My 10-year-old says no one cares about him, and talks of suicide

Your son is trying to communicate to you just how unhappy he is. You can’t ignore it, says Annalisa Barbieri

I have two sons who are eight and 10; I’m happily married and we live in a lovely house with plenty of pets. I work part-time and my husband works full-time, but is always home for supper. In many ways we are a perfect family. However, at the moment we are not finding parenting very rewarding. Recently, my 10-year-old has talked about how nobody cares about him, he wishes he’d never been born, his life isn’t worth living and he has mentioned suicide (in nonspecific ways). I should say that a lot of the time he’s a very happy and balanced boy. He’s also mostly happy and well behaved at school, and is looking forward to going to secondary in a year.

My instinct is that it’s just a phase and isn’t serious, and I am trying to give him positive attention and focus on the good things in life. However, I don’t want it to get worse. A few years ago my son had ongoing soiling issues, which have only resolved in the past year. We saw a private psychologist who thought it didn’t warrant intervention. I’m not really sure that this problem calls for therapy, but I am at a loss as to how to deal with it.

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