Not Wanting to Die

My son happily went off to bed after watching his teammate come in second place out of a hundred players in a Fortnite game.   He has made some close friendships with the boys right around us, meeting online to play Fortnite both competitively as well as experiment in Creative mode to see what interesting challenges and tricks they can come up with.

My son has friends come to our door to see if he's available to play.  They come to the window by his computer to see if he can come outside.   But when my son gets in trouble, he gets very upset.   He has said on several occasions over the past few years that he wanted to die.   

I haven't been worried about it, but my husband was concerned.   We had asked Dhruti about it before and she said, from knowing his situation through therapy, that it was just saying something for effect and reaction.   But today on the way to Dhruti's I thought I'd ask my son about it. 

Did he want to die, I asked?  He didn't know what I was getting at and said no, of course not.   I explained the concern adults have when hearing those words and if he really felt that way that we would want to help so he didn't have to feel that way.   No, he said, he didn't feel that way.   He went on to tell me all sorts of things that made me believe him completely. 

Still, it is hard to hear your child say they're so unhappy they want to die.   It's not a good time to say, "well then maybe you shouldn't have eaten the doughnuts just before dinner when you know you shouldn't!" because, at that point, it doesn't help.

The Big Boy Tiny Girl Sleepover Disconnect:  My daughter keeps wanting to have a sleepover with her brother.   He agrees because she pressures him I think at the time.  Possibly he's having fun then and actually wants to.   But when bedtime comes around he wants to be in his room alone and doesn't want to sleep anywhere else.   And she's always disappointed.   I can't wait for her to have her own sleepovers with friends again.   She's going to love it.