Best way to deal with stroppy 10 year old?

[losenotloose]

I try and be patient, ignore, distract but I'm fed up of feeling like an emotional punch bag. He's very easily annoyed. For example, today he asked to have a friend round after school. I said no because we've already got another friend coming round on Friday and his granny's visiting. He wasn't happy about this so he starts saying we hardly have friends round, when was the last time (9 days ago) etc. When he gets in this mood he can drag it on for ages, being rude, moody etc. Sometimes this can be over virtually nothing and can be nothing to do with me but he'll take it out on me anyway.

How would you deal with this? It's not a new behaviour and seems a part of his personality but I don't want him to think he treat people like this. I'm treading on eggshells!

Well, a no from you should mean no. But I don't understand why having someone round on a Friday means he can't have someone else round on a Tuesday?

And 9 days IS quite a long time ago.

When my DD was in primary she liked to go on playdates or have friends round most days after school. In fact, we dropped a loads of clubs/activities she used to do in order to make more time for friends. I think friendships are important, so I was happy to go along with this.

But I think I might getting too fixated on the example you gave and not being supportive enough of the actual issue???

Because my dm was visiting and it wasn't a good time. Also he went to a friend's house yesterday and is going to a friend's house tomorrow, he's not deprived of out of school socialising! That was just meant to be an example but as I said he gets into a mood and then we all have to suffer, sometimes for a long time afterwards. I'm hoping for some advice of how to deal with it.

Sorry Red that came across as unintentionally snappy!

Well I have a 12 year old who was a little like this aged 10! He's absolutely lovely now by the way!

I dealt with it by ignoring it in the main. The example you give - meh - I'd agree most play stuff I think. However I know that's not your issue

Just ignore. Let as much go as you can but when you need to put your foot down , do so. Tell him why. ' I've said no to Josh coming over because you saw him two days ago and you'll be playing with him on Friday again. Grandma is also coming over. So for those reasons it is a no today. Now ... you can choose to be very cross about that but you do this cross stuff away from me please although I'm happy to talk about it with you if you want to chat nicely.'

That's the sort of way I approach my DS. I'm firm, I hold firm and I reassure him in here if he'd like to chat normally about decisions made that involve him

Works here anyway