You could suggest how you may at the time have inadvertently given her the impression then that she was terrible. Therapy might help her, but I think it’d really help you, too She won’t consciously remember it all, but her body might. When we are doing a hundred things at once and have more than one child, it’s hard to honour all their needs for validation and autonomy and we may, while we admonish them for their experiments or frustration, somehow, without meaning to, give them the impression they are “terrible”. This usually means empathising with a tantrum because it is impossible to fly to the moon or some such. They need their feelings, which would seem unreasonable to any adult, to be validated. How I hate that expression! This is a time when children are discovering their agency, their potency they do need boundaries to keep them safe and their parents sane, but within those boundaries they need freedom to be themselves and experiment. I wonder if it’s to do with that period you call the “terrible twos”.

If she wanted to, she could ask her GP about SSRIs and, at her age, wouldn’t need your permission, so I believe that she does want something from you, but what?Īs she comes to you and not her sensitive dad, it makes me suspicious that the problem may be rooted in your relationship together.

She already has one thing to cry about, and if she doesn’t feel entitled to cry about it, that would give her two. Philippa’s answer You are doing well to tell her not to admonish herself for being sad just because she is financially secure. However, I’m also beginning to wonder if she isn’t just a sensitive, melancholic person who needs to come to terms with feeling periods of sadness, find things that make her happy and muddle through. The latest crisis is again coming after a long period of her seeming happy and fulfilled. I’ve done so much listening and hugging and it’s not working.

Sad minion story