Is It Angst or Something More?

I went through something similar with one of mine. He asked to see a counsellor, went to a few sessions, and felt understood and had a plan on being kinder to himself. It was really worth it. I also went for a few sessions and learned how to parent a kid who is hard on himself, a perfectionist, someone much more intense than I am, and who puts pressure on himself.

I learned to just listen - not try to solve. I learned this is just his way. While some felt he was stressed or depressed - it's just his natural state. It's his personality. And there's nothing wrong with it - both he and the therapist told me.

I took what the teachers said very seriously - without a grain of salt. I know my son better than they do. So getting a second opinion of an objective trained therapist - was really helpful.

One teacher who was very experienced saw that my son had been working in a tight group of other likeminded intense perfectionist kids. She broke the group up (different classes) and this year has been much better.

Argh! I just typed out a long response that disappeared. Anyway...short version is that I love how thoughtful and in tune you are and this screams fixed mindset vs. growth mindset to me. I gave a presentation on this topic to high school students and their parents last fall it was very well received. Many of the students (and parents) saw themselves in my fixed mindset examples. Carol Dweck is the research pioneer in this area and has written a lot about it. Look into it and if it sounds like your son, this might be something simple and non-threatening that you can explore with him. Breaking fixed mindset doesn't necessarily require intervention (like counseling) - often just being aware of it and having someone remind you that that's what is happening when you slip into fixed mindset thinking can be enough to break that habit and establish the habits of growth mindset. Many bright/advanced/exceptional children fall into fixed mindset, where their precocious talent becomes part of their identity and when they finally start to tackle material that challenges them, it becomes not just a challenge to overcome but a threat to their identity and shut down.

Your son is in pre calc as a freshman! Holy cow, he must be brilliant. I had algebra 1 as a freshman. My college daughter never had pre- calc or calc. He must know he is extremely advanced right?

My youngest is hard on herself too. I always ask her if she thinks a particular grade, or event etc. will matter in a week, a month or a year.
I tell her being kind is way more important to me than any particular grade and as long as she is trying her best to just keep doing what she is doing.

As long as your son stays active with a nice group of friends and doesn't hole himself up in his room all the time I think being moody is a common thing for teenagers. (I also tell my daughter though she has a moral obligation to act happy even if she is not. (Quote from Dennis Prager)

What did you and your husband say to him? Did you ask him about his expectations of himself? Does he expect to be able to pick up on the material very quickly with little effort? Does he expect to be the best in his class (high GPA or the equivalent)? Is he hoping for a scholarship and fear that he won't be good enough to qualify?

I'm a bit concerned that he said he doesn't want to see a "shrink." Did that come from him, or did you or your husband bring it up? It's important to talk about challenges he's having, but the idea of therapy or seeing a counselor not something I would bring up so soon. If you keep talking to him about how he is doing and remind him that you are thrilled he works so hard and you discuss with him the fact that not everything is going to come easily and after a month or two he is still being too hard on himself, then you discuss the possibility. But I hope you aren't bringing it up right away. That is sure to make him think something really is wrong with him.

Some topics and concepts should be hard for him. That's life. Very few people are good at "everything." Keep supporting him and encouraging him and recognizing his efforts. If you still see this problem in a month or two, definitely have another conversation with him. But I would not jump on the "counseling" idea so quickly.

It's good that you are attuned to mood changes and trying to stay on top of things. You don't want to overreact, but you don't want to sweep these things under the rug either. That's an added responsibility if there is a family history of depression.

Is he in a very rigorous academic program? Is there a lot of emphasis on performance or comparison with other students? Hormonal factors can play into this as well.

I do think it's okay to let a kid have problems or struggle through a class or other life challenge without having to bail them out all the time. They do grow through pain and challenge, and come out on the other side knowing they are more resilient. And while I'm not saying you are doing this, there's a systemic issue in our society: One of the problems we see now with kids who were protected or part of the "everyone gets a trophy" and "build self-esteem" movements is that they cannot handle failure.

My son was older than yours when he needed some help getting over a hump in college that was a mix of his heavy course load (as an engineer, he often had 4 courses plus 3 labs, plus a lengthy athletic training schedule). He saw a sports psychologist to help him. As an adult, he has also chosen to work with a counselor to help get over a break up but also to help with clarifying his career goals.

You could consider having him work with a coach - not specifically a sports coach, but a life coach. Sometimes they doubt as college selection coach, and that might be a way to get him to work with someone. It could start out as "how to choose courses for next term" and then grow into "identifying strengths" and "choosing activities for a meaningful activity resume to accompany college applications." While he's not actively pursuing post-graduation education or activities now, it might help him think about it before the pressure is on. This might be a way to get him to work with an objective person or mentor who could be another set of eyes for troubling symptoms (or a reassuring voice if none are present). I have quite a few friends who work as coaches, and they are terrific at getting teens to focus, be more resilient, and become more confident in speaking with adults. These are great skills for managing teachers, college admissions staff, and even part time job interviews.

One mistake that many of this generation of parents has made, myself included, is to want to save our children from unpleasant and uncomfortable feelings. We often rescued them instead of letting them work through difficult situations themselves, and in rescuing them we prevented them from learning resilience and feeling pride in their accomplishments. We told them they were perfect and we praised intelligence over effort. The outcome of this has been that there are many overly sensitive children who are easily frustrated when faced with challenges, they fear failure and they give up easily.

Check out a Carol Dweck growth mindset video if you are unfamiliar with this concept. It's very enlightening.

If you see this to be true with your son, and you know yourself to be a mother who has often rescued her son (with all the best intentions), then that's probably what your son is exhibiting. But if you have allowed your son to fail on occasion and to become comfortable with failure, which is a necessary part of growth, and he is still giving up and calling himself stupid, then it might be something more.

I agree that you might want to hold back on the shrink, because that will make him think there is something wrong with him, vs. the simple fact that he is taking a very challenging class in his freshman year in high school.

I'm curious about a couple of things. Since your son doesn't get a report card, how is he informed of his progress or growth in a particular class? A kid in a regular public school sees that he got an A, or a D, and can compare from semester to semester, year to year. How does your son see if he's becoming proficient in a particular area of the curriculum?

And is it possible that your son is just trying to blend in with other students? Perhaps he excels in math and some of his friends are more average students. Often, teens don't want to be singled out as the class genius, due to potential teasing or bullying. Maybe you could encourage him to not call himself - or anyone else - stupid. Help him learn to be more objective, like saying "wow, this chapter is harder than I expected" or "graphing these equations is really confusing".

And when he calls himself stupid, what is your reaction? Sometimes we as parents tend to try to soothe, console, comfort. We ask "why do you think you're stupid?". But sometimes it's more helpful to simply state the facts. Your son says "I'm too stupid to get this", and you reply with "you know you're not stupid, but this math chapter is challenging. How are you going to master it? Do you need to memorize the procedures, or ask the teacher for help, or just devote more time to it?" If your son says he's dumb, simply state in a non-questioning way "you're not dumb, but memorizing all the German verb declensions is something everyone struggles with if they're not a native German speaker". Phrase the difficulty in terms of the assignment, not the person who's faced with mastering the assignment.

Tell him you're supportive of his efforts to learn and master the curriculum. Demonstrate your own efforts, like saying "filing our income taxes can be really frustrating, but I'm going to just go slow and steady and carefully" or "well, I tried making a caramel flan but it didn't set, so I'm going to try another recipe for it and do it again. I see where I made my mistake last time and I'm sure that with practice I can improve". Make sure that when your caramel flan collapses you don't say "wow, I'm such a horrible cook!".

From what I've seen of my daughter's major depressive disorder, her worst times are not when she expresses an evaluation of herself, but she shuts down silently. Your son saying that he's stupid seems to mean that he's able to assess himself, although not helpfully. The signs you mentioned, like loss of appetite, loss of interest, sleeplessness, often aren't accompanied by words, like saying "I'm not hungry". Instead they simply stay in their room throughout dinner. The ice cream that would usually be devoured overnight has been untouched for days. They don't usually say something like "I don't feel like playing soccer anymore", but you notice that the soccer ball has been sitting in the same place in the closet for a couple of weeks when previously it was your kid's constant companion and you always were complaining that the soccer ball got left in the doorway, in the entry, on your kitchen floor. Of course, that's not a professional opinion, just my own observations.

Its great that you're concerned and involved and interested. Sounds like you're doing a great job as a mom!

It's really good that your radar is activated. With his background, you probably do need to be extra sensitive to his "moods". My son is bi-polar and it started really doing a number on him when he was 13. I think changes in hormones aggravate these issues. Has he always been hard on himself?? I'd look for changes. Our son with bi-polar is fully aware of his family history (he's adopted). At 15, with only 3 years till "adulthood", I think it's important that they start learning to manage themselves and know what to look for regarding their issues. If he has a concern about it, we talk about it and whether or not its something we need to be worried about or not. He's gotten pretty good at seeing trends with himself.

You can always take him in to a psychologist for an evaluation. Since you do have depression so prominent in your families it can't hurt, unless he refuses to go. Then it would likely just be a fight to get him there and it wouldn't achieve anything anyway.