Sorry in advance if this gets long. I'd be so grateful to anyone who bears with me.
I'm a long term poster but NC for this as it's identifying, sad and personal.
We are really struggling with our DS, who is 6, not maybe in the way you expect.
It is less his behaviour we worry about than OUR reaction to him.
He's bright and articulate, charming at school and well behaved, but at home and with other family members we can't cope with his high drama reactions to anything and everything that doesn't go his way. (That's the tip of the iceberg but I really would lose you!).
He screeches and rants, fake cries and gets horrible and unpleasant verbally. Massive histrionics at the slightest thing. And I mean, "would you like to go out for tea?"
He can't say "no" he has to throw himself on the floor in despair and have a meltdown. About absolutely everything. Even good things.
He's got no emotional balance at all. He's totally rigid in his play and his expectations and can't handle any deviation.
He's the same if his friends come to play, ranting and throwing a fit if they won't do exactly what he wants. He's not embarrassed (maybe his age) he doesn't care that they won't want to come in future. He can't (or won't) control himself.
Zero flexibility or compromise at all.
He has no sense of being a "good sport" in spite of many patient and gentle attempts to explain.
It makes him hard to play with for us and family members, hard to socialise with other friends and children. Once he's "lost it" it seems impossible to get him back for a long time and path the time follows is then draining and predictable.
But has proved unavoidable with the various things we've tried.
None of this happened until after he turned 4, which coincides with DC2 being about 6m old. So I sort of put it down to DC2 starting to be more demanding and therefore stealing his limelight. We obviously went out of our way to avoid him feeling pushed out. But that has made no difference.
We have had a calm and peaceful household always - he has literally never been around shouting or high tempers in his life until his own.
Anyway. I could kind of live with all of this in a way, and just grin and bear it until he (hopefully) grows out of it.
But neither DH or I is handling it well. We are at our limits from the minute he opens his mouth. We don't talk at all nicely to him once he starts.
We now have come to react quickly and - I'm ashamed to say - quite sharply / nastily at times.
It's like he's become so wildly infuriating that we can't tolerate it at all. It's like being harassed - that's how it feels, and I think we retaliate in kind now. We can't keep the high ground.
DH shouts quite a bit, me a little less but still more than I want to. I hear my tone to him get so cutting and scathing, like I'm trying to snap him out of it, but it's awful and not the way I ever imagined I'd speak to him. I'm horrified sometimes.
It's like crying wolf or something. Like he's pushed us so far we can't come back from it. He makes us both so angry we can hardly speak, and feel like walking out.
We're different characters so it's strange to me that we've both found he's affected us the same way.
I end up crying and distraught when DC are asleep and vowing to "reset" and find new ways of dealing with it. And within a week we're back where we were. Tensions are so high, and we've both devastated at the thought of our behaviour impacting him in the long term. I feel like we're being bullies and that's so far from how we mean to be it makes me cry just writing it.
I don't know how to change our mindset. How to alter our responses. I wish I had a dial to turn down how much he winds us up.
He's a dear little soul and I want so much to be able to help him. So does DH.
I feel like a totally shit parent tbh. He's adored and well cared for physically, but I'm really at a loss how to be better mentally.
I tried the school who don't recognise the child I describe, and I'm waiting to see my GP to ask whether there is any support for DH and I we could try to "regulate" ourselves better.
Thank you from the bottom of my heart if you've got this far.
I am lost and so, so sad.