Im stupid

my older son during his tantrums has yelled, "I am stupid" "i hate myself" "i wish i was dead"

I do feel these are legitimate for him.

But now my younger son is starting to say these things, and I use to take those statements as not being serious.

But now I'm wondering. He is behind in school, and I'm not sure if the "i am stupid" is real, as for the "i wish i was dead" is usually when he doesn't get his way, then starts the mantra of 'I'm stupid, I'm this and that, and I wish i was dead'

i got the call Friday from his after school program expressing concern over the 'killing myself' issue.

I'm starting to feel that maybe i should react. I did ask him when i picked him up what he meant by it, he said he really doesn't want to....

i told him that its good to tell how people how you feel, but when you dint mean something, you shouldn't say it...

I'm not sure if he got what i meant...I'm worried that if he gets older and does want to kill himself, he wont tell anyone...

now, that's problem one...

onto problem two......

i took my boys sleigh riding yesterday, and my older son was getting cold and we sat in the car together with the heat on and just watched the other kids and his brother go sleigh riding.

out of the blue, he says "i wish i had a weapon"

i asked him "why?"

and he said "never mind....he didn't want to talk about it"

ok, what the heck does that mean? It was really weird. Did he want to kill his brother or the other kids for having fun?

I didn't press it, i asked him a couple of times of what he meant, and he refused to talk about what he said. I ended with "well, if you ever feel like getting a weapon to hurt someone or yourself, you need to talk to me first"

then he said
"well, I'm going out now..."

he took his sleigh and joined in with the other kids...like nothing had ever happened...

what do you guys make of it?