Update, Depression

After the awful day of anger and aggression on Monday, Kai has had two pretty good days. He had no major incidents at school, and has come to terms with losing his iPad privileges for a week.

At home he seems mostly jovial, using the time he would have been on the iPad to read more of the many books he received over the holidays.

Of course, we are always on edge that this good period won’t last long, and the anticipation of when the next dreaded email from school will come keeps us from enjoying the moment too much.

But aside from the worry over when Kai’s next aggressive incident will occur, a growing concern lately is that Kai may be depressed, or at least, have negative feelings that will result in depression.

Over the past several weeks, there has been more than one occasion where Kai has expressed that no one at school likes him, and/or that he wants to kill himself. It is a frightening thing to hear from your child.

At this point, I don’t think that there is an imminent danger that he will carry out his words. He tends to use extreme language to express his anger and frustration, and we don’t take each one literally.

But still, there is concern, obviously.

I wonder what is driving these feelings.

At home, we try to balance toughness with love. I push him to do things he doesn’t want to do, whether it is extra math or reading, or more exercise. And when he has incidents at school, we give him consequences at home, too. The goal is to build good habits and teach him right from wrong so that he will grow up to have a good life. And along with the toughness we try to let him know that he is loved, and spend a great deal of time with him doing the things he loves. Sometimes I feel like we’re not being tough enough; other times I worry that he doesn’t understand that he is loved.

When he talks about school, he doesn’t seem to have very many positive feelings about his classmates. He is definitely an atypical kid, even when compared to other atypical kids at his therapeutic school. I don’t’ think he considers any of his classmates as a friend.

One aspect of that is that he seems to misunderstand others’ actions. Last night he told how the class voted for their favorite recipe among all that each student submitted. It seems no one voted for his recipe of Mom’s chili. The winning recipe was some type of dessert dish. I can see why kids would favor chocolate over anything else, but to Kai that was just further evidence that “no one likes me.” So perhaps he just misunderstands others, but I also think his feelings are at least partially grounded in reality.

I don’t care if he has a lot of friends, but it obviously is bothering him that he doesn’t feel like he has any. And those feelings will likely be even harder for him as he goes to middle school next year.

What to do? What to do?