Nobody knows the trouble I've seen...

Today was a particularly difficult day with Dan, full of tantrums and defiance and rudeness. And at one point he shouted at me, as he sometimes does when he gets in trouble for this kind of stuff, "I'm stupid! That's why I do this stuff!" No, you're not. "Yes, I am! I'm the stupidest person in the world! I don't know anything!"

Later, when I tried to ask him about the "stupid" business, he insisted that he feels like he really is stupid, and that there's all kinds of stuff ("like, school stuff, like math") he should know and be able to do, and he doesn't or can't. Which is patently untrue, but he wasn't listening. But just the other night, he had a nightmare that left him panicky, speechless and nauseous; the nightmare had been about feeling stupid and like his head was full of wrong answers.

 So I worried my way through the evening about raising an out-of-control child with anxiety and self-esteem issues.

As I tucked him into bed tonight, I whispered, "I know that you're really trying hard to be good. But it's hard sometimes, isn't it?"

He nodded.

"But I know you're trying," I said, adding, "And I'm trying hard to be a good mom. It's hard for me, too."

He nodded again. Then he spoke. "You know the other night, Mom, when I said I was dumb?"

"You mean that nightmare you had?"

"I think it was because people were like, "What's 564 + 655? Give us the answer in five seconds, or else we'll shoot you!"

"You were getting really hard problems, and you couldn't answer them?"

"Uh-huh."

"Maybe you feel like you're being asked to do something that's too hard for you."

A thoughtful nod.