How to Allay These Awful Fears

Hi everyone, I am new to this site and have been here in NZ for two years mainly living as a recluse behind closed doors if it were not for my 13 year old son and my husband. It is becoming apparent that I have way too much spare time on my hands as lately I have been worrying so much about my son and what the future will hold for him. He is a fabulous kid, with a very high IQ and schoolwork, exams, music etc all are a breeze for him with no effort required. His whole life others have told him how clever he is, how smart, how brainy etc without ever pointing out the few faults that he does have. As he approaches 14 I notice that he has a slight air or arrogance, has no tolerance for people that he feels are of lesser intelligence than himself (including me) and is judgemental of teachers that he feels are not capable of doing their job. (Recently I had to stop him from penning a letter to the School Board of Trustees regarding a teacher he thought was "useless" His intention was to then have a petition signed by fellow students in the hope of having her removed. I guess my fears are what happens in the future when life is not so easy for him, as yet he has suffered no failures along the way - (this includes achieving being two tags away from a blackbelt in karate which took him only three years when fellow classmates were only on their 3rd belts) I do my best to keep him balanced and grounded with myself perhaps being the only person in his life that WILL point out his failings and remind him that being a good person, being tolerant of others and patient towards those of lesser intellect is such a great quality and gift to have.

I have a sister who attempted suicide at the age of 15 on 3 occasions in the presence of myself when I was aged 12 and a half (cutting wrists and overdosing). I never realised how much this has had an affect on me until now, as my son nears the same age. I am scared that when he does fail at something he will not be able to cope (just like my sister). These are purely my own fears as my son has never talked of, nor been through any depessed states thus far. At the moment I am hating my sister for putting me through that - I just want to erradicate these fears from my life.

I hope this doesn't sound like dribble and that it makes some form of sense to some of you. I think it helps to be able to write it down at least.

Cheers :

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Thank you Donna for the kind words and advice. A couple of excellent suggestions there that I will certainly look into. Interestingly, Friday afternoon son came home from school absolutely devastated, he had been disqualified from a prepared reading final due to timing. It was a pretty ugly afternoon and evening but he has calmed down today thankfully.

I think peer support is a teriffic idea and will give school counsellors a call and offer up the suggestion.

Yes he is probably just a normal teenage boy but due to my own lack of interaction with teenagers and others, and my son being an only child I probably tend to blow things right out of proportion. Thank you for putting things into perspective for me - you have been most helpful.