5 year old epic tantrums :(

[judeb69]

This is my first post and I am really quite desperate.

My 5 year old son has truly epic trantrums when we ask him to do anything he does not want to do (eg leave a place, get off something, mainly we ask him to do something he doesn't want to do). He completely loses it, screaming, shouting, throwing himself on the floor. This happens at least once a day and he is particularly prone to it in public places which also doesn't help (the times I have marched out of playgrounds and parks dragging a screaming 5 year old!).

He's otherwise bright, lovable, funny, affectionate and doing really well at school but the tantrums are really wearing me down. I really thought they would have passed by now, his brother is 7 and can of course get grumpy but nothing and never had tantriums on this scale, he's worse than his 2 year old sister, you can usually reason with her!

I feel we've tried everything and he has never got what he wanted when the tantrums started, we've been enforcing the 'stop and go home' even when in the middle of what should have been nice days out where we'd paid for admission to places. It's frequently ruining days out for my other children.

Any ideas gratefully appreciated. Am I the only one?????

[3littlefrogs]

Has he just started school? Or just started doing full days? Has anything else happened or changed in his life?

[judeb69]

No, he's in year 1 now so school fairly predictable. The tantrums are nothing new, I just really thought they'd have stopped by now and he;s bigger so they're harder to deal with.

[addictedtolatte]

my nearly 5 year old ds is doing this at the moment. he can sometimes carry it on for hours. just try deal with it best you can and keep reminding yourself its just a phase. have you tried the reward chart to see if that helps?

[judeb69]

Thanks for your reply, yes reason I finally carcked and osted here was that the one this evening lasted over an hour!!

I've tried all sorts and for sustained periods of time, but it's like he can't catch himself in time to try and stop, he's off and reacting so ends up not getting the sticker, reward etc :( Or if he gets as far as the reward then he has a trantrum when he gets to the place!!

[3littlefrogs]

I think you should consider professional advice. Talk to his teacher and ask if they think this would be appropriate. He sounds very unhappy.

[judeb69]

I have an appointment with health visitor next week where I will raise it.

But he's not unhappy most of the time, as I said he's often funny and lovable, only when he has these meltdowns does he become this unmanageable creature :(

[nocluemum]

This sounds like my ds - same age and everything. This week we had the first day ever I think where he didnt have a tantrum. We have recently started a marble jar and a marble for each time he behaves correctly, stops himself having a tantrum, does something nice etc basically any appropriate behaviour. And the marbles equal pocket money counted on a saturday. He is saving for something specific. I have to be on top of him all the time making sure he is always being busy doing something either mentally or physically challenging and making sure he eats enough of the right stuff and drinks enough water squash etc. This seems to make a difference - like he cant cope with being even a bit dehydrated. I hope the HV can throw some light on whats causing this. Be interested to know. Good luck