Upset 6 year old.

LegacyUser

I'm going unregistered for this post as my username on this this site is my real name.

Backround:

I am the father of a 6 year old boy. Myself and his mother were not in a relationship when he was conceived and our child was born when we were both 18. Since then we have both continuously actively contributed to his parenting about 50/50.
When my son was born his mother was in a relationship. That ended when Robbie(son) was 9 months old.
When he was 1 I began a relationship with his mother that lasted almost 2 years. We had an ok relationship, never argued or fought. When we broke up she immediately entered a new relationship. We finished on civil terms. We just didn't love eachother. I am not bitter or have never acted bitter or said a bad word about her.
Robbie still remembers this time when we were together and talks about it from time to time.
When we broke up, Mary(mother) moved her new boyfriend into the house with her and Robbie. That relationship broke up recently, after 2 years, but they are still on speaking terms and he still calls over to see her.
Since Mary and I broke up Robbie has split his time living with her and me at my parents home 50/50.
Mary and I have remained civil but don't really communicate much until recently. And even know it's only on the phone.

Problem:
The problem that I have been noticing with Robbie's behavior is quite complicated to explain. It seems like he is almost a different child when he is with me compared to when he is with his mother and different again when he is in school.
The first thing i noticed was he began to tell little lies. He would complain to me that his mother never brought him to tae-kwon-do practice when the truth is he begged her to leave him stay at home. Also he would tell his mother that my siblings were bullying him when that is completely untrue and they have a great relationship.
He constantly just tries to tell me what he thinks i want to hear. And if i call him out on his lies he will sob for up to half an hour saying sorry even though i try to reassure him that everything is ok.
This ties in with the next thing i began to notice. He cries over the smallest little things. For example, if he breaks a cup he will say sorry and begin to cry and just go on and on. I don't believe this is a deliberate mechanism to avoid getting in trouble. It's more like when he starts to cry over something trivial he just can't stop and it pours out uncontrollably.
In school, his teacher tells me he has friends and he gets along with his classmates. I am pretty confident this isn't really the case however. He tells me he is involved in games of tag and he tells me that he likes the boys in his class but he also says that they 'won't be friends with him'. I have went to see him playing and from what i can tell the other boys constantly make him 'it' and even when Robbie catches them they will ignore the tag or say it only hit their jumper and not their body or say he cheated and he will continue to be 'it'.
When they are not playing tag he generally gets left alone by himself. He never complains about this and he is even happy to be taken advantage of it means he is in the game for a little while.
He even talks very highly of one boy in particular who i have seen be mean to Robbie and shoot him down and take advantage of him. Robbie talks about how fast and funny he is.

I am really worried about my son and i think he is deeply unhappy and just tries to put up a brave front. I don't really know what to do.

Thanks for reading.

Daisy M

Hi there, have you and Robbies mother considered doing a parenting course?
It sounds as though this little guy is sensitive and has a lot of changes occur in his life which have left him confused.
Re the school incidents aside from what you saw for yourself, its hard to know if your son is giving you an accurate picture of what is going on as he knows how to tell stories to make himself sound like the victim like when he says your siblings bully him. Would you consider having a few of his classmates over for some play dates, if you see them interacting together a few times you may get a better idea what their relationship is like.
Maybe your son would benefit from something like the rainbows programme?