Hi, my son is almost 13. He has always been a little socially awkward and we do our best to help him with this but he denies there is any issue. A couple of weeks ago he came through to me at 11:30pm in tears, and over the next couple of hours tried to explain to me how he feels: can't trust any of his friends, can't be himself because people won't like him, wants to hurt himself, feels scared and anxious, can't relax/sleep. He seemed better for the next week, I kept a close eye on him, but he appeared again in my bedroom about a week later, not quite as upset but visibly anxious. Then last night during dinner I needed to have a word with him and my 14 year old daughter and it ended in me getting cross, but nothing major. 10 mins later my daughter came down saying that her brother had locked himself in the bathroom, was crying and saying that he wanted to kill himself. Result: both kids extremely upset. We both sat with him and managed to calm him down, daughter was so good with him which is amazing as they usually argue all the time. I feel it's a mixture of hormones, poor self esteem and then multiplied hugely by lockdown isolation. I've explained that we need to find ways for him to cope with his feelings even if he doesn't understand them right now. My daughter now wants me to hide anything that he could use to hurt himself.
I just wanted to reach out and ask for advice really - what can I do to help him? He's open to the idea of counselling but I also want to help. I'm very calm with him so I think, because I got cross last night he wasn't used to it and it triggered his emotions and because he didn't know how to deal with it, he over reacted. I just want them both to be happy, lockdown is really having an impact.