My DS (6) since he was about 18 months, has been a cautious and timid child, not very willing to try new things and quite pessimistic. He will exaggerate bad things and come up with improbable scenarios. Example scenario:
Me: You?ve been naughty so you can?t go to Nanny?s today.
DS: (whining, crying) Does that mean I?ll never ever go to Nanny?s ever again?
Me: (testy, gritting teeth) I said today, not never, ever, didn?t I?
And when I reasonably tell him off and talk him through why such and such is not allowed, he will cry and say things like ?everything I do is bad? you?re right Mummy? why am I always wrong?? Yesterday he said ?I?m so useless?, which really upset me.
I always try and focus on really positive things, praising him, spending time with him, doing things with him and not saying negative things to him like ?you?re stupid? or ?you?re naughty?. But he seems to have really low self-esteem and self-confidence and I have no idea what more I can do to boost his ego and make him into a more positive, happy child. It doesn?t help that DD, who is almost 3 years younger than him, is incredibly self-confident, boisterous and charming, and people pay her masses of attention. When DS was between 6 months and 2 years old, his primary carer was xp, who neglected him quite badly, and until he was about four or so, I put his timidity and lack of confidence down to the after-effects of that lack of positive attention. But now I feel that although he improved massively, he is still much less confident and happy than the reinforcement he gets would predict, and as he has now lived most of his time with me and without the person who damaged him so badly (we split when DS was almost 2 and a half) perhaps I'm continuing to do something massively wrong. Does anyone have any advice?