Depressing 6 year old

[attley]

Hi,
I have 2 boys, both very different, one 6yrs the other 2. They adore each other and play together well. However my oldest has always had a very negative turn of mind. Since he was 4 he has regularly said things like, he wishes he was dead, he hates himself, it's his fault etc whenever he gets told off for something. His first comment to his baby bro on the day he was born was, 'Please don't shoot yourself when you are older'. We have tried several ways to tackle this, firstly my DH and I have made sure we stop using negative phrases to try and take out our input, I have tried ignoring the comments, then tried sitting down and explaining that we all have bad times and it doesn't mean we are a bad person, then when we get a bad comment trying to get him to find a positive on the same theme, I also reacted with how lovely I thought he was and listed his good points, then we tried getting cross, now we are back to ignoring it. He is a very loving kind boy, will give his last sweet to anybody and has a huge sense of fairness, he was an easy baby but will cry still very easily. Any ideas? Do I need to get him to a specialist, do I carry on ignoring it, should I try and not correct any bad behaviour for a time to see if that helps? All these thoughts but which is the right one? I worry as my Father-in-law and my brother are both Bi-polar so it is in the genes. HELP!

Did he start saying these things after a certain event when he was 4? From the ages of your boys it seems like it was since your second ds was born. In which case I would say it is attention seeking behaviour and ignoring it is the best thing. Totally ignoring it that is and then praising any good positive comments - so you are reinforcing the type of behaviour you want whilst blanking what you don't want.

No, he was always difficult to cheer up if things went a bit wrong before that. In fact he improved for a time when his brother was born and is almost overly protective of him. We get in trouble if we tell S no 2 off. Our first reaction was to ignore it in the hope it was a phase we have only started to try and deal with it actively when it looked like it wasn't going away. He is a very vocal, loud, tiring boy, top in his class and active so we were worried that the constant telling to simmer down has had a dampening effect on his nature and made him feel he is constantly in the wrong. We have certainly never called him stupid but he calls himself that daily at the moment.