Hi
I would appreciate all and every opinion. I have a 7 year old Boy (also a 5 year old and a 3 year old). He is increasingly angry and violent. There was a disagreement this morning about a box. It spiralled into him hitting his dad repeatedly. He says that his Dad is “hitting” him. In fact it is the opposite - he is hitting and slapping his Dad and his Dad holds up his hands to defend himself and hold him off. We sent him to his room to calm down. He bashed the door so hard that the door handle is broken again and it has been bashed into the wardrobe. We try to send him up to his room to protect the others and the rest of the house from his anger. He has also dented a press in the kitchen this morning through bashing the door handle against it. I fear for the other kids. We tried to keep him in his room so that the house wouldn’t get wrecked and for fear for the other kids. He has scraped me, tried to bite me, kicked me, hit me (closed fist), slapped me, called me names, Kicked me in the stomach, Spat at me, over and over and over. We have tried to keep him sitting on the bed so he won’t do more damage to the door (and he also went for the mirror, I was afraid he would break that and hurt himself). We have refused to let him leave the room but we have sat on the bed asking him what’s wrong, why are you so angry, etc. He won’t reply. Sometimes he will accept a hug but then he continues on with the behaviour. Before getting him up to the room, we got him outside the front door (to protect others and the house). He continued hitting, scraping, etc. He bashed the wreath on the door to break the battery compartment. This isn’t the first time that he has exhibited out of control behaviour and we have been referred for psychological assessment. What can we do in the meantime? What do you think is wrong? Any and all advice is welcome. He has been a very angry child with massive temper tantrums (when he was 4, he threw most of the contents of the kitchen shelves and a high chair at me). He is a very strong and big child. He does most of the same behaviour at his Dad too. I am sitting here crying, I don’t know what to do. What if he does this when he’s grown up? What is going to become of him? What will happen in two, four, eight years time when he can really do damage? What help should we get (bearing in mind that we now have a referral, so we need to do anything else?).