5 year old talking suicide

[mamaredwood]

My son just turned 5.  He is very smart and sarcastic.  He is more like a teenager in a little body.  I was driving today and he said "mom, i want to die."  I said "why would you say something like that?" He said "it's not fair, i just want to die and go to heaven.  You know how i could die right now? I could pull out a gun and shoot myself in the head!"  I said "asher don't talk like that do you hear me!"  he had actual tears in his eyes and said "why do i have to wait so long! i don't want to wait a hundred weeks to go to heaven!"  I was pretty startled that he was so upset about not being able to die.  I didn't know what to say besides that he had it all wrong and it was nothing to be upset about.
He has been so hard to deal with these past few months.  He almost seems like he is unhappy, and that doesn't seem possible to me in such a young person who has so many people around him who love him and treat him with kindness and respect.  He is very smart and did well in pre-school.  But the things that i would get pulled aside for were his behavior.  I had to come pick him up from school for hitting his teacher in the back and not saying sorry.  Then i got a letter for his having a screaming fit during quite time, and then the teachers told me daily how they found it best to "deal" with asher.  He is now home with me all day because we are moving and i didn't want to put him in school just to take him out.  At home he seems to be very angry all of the time.  He is angry when he can't have what he wants, he is angry with what he gets, and he does things that i tell him not to do and then gets mad/sad when he gets into trouble.  I have gotten talks from my family about not being able to make him listen when they watch him.    He has stopped even listing to his aunts/uncles/nana who he loves dearly.  he wont say thank you or please or bye unless i force him and he mumbles it at the ground as if he is mad.  We are a loving family and it hurts my heart to see him so frustrated all of the time, and i get mad and frustrated because he seems to not hear me at all when i talk.
He was up in his room once getting ready to go out and i heard a shrill scream, i ran upstairs in a panic and asked what was wrong.  he said he couldn't get his shoe on.  I said "on honey, just let me help you."  he yelled "no!"  then he continued to scream and cry and roll on the ground for a very long time.  screaming at the top of his lungs, big tears and snot and hiccups. it was so sad, it made me cry!  he has done that for a half hour at a time before.  he has broken the 2 mirrors, a lamp and shaken his sister two times in frustration (she is 6 months old).  Is it me or is there something that needs to be checked out?  I didn't mean to make this so long, but i have tried so many things.  spanking, time outs, screaming, talking calmly with eye contact, telling him no when he throws a fit, taking his hand and leading him though every step of a command, rewards, threats......on and on and on. I am said to be a very patient person, but at the end of every day, i feel exhausted.  why is he so sad/mad when we don't behave like that at all, my husband and i have never even been in a fight before.  he doesn't watch tv.........he only watches movies that we bought and approved of.  I found tears rolling down his face and his chin quivering when the spider dies at charletts web, and i smiled sadly and said "oh asher its ok" and he yelled "its not funny!"
why is my 5 year old talking of death and crying all of the time?  am i overreacting?  I can and will handle this frustration for as long as it takes, but i cannot handle now knowing weather there is more that i can do for him if needed.
thanks a lot
bethany

[DustyL]

Is this something that has recently occured since his sister has been around?? I would get Dr. Lynn Clarks SOS Help for Parents... it has done wonders for me and manageing my 3, it might help you as well!! He also has a book SOS Help With Emotions. Maybe that would give you help to help your son express his feelings before they go too far and he hurts someone or HIMSELF! Thats odd for him to be talking about death like that. Has someone close to him died recently?? Have you or someone explained to him how nice heaven is where he would think it's better to be there then at your home?? If you answered no to those 2 questions.... SEE A PROFESSIONAL and FAST..... children at that age shouldn't know how to kill themselves or even think of it. My Son will cry at the thought of going to the Doctors without me out of fear something will happen and he will never see me again. Good Luck To you!!!

[mamaredwood]

hey thanks for the references, i will check them out.  I have talked with him about death before because he was asking those big questions.  He was asking why people die. where they go, and all that.  he asked if everyone dies, if he will die, if i will die.  i had to explain in the best truthful way i knew how. i don't think i talked up heaven that much to be greater than here, and if i did, i didn't mean to.   I have a brother in law whos little 7 year old brother hung himself from a shoe string on his bunk bed.  It really really freaks me out, so i kind of got scared when mine talked like that.  we don't allow him to play with guns, we never have. so now he seems obsessed with them! dammit, when you try one thing, it makes something else happen!  thanks again, we are taking him to a doctor next week, just to compare and talk about his behaviors and others his age, i hope all goes well.

[teko]

Wow, this little guy is going to do great things one day.  Does he have friends his age to play with? Is he in school, how is he doing there? He sounds like he is frustrated and angry with himself. I would try to talk to him (sounds like you already have), talk to the school, discuss it with your pediatrician, see if he thinks you need medical intervention. Keep us informed.

[wwit81]

I almost started crying when I read this.  I found this site because I was looking for information. I feel compelled to share a summary of my situation, I feel it may be relevant, so please bear with me.
About a year ago, my oldest son (then 4) started having VERY similar problems as your son. It rapidly became so bad that I was forced to withdraw him from school, since I'd get called to come pick him up a couple hours after he got there every day. He would always say that the bad dreams made him do it or told him to do it.
We attributed it to the stressors in our life.  I had left my alcoholic husband, we were living in my parents' livingroom, and there was a lot of turmoil and upheaval in our lives.
I had seen to it that the court ordered supervised visits only, but my (ex)husband didn't bother to follow up with it for some time, so four months passed before they saw him again in November.
The night following that visit, after six months of struggling with my child's behavior and trying to help him show emotions in more constructive ways, he made a disclosure. More than a year older, my children's father had sexually abused and raped our oldest son.
He disclosed to authorities, even more fully than he had to me, and then said nothing again until the beginning of last month. We're trying to get him functioning in school again, but he's slipping back into the old behavior again.
Last week, he started saying he wanted to kill himself, he was going to kill himself, he would kill himself with a knife, he had to kill himself because it was the only way to make the bad dreams go away.
I'm not telling you all this to scare you, although it would scare me if someone had come out of the blue to me with this story. I'm telling you this because I see many similarities, and while the cause or trigger of this seemingly chronic behavior may not be the same, I can truely say I understand almost everything you're going through.
My son has been in therapy since May 2007, a full year ago. I wouldn't have been able to pry what happened out of him with a crowbar, it had to be when he was ready.  I still occassionally kick myself thinking that I should have put it all together, but even if I had thought it was sexual abuse, I don't think I would have guessed it was their father who did it to him.
I scheduled a psychological examination for my now 5 year old son. I'm planning on having to enroll him in a special education program due to the inability to function properly in a social setting, and that kills me because there's that side of me that screams out that he's highly intelligent, gifted. But the reality is that he needs the help and resources they can offer him.
If he's talking about suicide, I would say not only schedule him for counseling, but also for a psych eval. Something like that shouldn't be put off being addressed thoroughly. A therapist will be able to give him opportunities to express himself, but a psychiatrist will be better able to give you greater insight to what level of treatment he may need.
I hope I didn't scare you too much with my revelations. While I am in no way saying that anything like what happened to my son happened to yours, I do urge you to keep your mind open to that possibility. There was a time not long ago where I would have said that my child's disclosure of the abuse was the worst thing I had ever heard come out of a child's mouth, but now it's not.  You and I have both heard something worse, and I know from experience that hearing those words come from your 5 year old is beyond any emotion words can express.