurance really, i told him that he never needs to leave home if he doesn’t want to, but he probably will want to once he gets to a certain age and mum n dad become less central and important in his life, same as your little boy he is outwardly confident, very popular and doing well at school, i think at bedtimes he gets into his head too much and is a worrier, i think its lovely that he is a sensitive boy as well as rough n tumble, we came back from picking up our youngest daughter from school the other day and found a flower and a note from him waiting by the kettle that said “Dear mum and dad, i got you a gift because you guys make me happy and i wanted to give something back xx ps thank you for making me happy all the time”, so sweet bless him xx

Aw that’s so thoughtful of your Son!
I’m so glad it’s not just by DS that can be like this. Glad I posted, I feel so much better.