6 year old bullying his brother - am at my wits end.

[valleygirl]

yesterday i posted on the step parenting thread about the nightmaring holiday i've just spent with my two step sons. beyond tolerable really. however speakign to my mum about it on the phone yesterday made me see that the the eldest may possibly have some behavioural problems.
he is nearly 7. when he is alone he is generally a well behaved boy. however once his 4 year old brother is in the picture he becomes disruptive, he is constantly bickering, bossing and bullying his brothjer who is 4. As my mother said 85% of the time if there is a drama or tears it is caused by dss1, his behavious towards his brother is really quite mean, nasty and is definitely full of deliberate violence, usually for the most trivial of reasons (eg - he kicked him several times because his bother was sitting on his bed)
His parents separated 2 and a half years ago, however he has always been very accepting and lovng with me, so i don't think it's a separational issue.
It has got to a stage now howbver that i really don't enjoy spending time with him because every weekend we have them there are too many occassions to mention where we have to reprimand him for his behavious. Quite frankly I'm at the end of my tether.
Not sure what I want - some advice on how to deal with this would be great, I don't like having to conclude that he is a problem child (he is very intelligent incidentally, and this has now also led to an attitude problem where he is constantly answerign back) but I don'r know what else to surmise from it.

[frogs]

Shalll I have a go at this one, valleygirl? I have no stepkids, but do have dd1(9), ds (5) and dd2 (baby).

On your other thread you mentioned a 'mean streak' and here 'problem child'. After your holiday from hell that's a natural way to feel, and I've sometimes allowed myself to think that about other people's kids when they've really got to me. BUT I would try very hard not to let myself think that way about a child that I had long-term responsibility for, since although it lets you vent your feelings, it's not going to help you support him in finding better ways to behave.

We've just had a bit of a year from hell with ds arguing, picking fights (mainly with me), whining, demanding and throwing tantrums. It's hard to like a child who's behaving like this, but it may help to remember that this is not the behaviour of a child who feels happy and at ease with himself and the world. With my ds, it was the transition from being a little boy to being a big boy with all the added demands of school that did it for him he was really struggling to hold it all together, and it came out very strongly in his behaviour.

With your stepson, any number of things could be causing him to struggle, with the added complication of being in a blended family. It's worth examining what the pay-off of behaving like this is for him -- he's clearly trying to feel more powerful by behaving as he does towards his brother, and he's getting attention from you too, albeit of a negative kind. He doesn't seem to have found a way to get a pay-off from behaving well, and depending on how entrenched this behaviour is and how strong his negative feelings (anger? insecurity?) are, it maybe quite hard to help him find a way to get out of this cycle.

These things have worked for us, sometimes:

• Anticipate problems. Bad behaviour is likely to be worse when children are hungry/tired/bored/thirsty/away from their usual routine. Regular juice and biscuit stops, as well as early bedtimes can help here.
  
• Making extra time to help the struggling child feel special. Spending quality one-to-one time with him is probably the last thing you feel like doing, but having occasional separate outings, or story times, or staying up for grown-up dinner can help make him feel that he is being taken seriously as a big boy. He may then be less likely to try and get that big boy vibe by pushing his little brother around.
  
• Talk. A lot. Again, you probably don't feel like it, but I've found that addressing feelings quite directly can produce good results. As in: "You seem a bit cross/angry/grumpy today. What can we do to make you feel better?" Or: "You seem awfully angry with X today. Little brothers can sometimes be annoying, but he would really like you to show him how to put that lego together." It does make you sound a bit like Joyce Grenfell, but shows the child that you understand his feelings, and helps him understand them too.
  
  These are just some thoughts. Clearly with a stepchild there's a whole other aspect of his life that you don't really have access to, but if you can lower the temperature your end, it may help him all round. Would it be possible to have the boys separately sometimes? I can really sympathise with you as I'm not always as tolerant as I would like to be even with my own kids, never mind other people's. But from what you've said he comes across to me as a very angry confused and insecure little boy who needs all the help he can get.

[valleygirl]

it's interstign what you say about spending individual time with him - when the kids first started stayign over i spent about 905 of the time with dss1 whilst my dp spent time with dss2 who was only a tofddler then and was quite a clingy daddy's boy. now that they are both older i find i share my time quite equally between the two boys. there are often times however that he will stay at home in the garden with me whilst my dp takes his youngest out to the shops. also he is allowed to stay up 30 minutes later and often longer than his brother as we thought this was fair and would make him feel that he was the "big boy". As for confidence - if you were to meet him you would be amazed at just how much confidence he exudes. i have never met a child who can sit down with an adult and dominate the conversation -on the plane home for example he sat next to a woman he had never met before and talked non stop for 2 hopurs to her about anything and everything. So insecurity with himself is certainly not the issue, though quite possibly he feels insecure in his place within the 2 familes -but as i said he never exhibited any overt signs of stress when my dp left his ex.
thankfully the ex is willing to sit down and talk about this. i know she has had major problems with him. She is a strong beleiver self-help books about child rearing, and it certainly seems to have helped her deal with the stress of parenting but i don't think it's gone anywhere towards sorting out what's going on inside dss1 mind.
peace of mind - i guess i'd settle for some of that right now too!

[valleygirl]

90% of my time that should be - my typing's terrible!