Please someone give me some parenting advice

[zippyswife]

I have 3 ds’- 10,7,4. I am at my wits end with the behaviour of my eldest ruining and determining the harmony of our family life.

The eldest is a very bright and dominant character. He continually chips away at the confidence of ds2- doing and eating things to annoy him or make him cry. It’s not normally anything big but more Very low level continual irritating things. With ds3 rather than annoy him he tends to whip him up into a frenzy so that ds3, who is otherwise a full on but well behaved boy, acts up and will lash out (biting kicking etc). Ds1 also encourages ds3 to pick on ds2 who is the more quiet subdued one. Basically ds1 is a massive bully. And I hate to say it but I just can’t stand him. I look at him and feel so guilty that I feel this way, but I do.

I am just desperate for advice.

If they are tangible things then can you
a) sit down and explain the effect they are having and that they will no longer be tolerated
b) follow through every time with a consequence
c) Aim to do 1-1 time with each boy each week

Oh dear OP, you do need to get a handle on this right away. The last thing you need is your other children resenting you for not keeping your eldest in check.
You need time away from the rest of the family with dc1 so you can talk this through with him. You need to explain what you see happening and give him the chance to explain how he sees the situation from his point of view. Acknowledge his narrative, discuss any genuine problems it raises and then make it clear, in no uncertain terms, that you will not accept bullying for any reason at all. All of your children have a right to some sanctuary at home and he is not going to be allowed to spoil it.
Discuss the difference between basic parenting and privileges and warn him that he will lose all of his privileges if the behaviour continues. Privileges are to be earned, not granted regardless of behaviour.
Kids go through phases and sometimes they are not pleasant. He is old enough to take responsibility for his behaviour, don't let him carry on.

How can you 'eat things to annoy' someone?

Suggest to him if they were class mates he would be labelled a bully. Would he be happy being known as a bully? His db being a victim of bullying?
It stops now ds or consequences wil be xy and z.
Tech removal works wonders ime...

Thanks all.

@TeenPlusTwenties predictive text. I’m not even sure what I meant then. It wasn’t eat things to annoy but I’m not sure what it was. I was quickly trying to post while doing dinner.

And yes I do need to get a handle on it. You’re right the others do have a right to sanctuary in their own home. I have said to ds1 that his behaviour amounts to bullying and he was very upset and embarrassed by this. However didn’t care enough to stop doing it. I’m not sure if it’s got worse or it’s just more obvious because we are all together 24/7 so it all seems magnified.

I have laid out all the rules of expected behaviour. To make it crystal clear. Failure to uphold will result in tech removal. Since that is what he (sadly) lives for hopefully it might work.

His behaviour is so much worse when he’s excited- always worse on run up to Christmas/start of holiday/run up to birthday etc. It’s like his excitement causes him to behaviour worse-show off/annoy and upset his brothers. A friend who is a SENCO suggested he has some flags for adhd. When I read up on it it didn’t seem consistent with his behaviour. But I’m wondering if I should get him assessed. Although I can guarantee he would act like a bright/intellligent/Well behaved model child if he was ever assessed which makes me think it’s just bad behaviour and he is deliberately acting that way.

if not eating then was it doing and saying ? That would make sense.

@TeenPlusTwenties yes doing I think!

I took my son to see an ed psych for similar behaviours. When I searched for a narcissist he seemed to match perfectly. He loved to wind people up, didnt like to lose, wanted to be centre of attention, very quick to anger.

The ed psych suggest ADHD, which after pursuing a private diagnosis for he does have. We also discovered he has autism. A session with a psychologist to discuss theraputic suggestions on parenting might help, and they could suggest a diagnosis, or sessions to support him.

www.google.com/amp/s/www.understood.org/en/learning-thinking-differences/child-learning-disabilities/hyperactivity-impulsivity/understanding-your-childs-trouble-with-impulsivity

Personally we concentrate on lots of teachable moments which is pretty tough. Like engineering situations where him and his sister can have fun - share toys, be kind, enjoy the same tv. Heavily monitored board games where we are on top of any lash outs with each other. This feels like it is having some results.

Also getting him to a place where he feels good about himself, calm and achieving well in life shows a massive improvement in how nice he is to be around.

And on a personal level when you really start to dislike your kids (I know this all too well) you have to love them twice as hard. More effort, more positivity, more bonding, more laughter together and more tactility.

Feel free to PM.

I also had an older brother who tortured me who also had ADHD and nowadays I've no doubt he would have received a similar ASD diagnosis as well. I'm sympathetic to the need to resolve this as a family and how difficult it is to have a dysfunctional family. I resolved to not let my children grow up that way and to invest more into functioning well as individuals.

When you consider how tempting and easy it can be to create drama with your siblings you can see how its a very difficult habit to fall out of. If you feel low self esteem and like you're never doing anything right winding other people up is a great way to feel powerful. Especially if theyre 'annoying' and 'boring' or easy to rile. And little siblings are always annoying and boring and 'ruin everything'.

Yes. ADHD jumped out at me too. There is a really long thread at the moment in AIBU about whether ADHD exists - skip to the end of it and read back page by page, as there is some really interesting discussion going on there about how it tends to affect daily life which would probably be interesting for you.

My eldest is very much like this, it's because he literally cannot cope with being bored. So whenever he is bored he will circle around the other people in the house and essentially needle them so that they will pay attention to him. It doesn't matter to him if it's good or bad. He just doesn't know how to interact positively (despite being shown/told/explained lots of times) and he needs to leech off everyone else. It's exhausting! And I am constantly mentally flip flopping between understanding that it's genuinely hard for him and then this kind of annoyance that he can't cope with being bored which just sounds like some kind of made up thing and FFS get a grip, you're eleven. Then I feel guilty because I'm not taking him seriously. I have no idea how to help him be OK with boredom or teach him how to handle it, especially since most advice is aimed at parents of neurotypical children and assumes that you're scheduling their every minute full of activities and clubs and screen time, which we're not (too skint) and therefore the advice is just: Let them be bored more. Which doesn't work for him, unsurprisingly, because just doing something you find uncomfortable without any direction doesn't actually help you get any better at it.

I find our relationship difficult as well and that makes me feel guilty too which doesn't really help matters.

I live in fear that he will discover drugs in a couple of years as a handy antidote to boredom that don't shout at you, and it will be too late to get him back.

@BertieBotts your description of your ds is identical behaviour to my ds. I just hadn’t quite been able to pinpoint what he does and why. It exactly that. He circles round everyone else in the family trying to get attention even if it’s negative. Maybe that’s why it’s more apparent now as we are together 24/7 and he has no other outlets.

I suppose as you say it’s working out a way that they can deal with boredom. For ds it’s also learning how to deal with excitement as that also seems to be a catalyst for his behaviour.

@GloGirl did you have to do that privately or can that be done through nhs (assuming you are uk based).

That link is really useful too thank you.

Yes DS1 gets it in response to excitement as well. Although not as much now he is older, when he was younger it was a nightmare if he ever had a friend over because they would both become incredibly hyper and insane (the friend taking the cue from the host child, doh!) and it would generally be impossible to reach him at this time in order to reason or even bribe or threaten - he would just be on another frequency and not tuned in to real life. The only way to get him back on your frequency is either to REALLY shout in a scary manner or if he gets hurt. And neither of those are acceptable parenting tools to me.