I have just finished bullying my 7 year old son

[LaCitrouille]

I’m feeling like the most awful mother on earth at the moment. My 7 year old used to be a star. A textbook good boy. Always praised by friends and teachers. He’s turning into a nightmare recently. Told someone in school last month that He will punch them in the face! When the teacher rang I was shocked and sick of what I heard. His behaviour is deteriorating and the terrible attitudes are showing up every day.

I’ve been trying to analyse and find a different way to correct his behaviour, I’m listening to all videos and podcasts on positive parenting. Whenever I’m out I’m always getting him a treat to encourage the good behaviour. Made time to play with him and spend quality time. Lots and lots of praise and compliments. I have another 1.5 year old who’s really really hard work too. I still didn’t recover from PND and I push myself to keep calm and not yell. But I do . I yell a lot. I hate myself for it. I grew up in an abusive household and I DO NOT WANT the same for my children. I should be in control and should stay calm, but why I’m not.

Yesterday I was feeding my toddler and I knew there are so many chores that need to be done, I sat my DS for 15 mins and told him that He will need to do the SPaG set by the teacher, reminded him about all the necessary rules, locked the door so his brother doesn’t disturb him. I kept on asking if he’s finding it accessible and him telling me yes. 90 minutes after, I found he did only 1 page. There are 7 more. He doesn’t care. He went on online games instead as I’ve already deleted all the games on the iPad. I yelled and screamed and went upstairs crying for a good 30 minutes. Why the hell can’t I just put him in time out rather than ruining the rest of my day?

He came up and apologised to me non stop. He wrote a letter telling me that he will focus and do the school work and and and ... Today we checked and the teacher set him 10 pages of maths, 6 Spag and 2 writings... all accessible and fair for his level. I reminded him about his promise and sat next to him while entertaining his little brother. He worked and answered the full page speedily. I left him with his dad who works at night and needs to rest so he can barely look after DS2 and is generally crap at homework anyway. I went out for a walk and walked in the supermarket, when I got back I found out that he did literally nothing! I was hoping that he’d finish the maths at least then we can have a break and do something fun. I lost my shit! I discovered that he can go on the App Store and download the deleted games without a password. I told him that I’m so disappointed and definitely not proud of him. I told him that I wish such and such were my children instead. I was mean and rude and awful. I told him that he’s a liar and a sneaky one. I said horrible things now my ears are about the explode. I’m disgusted of myself. He cried a lot but I carried on and on and now I regret it and I don’t know how to repair the damage.

That is far far far to much work the school are setting
You are not a teacher ,or a jailer
Let yourselves of the hook
Start Easter holidays early ,and leave the school work till after Easter

I'm a teacher.
Your DC teacher is setting too much. Maybe she doesn't expect it all done and is setting a selection. Possibly she has high flyers or obnoxious competitive parents in her class that are demanding it. Possibly she's just uploading too much, which is easy to do.
We are always trained that the worst thing a teacher can do in class is run out of work. ('What do I do now? I've finished that' should not be met with a blank look / panic from teacher )

The difference is the teacher then can manipulate and adjust the work in the class -simultaneously meeting their needs by reducing or increasing.

You obviously aren't trained to do my that any more than I can perform brain surgery or cut and colour hair.

Give your child (age 7! Only year 2 or 3, poor thing) a break. Do much less of the work.
BE ON YOUR CHILD'S SIDE.
Do not use or enact the word bully. Better NO work than any bullying. Really I mean this one.
If he can read and write and do some sums it's ok for age 7. (I'm sure a lot of MN parents can read Shakespeare and solve quadratics but sod them) If he can't read, write and count then don't worry either. My daughter could barely write at age 7 (turned out she's dyspraxic but primary didnt realise) and is now at uni after achieving great A Levels.

Never lock.him in anywhere.

It's so much better for learning to be a joy. Take all the pressure off. You are under no obligation to complete the school work. Relax and try to get your child to forgive you.
After a few days, baking, playing with other DC, crafts...introduce a worksheet for you to do together.

It might not go well. It's as likely as not it will be a negative trigger for him. He may get upset or angry / badly behaved to make it go away.
Try gently to do the worksheet together but if it's too distressing FOR HIM then don't do it. Do not sulk or throw accusations or be angry. Be the adult.

Try with an easier one another day. Or prep him to try for a timed amount of time (10.mins on phone stopwatch) and get him to agree to it. This will feel to him like a very big thing.
You need to be more sympathetic and stop building his negativity towards the world of academia. That's the most crucial thing.

School will solve the rest when they go back. They often do.

Poor little boy.

@Rocketmam I'm afraid I wholeheartedly agree with your post. My XH behaved like the OP towards our DS (a very difficult child - but that is no excuse).

DS is still damaged. DD is also damaged, from having witnessed her father behaving like that towards her brother. DS now has nothing to do with his father, and I don't blame him. His father behaved appallingly. His behaviour was always followed firstly by "justification" , then by guilt, tears, promises never to behave like that again. Until the next time.

I told XH (who, like the OP, had his own issues) that he had to have counselling. Whatever the reasons, his behaviour was abusive. So is the behaviour the OP has described.

OP, your little boy needs this never, ever to happen again. Homework is the very least of his problems at the moment.

Agree with PP, get some counselling to help you deal with what happened to you growing up. I am sorry you had an abusive childhood. Whoever treated you badly was wrong. You did not deserve it.

Well done for recognising you do not want to do the same to your children. Counselling will help you unpick the shit that happened to you and help you learn how not to repeat it.

Be kind to yourself right now. Give your son a hug. Yourself a hug.

Tomorrow is a new day.

Ignore the homework. Relax and have fun. And takes some steps to finding some councelling.

To clarify my earlier post, you don't need counselling op, you need proper therapy. Talking therapy where you learn to understand how your upbringing has shaped your responses to life's challenges and shaped your handling of emotions. Only then can you learn to break the patterns of thinking and behaviour you've developed. You are reactive, you react in the 'child' to situations and you need to learn to think with the 'adult'.

Secondly, I very much doubt the counsellor simply told you to 'chill out'. I'm sure there was far more complex and nuanced advice offered. The fact you dismiss it so defensively isn't a good sign. You need to be fully open to working on your shit, and now, in order to step up as an adult and as a parent.

I agree op would benefit hugely from therapy rather than just a bit if counselling. She will have to pay and therefore it til only be accessible if she has the means.

The OP is lucky she isn't posting as a man, as I think some of the responses might be less forgiving.

How could a seven year old child possibly be expected to cope with this?

My XH used to call DS a sneaky liar, because DS did things that any unsupervised child would do (it tended to involve online games, as it happens).

I have seen what this kind of parental behaviour has done to children, OP, and you need to take action, and quickly.

It is really, seriously damaging.

.... and you’re minimising and absolving yourself of responsibility by saying you weren’t being yourself. Except he knows it WAS you. And he’s probably wishing HE had someone else’s mummy.

My son is 7 and if I did to him what you did to your son he would be a gibbering wreck...like unable to function. Now he’s a sensitive soul granted but I’m just thinking of shouting like that and saying those things to a 7 year old .

Having said that I’m inclined to believe you have seen the error of your actions. But you have got some serious work ahead of you to undo this...this is not going to be a single sorry and all is forgotten-there is going to be months/years of work before this is looked back on as “that time mum lost her shit” rather than it being a pattern. You lost control-you need to work on that never happening again.

My XH always, always "saw the error of his actions".

Of course what she did to her son is awful but it sounds like the op needs urgent help for her mental health. She knows she was wrong. More people piling on and sticking the boot in won't help.

The op saying she doesn't see the point in living is a massive red flag. She needs help, urgently. As in, tomorrow. Op please call your gp again. Another form of therapy may help you more, cbt or similar.

Op this is your depression that's doing this to you. Are you on any medication? SSRIs helped bring me back from the brink when i had similar thoughts. That and intensive therapy from a therapist who specialises in post natal depression.

@AugustaLoveday I am not trying to minimise this-I was verbally and physically abused as a child...I am only too aware of the long term effects.

I’m also trying to think that at 7 years old if his mother uses this now to turn things around then whilst he’s old enough to remember-it will turn hazy. She can (and MUST) use this to make amends. She has posted here-it is wise to guide her into the correct paths.

I have only read your initial post and won’t comment on you outbursts (as I’m not perfect in that way either). All I’ll say is that 10 pages of Maths in 1 day and 90 minutes without breaks is far too much for a 7 year old. It’s crazy to expect that from him.

Bookoffacts

Thank you 🙏.

I’m taking notes. We’re having a movie night tonight. I loved the idea of a worry box posted earlier ( Big thank you to the poster). We just did it and It’s great for opening up to each other. We had lots of hugs and promises for better happier days. Then went outside clapping hysterically for key workers! He said it was fun, he seems fine and happy. I’m praying from the middle of my heart that he forgets the terrible things that I’ve said and never remember them again.

Thank you all for the time that you took to write detailed posts. You’ve been immensely helpful. Thank you so much.

ChewChewIsMySpiritAnimal

I’m not taking any medication. I was prescribed medication when I had PND the first time with my first DS. It made it worse the first week. Daily nightmares and sleepiness during day, which I can’t tolerate as I was on my own. Family is living abroad and husband works at night and I was breastfeeding. I binned it and had to fight it alone. It took me 6 months to be back to my normal self.

When I had my second child it was another level of depression. Difficult pregnancy with high levels of stress at work. My baby had several health problems since birth. Husband couldn’t take a leave and I had to do everything on my own again. Big disappointment and totally let down by immediate family. More and more isolation. 0 interest in anything. The insults and abuse that I used to receive as a child are the only things that ring in my ears day in day out. I accepted that I’m only here for my children and that’s it. Death doesn’t scare me. I think of it more like a relief for so many people.

Just leave the homework please!!!! Use the homeworks as activities you can do together in a fun and calm way. Otherwise don't bother. It will put him off doing anything if it turns into something to associate with arguments. The most important thing is that your child is as happy as he can be given the strange circumstances. If you're happy, he will be happy. Let him be...... If he gets bored, then suggest that you do the work together and then reward him with screen time. I would suggest 15 minutes tops at a time to begin with. You definitely need to change your ways for your benefit and his. Look after him. It's your only job.

Please get some telephone/online counselling. Your children need you and need you to get better.
Having children does drag up stuff from our childhood. And you owe it to yourself and your children to deal with it.
Different medication might help.

You are worth it!

LaCitrouille I think you really need to go back to GP and try some other medication. Seriously. It doesn't have to be like this.
More and more isolation. 0 interest in anything. The insults and abuse that I used to receive as a child are the only things that ring in my ears day in day out. I accepted that I’m only here for my children and that’s it.
I could have written that at times. And at times I still have down moments when it would ring true. But with the help of a great GP, the right SSRIs at the right time (and not forever - though nothing wrong with that either), a good therapist (found after trying quite a few) and a lot of work on myself which goes on to this day and includes regular mindfulness meditation and self-compassion practices I have got myself to a very new, and very better, place. You can do that too. And every one will benefit.

If you have to tell yourself you are doing it for your kids. That might help you now (and I strongly predict you'll reap great benefits for yourself as an extra)

I'm so sorry to read this, OP, but the real people who matter here are your children. Mine are now 16 and 18 and I am still trying to help them to unscramble the damage their father did to them (he is not an entirely bad person, but who had issues which he couldn't or wouldn't resolve, and who took them out on DS).

I am hardly perfect, and have struggled in all kinds of ways since I left XH (which involved homelessness etc). I have also thought that death would do me a favour, and have fantasised about it many times. But it wouldn't do my children a favour, and so I plod on, being calm and quiet and consistent, and not scaring them with anger and unpredictability.

If you can't get to that stage on your own, please get help to do so.

Remember, it is much better that your family comes out intact than your 7yo needing to do a little bit of catching up next year.

Pick a little bit of the school work to do and try to do a little bit each day. Does the baby still nap or can you pop the baby in a high chair at snack/meal time and sit with DS then? My 10yo isn't doing her school work on her own and no more than an hour at a time, often with a reward snack half way.

Orchard Toys games might be ideal for fun English and maths, especially if you get some baby free time. They're quite robust and quick to play. Check their website. We have a few and they're not bad.

And I agree with all the posters saying get some help for yourself too.

OP, I’m at school this week looking after keyworker children. It’s a secondary school. Out of the students I had today, only one will sit unsupervised and get on. The others have no SEN, are all bright students but need an occasional break. It’s way too intense to sit and do ten pages. As teachers, we’ve been told to try to set fun work, not endless worksheets.

Be kind to him, but also yourself. Do the work with him, chat to him. Don’t make him sit in silence like a mini home prison. He’s lacking his usual social interaction and one boy I’m seeing this week has been sent because (mum is a nurse) mum wants him to socialise. He’s very chatty. It would kill him to sit quietly at home when he could be at school. Another without a keyworker mum and no ECHP but slight SEN asked to come in today because he’s so bored. The SENCO agreed.

Break the day up for ALL of you, not just him. We’ve been told to do zero work over a Easter so we can re-charge ready for the long haul afterwards. It’s stressy for all of us.

You lost your temper and said things you didn't mean. It wasn't ideal but we've all been there and we've all done it. Talk about it with him tomorrow, it's obvious you love him to pieces. My son's teacher also posts masses of work online for them to do - don't feel you need to complete everything. We pick and choose what to get done daily and the rest we forget about. Be kind to yourself.

Lots of posts telling OP to be kind to herself.

My XH didn't need people telling him to be kind to himself. He needed people, other than me, telling him that he had a problem and needed to deal with it, because he was damaging his children with his behaviour.

Our children needed both their parents to be kind to them (which doesn't mean parents can't be grumpy, exasperated, sharp, etc, etc, etc). If you have children, you really do need to sort your more serious problems out before damaging small people who really, really deserve better.

Absolutely agree with @Augusta. There's a risk abuse this gets minimised here. I've sympathy with you OP but also you need to hear tough love. I've posted already on here, because it's a subject I feel I know well, having grown up experiencing what this 7yo boy is experiencing. It took me 35 years to become aware of the damage it had caused and by then I'd lived a life of utter self destruction. It was miraculous to me that I managed to find the strength to go to therapy and unpack my childhood and set myself on the right path. I took responsibility of my shit though eventually, even though it was programmed in to me by my mother, and I never asked for it. But as an adult that's what you have to do- take full responsibility - if you want any chance of being a decent parent and raising a healthy adult.