oh I so know how you are feeling.. My 9 yr old has said this to me before.. I really don't think they understand 100% what they are saying.. My son has some self esteem issues and was seeing a guidance counsellor at school and has really come along in leaps and bounds since.. We changed the way we did things at home too.. just being very consistent with our discipline and remembering he was only 8 and not 18 and still needed to be treated as though he was a child.. kwim? I found that once we had the other kids we tended to let Ethan fend for himself a bit more..

He also had and still does have a kid that picks on him at school.. We have taken a different approach to dealing with this seeing as the school is doing Jack about it.. have you asked him how things are at school? Is he different on the weekends and school holidays? Ethan is brilliant then but during the school week we get tears and the I hate everything attitude.. (which has lessened heaps since seeing the counsellor)

Anyways great big It sucks and hurts when our kids hurt