I wasnt sure whether to post this on Sleep, behaviour and development or even child mental health to be honest. This evening when I was putting DS to bed he told me that he has bad dreams every night. When I asked what exactly these dreams were about, he reluctantly told me that he dreams about people in his family dying, and then went on to tell me that there are strangers in his dream, bad men that hurt his loved ones. He talks about 'dreams' but it sounds like these are not just dreams but also thoughts while he is awake, from the way he is saying it. He said he doesn't like himself because of his dreams, and I reassured him that of course it's not his fault, and that our dreams are caused by things that we're scared of or that we've seen , or just completely random things. I asked if he had seen anything bad on TV that could have caused this and he said no, but he remembers seeing or hearing about something from a newspaper when he was little (my mum is the only person who brings newspapers in to our house, and perhaps she talked about an article in front of him, is the only thing I can think of).
This wasn't the first time this conversation has occurred, it has happened a couple of times before. But I never want to probe him too much on it, in case it makes things worse. Tonight though he seemed quite emotional about it and I can't quite convey how worrying and serious it felt when he was telling me, to the point where I was thinking, is my child messed up? Is he going to have psychological issues when he's older if this shit is in his head now?
Then I think is this my fault? I won't deny that I am one hell of a stressy mum. I seem to shout. A lot. I get extreme PMS and I am trying and struggling to manage this. I worry so much that I have f**d up my own kid and the damage is done and can't be reversed. I love both my kids so much but I admit I do struggle to deal with DS at times.
Any advice would be so much appreciated