You are here

Hypocondriate kids

Sweet T's picture

I love my 9 year old son with every fiber of my being but he is the biggest hypochondriac and it drives me crazy. He rolled his ankle yesterday at morning daycare, the same ankle he sprained last year. They iced it no big deal really. He cried when it happened ( I am sure it did hurt but....) and was fishing for me to come get him. It is slightly swollen and he is dying today. I gave him ibuprofen and wrapped it and am sending him off to school. Because he cries wolf over so many things last year when he really did hurt his ankle I ignored it until the morning when it was really really swollen. I try not to feed into all the "injuries and illnesses".

His dad was diagnosed with somatic symptom disorder ( is a form of mental illness that causes one or more bodily symptoms, including pain. The symptoms may or may not be traceable to a physical cause including general medical conditions, other mental illnesses, or substance abuse. But regardless, they cause excessive and disproportionate levels of distress. ) The man was constantly calling in sick has been convinced he was dying so many times in the 11 years I have known him. I do not want our son to be that way. I was raised unless you are bleeding, have a temp or are throwing up you go to school or work.

Has anyone else had any experience with this and how did you handle it?

Comments

AWWKNSWTD's picture

This can actually be a sign of an anxiety disorder. I have a sibling who was like this and once my parents got him into therapy and on an antiaxiety med things got so much better. He will still occasionally blow little things into big ones, in terms of symptoms, but really got so much better with treatment. He used to miss school etc and once treatment kicked in, he was like a different kid.

ESMOD's picture

OMG YESSSSS!

My YSD is a complainer for sure. She complained so much about stuff when she was younger I used to tell her that if she felt that bad at 7,8,9 YO she probably would be in a wheelchair by 25! lol.

I will tell you what did help us at one point though. When she was in 2nd grade, she lived with us full time. She would pull the "I'm sick or hurt" complaints all the time. I did what my mother did with my brother and me.

If you are sick or hurt, you are "out of commission". Oh.. you feel bad. You must go to bed immediately! No books, no TV, just rest. Your body needs REST I SAY!!!

You also are down for the count. As in, you can't be sick in the morning and then go to your softball practice in the afternoon or play with your friends or watch tv later. Being sick is boring. Being sick isn't fun. Being sick doesn't get you lots of attention. It gets you quarantined from the household. Same goes for being hurt, you need to rest that foot. in your room. Sleep will do the best healing.

We had her darn near cured of her hypochondriac ways...but she went back to mommy and mommy let it all bubble up again. Praise for illness and attention for booboo.

We spent thousands of dollars due to her mother running to the doctor needlessly

Acratopotes's picture

ah boys will be boys..... Deigma tried it allot of times lol,

First couple off times I fell for it, then I figured... kid is playing you and well he's a spoiled brat, every one knows it. Next time school called me to fetch the snot I took him home, unplugged the TV, removed the cable,
and left him with disgusting chicken broth, toast and water... nothing else...
Oh and no friends....

Deigma stopped this behavior very quickly lol..... cause it was not fun staying at home with mummy faffing over him or taking him to the office with her, was much better going to school with a light runny nose and have friends then being alone at home with disgusting food and no TV or games or anything..

Sweet T's picture

I would really like for him to realize this behavior with in himself and learn t o stop. It has bit me in the a$$ a couple of time because he really was sick or hurt and I was like just walk it off. Plus as he gets older you don't want them to be embarrassing themselves.

A couple of weeks ago his dad and his nurse GF took him the the ER because he was complaining of shoulder pain. I ended up meeting them because I figured since she is a nurse it must be real. They gave him Ibuprofen and a sling ( I kind of cringed when I saw that because I feel it feeds into the issue. ) His dad sent him home with me and then was bugging me at 7:30 the next day about encouraging him to come back. They talked BS said he wanted to stay home dad let him. I made the kid rest and not go play with his friends the entire day. I even made the comment to the ex in our rare exchange that I thought he was not suffering but left it to them to sort out.

Acratopotes's picture

you almost got it....

next time he's staying at home with a fake injury.... no friends, no tv, no games... nothing, arm needs to rest.
Call the school and get his homework, that's about the only thing he can do... catch up on homework...

Every time he pulls a stunt of crying wolf, you counter with ... locked up in the tower, in bed can only leave to use toilet, drink loads of water and nasty food... vitamins filled to assist in recovery, can do nothing else but homework..

try it you've got nothing to loose lol, worked for my little snot

ESMOD's picture

I think it's a pretty effective way to deal. Believe me, if the kid is really sick or hurt, they will not care that they have to sleep all day. They will almost WANT to.

Being "hurt" is a little different. Unless there is blood gushing, alarming swelling or some serious indicator of there being a real problem, child should immediately be put into a wait and watch mode which includes bed rest and no fun activities. I might allow icing/heat pad and otc pain reliever. Basically wait and see if the issue resolves on it's own. If the joint or body part is moveable to any extent, and there is no massive swelling, it probably can heal on its own with reduced activity.

Unfortunately ALL the parents/adults need to treat him the same, or it won't be easily cured. Although he may gripe to you less.

Simpleton21's picture

Ugh, I deal with this with an overly dramatic step daughter. It's even worse because her mom takes her to the hospital for everything. She had a bruise on her foot and had crutches. She was going to milk that injury for at least two weeks until she came to our house and we shouldn't let her do anything because of her injury. After watching my son and neighbor on the trampoline for 10 minutes she was magically cured! That was 2 weeks ago. Yesterday her mom took her to the hospital for her neck. I'm sure she'll show up with a damn neck brace this weekend. With her I think it's all about attention. I agree with the others though, resting, no playing, no fun until they are better! Wink The hard part is the lack of consistency between households and her mom babying her and feeding into it. She totally enables the problem and we can't do anything about that Sad

ESMOD's picture

I would make sure that dad communicates (with pictures) how your home appears to contain a magical curative. It must be like those miracle flights where people get on in a wheelchair then get off under their own power. lol.

Seriously, he needs to tell his EX that the kid is gaming the system and she needs to be a better gate keeper.

Simpleton21's picture

Thankfully he did tell his ex to stop being so soft on her and he did immediately let her know how she was magically cured. I'm lucky in the fact that he sees it as well and doesn't feed into it. The ex is one of those high and mighty self righteous types that thinks she is mother of the year. I try to disengage as much as possible with the BMW and SD because of this and just hope that it will all blow up in BJ's face. Since she's the expert parent and all, lol!

Glassslipper's picture

I can feel your pain, my SD is WAY OVER DRAMATIC about everything and thinks she is dying will every imaginary bump that she thinks she feels on her body but isn't there.
BUT BM DID IT TO HER!
DH would ignore BM's irrational bipolar golden uterus rantings for the most part except with SD was sick. D
H would be running into town to fetch medication and Popsicles and pudding and and soup anything else BM wanted to take care of SD because of course she had to stay home and tend to the child for every sniffle and sneeze while DH ran to meet her every demand as the mother of his poor sick child.
Well because BM was trying to "win" DH back, the kid was "sick" per BM all the time, so then BM could chat and bond with DH over the sick child and SD loved the attention, thus now today, we have a mess.

DD on the other hand, I'm a nurse, so she was raised that unless you are dead or estimated time of death is with in 24 hours due to your "illness" you better suck it up and take 2 ibuprofen and get on with life. We have no room in our home or life for sissy's (SD is the only one who gets sick pity, and NOT FROM ME)

ESMOD's picture

My DH used to have a business that hosted parties. If he had his DD's during a weekend that we had an event, they were with us. We had a place they could play and hang out away from the guests. Now, they were of an age that they could self care. youngest was probably 8 when they started coming along.

They would try to run up constantly. i hurt, She's being mean, she won't share the dvd.. gameboy.. whatever.

In one particularly testy rant I told them the following:

" WE are busy and we don't have time to deal with your crap. Either figure out how to get along or there will be serious consequences. AND, I don't want to see either of you unless there is an actual medical emergency. To clarify that I mean someone is NOT BREATHING, a bone is sticking through their skin, they are on fire or bleeding... and I mean blood spurting out arterial bleeding, not I need a boo boo bandaid bleeding... ANY QUESTIONS"

Their stunned faces said NO and they went back downstairs. They were pretty good when we took them after that. Even helped with things as they got older with the business.

Simpleton21's picture

Omg, I would be irate if my SD catered to his Ex and daughter like that. In our case the BM is totally the enabler. She even defended the ER trip and crutches for a bruise by saying "how else was she supposed to walk?"....um on her feet that were definitely not broken per xray results...I would be sympathetic if this wasn't a monthly occurence and there was an actual injury!!!

askYOURdad's picture

Kudos to you SweetT! I know so many parents that enable this behavior.

I did have some of these issues with my bs10. They were related to anxiety more than hypochondria. There was a rule at his school that if a child threw up they couldn't return for 24 hours so my DS would call from school, say he threw up in the bathroom and they would tell me to come get him. I did what the other's suggested, no tv, no tablet, no fun, soup and crackers or v8 juice/water. Also, no fun until all make up homework was completed.

The other thing I might suggest is something I do with my boys. At the beginning of the school year I tell them that if they don't stay home for every sniffle or tummy ache (I'm not talking the flu or pneumonia, I would keep them home) then at the end of the year I will pull them out of school one day and we can do something fun like laser tag or go karts. Since starting this they rarely ask to stay home.

Sweet T's picture

Oh boy, I went to the school picnic today and he got bit by a yellow jacket. I took him to the nurse and he was fine but crying begging to come home. I had to go back to work so I made him stay. It was 2 more hours. He is not allergic and it wasn't bad. I felt like a crap parent.

WalkOnBy's picture

Don't feel like a crap parent because he overreacted to a bee sting.

Don't fall for his act, Sweet.

Bleeding, fever, broken bone? Treat and rest. Bee sting? suck it up, Buttercup!!

Sweet T's picture

Well he got home and was fine. I know I was right in sticking to my guns. My mom is a nurse and she used to tell us she hated sick people. I have worked through ms issues, prednisone withdrawal and a pitchfork in my leg puncture wound at 6 months pregnant.

He needs to be like my people :).