My child attacks me

[User9090]

Long term poster, but name changed.

I left due to DV several years ago. Ex took me to court for access and got an EOW kind of set up with DS about 1year ago. Since that (DS is 9 nearly 10) there has been a marked decline in behaviour.

Ex is a Disney Dad, the only rule there is there are no rules and DS (I think) has ADHD traits and really needs a routine, so I’m finding behaviour getting worse.

He has always tantrumed very badly, but recently (last 8 months) it’s become violent to me. Yesterday because he couldn’t get his own way (I took his ipad as punishment for something) he went into a 3 hour meltdown, where he broke things in the house, hit me, scared our pets, screamed and demanded he go and live at his dads because I am “a fat lazy cow and a useless mother”

This is not the first time, and nothing stops this. If I walk away he follows me, there is nothing I can do to stop it.

He wants to go to his dads because of losing the iPad, he knows that dad will welcome him with open arms, tell him how mean I am and give him his iPad there, but the whole “I want to live at dads” is becoming a mantra for not getting his own way.

He is due to go and stay at dads on Wednesday, and on one hand he will be crying he doesn’t want to go, he n the other hand kicking me and demanding I take him.

I am at a loss what to do.

I have 4 children and I have never, ever had one of my children physically attack me, wish me dead, call me fat/useless/ugly. I am very concerned that a lot of this is traits that exh has. A lot of what is said to me as a I think said there. My other children are older and despise exh and do not see him, which gives an indication of how he is.

I cannot talk to ex at all, all I get is how it doesn’t happen there so he’s clearly a better parent.
I work with SEN children and none of my techniques work. A restorative conversation after leads to accepting it wasn’t a good way to behave, but then 10 minutes later he’s off again.

The whole house seems to revolve around him. Currently I am nursing a cut face where he threw something in my face. He accepts it was wrong, but rather than apologise is saying “well, when am I going to dads”

Dad is the worst person and last place he needs to be. I’m not calling his bluff because he will go, have a great time and be told how he’s done nothing wrong, he will come home feeling righteous and wronged by me, and then when told no he will step it up. So I’m not taking him there.

I just need to get it off my chest. Nearly every day is like this, it can start over a simple thing (yesterday started over needing to brush teeth) so I can’t even necessarily pinpoint triggers. It could just be waking up.

I am on my knees here. I am terrified that he will go to live there, because that will not work out well for him once dad has “won”

He has had school counselling, but there are no issues at school, he’s bright and pollute and has loads of friends. The issue is here and it’s me, because he’s am the stable parent with rules and boundaries who will not just “give in” to the tantrum.

Contact PEGS, OP. This is their specialist area.

Exactly this, it needs stopping now. No way should Op have to live with that especially as the child gets older

If OP can maintain a healthy relationship with DS and help him to remain regulated whilst his brain's executive functioning develop, there is every possibility she will not be dealing with this level of difficulty at 15.

@Irisginger

"Please don't sanction him. He needs positive parenting not punishments. You can talk about boundaries when he is reasonably well regulated, and look to reinforce these with natural consequences. Punishing someone who lacks the capacity to make other choices will just damage your relationship."

The child has been verbally abusive and violent to the mother and scared animals.

How can that not be sanctioned? There's nothing to suggest the child lacks capacity and also what precedent does that set for future relationships, that if you're not happy you can hit someone and it not be your fault? At 10 he's actually legally responsible for his actions so this only gets more serious from here.

How exactly? Exh was violent to me and the children. He took me to court and a judge gave him the bare minimum he could. I can’t see how sending him to his dads, where eventually he too can be abused is going to help.

Besides of which would you just pack your child off to an abuser?

Sometimes this takes time. If a child lacks capacity to behave more adaptively you can't punish them into it. Op and DS need support and understanding, especially given the trauma history.

Sounds less like a potential ADHD issue and more of an escalated trauma response, whether he was young or not. How does he behave for other women? I've tried to teach boys with similar life experiences and quite often they need to be moved groups and taught by male teachers as their behaviour and attitude towards female staff is so awful. They themselves are actually traumatised young men who need help which isn't always available.

Guessing you are unfamiliar with current advice on supporting a) kids with trauma histories and b) possible neurodiversity.

Foster parent here! I had a child with ASD in my care who had experienced abuse and witnessed horrific DV. It took a long time for them to get out of fight or flight mode and realise they were safe and how to manage their emotions. When the violent outbursts (towards me due to his perception of women from his DF who he idolised even when he was incarcerated) occurred I shut myself away in a room until they had calmed down then we had a chat. It's so tough but positive reinforcement does really help.

@Irisginger

"Guessing you are unfamiliar with current advice on supporting a) kids with trauma histories and b) possible neurodiversity."

I just don't believe families and pets deserve to live with fear regardless of what the child is going through.

I think there's a move to basically say families should just tolerate what is abuse and would be called abuse if any other child over 10 perpetrated the same action on an adult and animals unrelated to them.

If you continually label children as not having capacity to understand not to do this, or that there's a justification, what happens when they're older, how long does the tolerance continue? What happens if they do it to someone or an animal outside the family and they get reported to the police especially as the child gets closer to adulthood?

I think he knows what he is doing. He’s always been quite a wilful child, and I genuinely think that the move to EOW and the shuttling back and forth does not help.

I don’t think he is like exh, but I have noticed that being around exh these traits are appearing. I have no idea if this is what he sees when he’s there, but exh is what he is, there is no one who meets him and doesn’t mention his manner, so I presume that DS sees a lot of it. He is also a person who expects everyone to pander to him, and he in turn panders to DS (if it suits him) so DS now has this honeymoon situation there where he isn’t challenged.

DS is fine with everyone else, lots of friends, no issues at school, the trigger point is at home, and it’s us. Often nothing is removed, but I might get the same reaction if I said “could you just pick that up off the floor please” one day he would just pick it up, another day it would just immediately escalate.

Regards the iPad, it is normally removed as a discussed sanction, however today I had given take up time etc and when I went up again he was just smirking and acting like I wasn’t there, so I said I was taking the iPad until his teeth were done, then he could have it back. Unfortunately his teeth are dreadful and I have the dentist at me all the time because of this so I have to push the teeth. Most other stuff I don’t.
Today this provoked a reaction like this. Tomorrow it probably won’t.

I think that something you need to do is to appeal to a higher authority, of a different sort.

For context, my own background is rather broken, and I -knew- I didn't know enough about how best to handle children. So I asked for, and got, skilled advice.

My oldest is autistic and was / can be difficult with tantrums so when he was having meltdowns about something (teeth was definitely one, but there were many others) I said to him that this is what we had been told was best for him, and so that's why I was handling it this way. We talked about food groups, and the balance between healthy and unhealthy eating and how much of each was okay. About bedtimes and why they exist - how lack of sleep can affect the brain. After a meltdown or a tantrum, we talked about it and I would explain, over and over again, that regularity and structure are the best thing for him.

His father is ... difficult although not malicious like your boy's. But when he'd come home and was saying that he was allowed this, that or the other at his father's, I'd say that I understood it was nice for him but that I didn't believe it was the best for him, and I had to -do- what I believed was best for him. Occasionally before sleep when we were chatting, he admitted that it was difficult at his father's and I would quietly ask what did he think was the best way to handle things, his father's or mine, and should I change things a bit? By being very neutral how I spoke and by showing willingness to adapt to some degree, he didn't take it as dissing his dad.

We had a few awful years where I thought I'd totally lost him. But now he's getting into late teens and in late night conversations he's actually said the conversations helped him. It was laying groundwork in his understanding, which was built on later.

Don't know if this would work for you, but if any of it can be useful, please try it. My heart goes out to you - bad enough a divorce, but this malicious and profoundly destructive behaviour by his father is just dreadful.

Sorry you are going through this Op. I think the key to managing the behaviour effectively is figuring out if the root causes are trauma, ADHD or both. I would really recommend pushing for assessment. I know this is not a quick process, but it can really help.

My DS has autism, diagnosed at 3 and ADHD diagnosed 10 months ago. He's been on ADHD meds 10 months. This is the first summer he hasn't punched me and had daily meltdowns in God knows how long.

You need to find the root cause of what is triggering this behaviour before you can really manage it effectively.

Wishing you luck....

By explaining the need for routine and boundaries, as shown by child psychologists and experts, that was the 'higher authority'. So it wasn't a battle between him and me so much, at least usually. The authority came from outside.

I've got to say I agree. OP I understand you are scared he will get worse at his dad's. What I actually think would happen is that after a while he would hate it there and want to come home. At which point you say "I would love to have you back here ds, we've missed you so much, but you will need to follow house rules".

You are probably also worried about looking like you given up on him, but right now nothing is working well for him, you, or his siblings.

Thing is, like I said before, this is/was a DV relationship. The children also experienced this from him (DS didn’t as we left before he was at the age where it tended to occur with the children). His dad is an awful man and I fought through court to get as little time for him as possible.

There is absolutely no way I would send any of the children to him. I have seen him in action.

Plus, exh isn’t the sort to just let him come home when he’d had enough, he would immediately return to court for Residence and that would be that.

Ex has a child from a previous relationship and the mum sent her there for a few months. She never got her daughter back and he destroyed the relationship.

In some situations where everyone parents together and can be amicable it can work, but make no mistake, my ex is in a complete war with me, there is nothing he won’t do.

Or you could follow the science. There is an evidence base.

@Irisginger

"Or you could follow the science. There is an evidence base."

That doesn't address the points I made.

Families and animals should never have to live with abuse or fear of abuse just because it comes from a child. That is an absolute.

There is still a risk that children who are violent at 10 do not react to "the science" and go on to injure a family member or partner or other person or animal and then the law will not be as understanding.

If you want to help a child behave better then there is an evidence base as to how to do that. If trauma is involved it requires the building of relational trust and if neurodevelopmental issues are at play then it means modifying their environment to help keep them better regulated whilst their frontal lobe develops. If a child lacks the capacity to behave more adaptively because of how their brain is currently responding to stressors, making them feel more frightened or shamed will only make things worse. Your advice actually increases the likelihood of long term adverse outcomes.

@Irisginger

"If you want to help a child behave better then there is an evidence base as to how to do that. If trauma is involved it requires the building of relational trust and if neurodevelopmental issues are at play then it means modifying their environment to help keep them better regulated whilst their frontal lobe develops. If a child lacks the capacity to behave more adaptively because of how their brain is currently responding to stressors, making them feel more frightened or shamed will only make things worse. Your advice actually increases the likelihood of long term adverse outcomes."

Lacks capacity usually means mental capacity. Over the age of 10 a child can actually be charged and face trial. I think you're describing children as lacking capacity in a much more flexible way.

I accept you may be stating the current guidance but I have serious concerns that the guidance is actively saying that people should live with actual abuse especially parents and close family and I think that is seriously disturbing.

Management of a child's trauma or SEN or mental health does not trump the right of others to live without fear of abuse.

I can't understand why this is controversial.

Even if you accept a period of this behaviour, my fear is what happens with those children who do not react well to "the science"?

There's so little social care support you hear of cases where parents are left living in fear of their adolescent sons and daughters and no one is calling it what it is, the excusing of domestic violence when it's perpetrated by a child to a parent.

That's not to mention what happens to the future partners of these children? When they've seen their parents be verbal or physical punch bags?

@fedfedupoftheheatnow, living with a child showing these sort of distressed behaviours is really hard. You are right families need proper support. In a sane world that would include help with safety planning and access to parental therapeutic support, respite, as well as specialist support for the child. The thing is, by helping to manage a child's regulation, and with the child's developing executive function, many families do work through this and come out of the other side. With time, children develop more adaptive ways of responding. Punitive behaviour by adults perpetuates feelings of not being safe, damages relationships and increases the risk of long term difficulties. Compassion is needed for child and adult.

I’d be dropping him off at his dad’s, there’s not a cats chance in hell I’d put up with that shit…. But he’s your son and you love him.

I don’t think gentle parenting works, he’s terrorising your household. He’s going to get bigger and stronger, you left one abuser and now have another by the sounds of it. You’ll be phoning the police before long and he will have to answer to his behaviour which will be harsher than a “stare of disapproval.”
You sound qualified in this area and have exhausted the usual solutions by the sounds of it. Sounds like he’s escalating and it’s probably scary for everyone, including him.

What does the GP /social services advise? Would counselling help him? You need professional help for him by the sounds of it.

Has anyone in the family ever hit him back after he has attacked them?

It doesn’t sound like demand avoidance, because there are no issues at school, and you haven’t said the meltdowns happen after school- it sounds like he is replicating the dominator mode he sees at his Dad’s.

At nine, he is perfectly capable of understanding that his behaviour is atrocious, and that he needs to find other outlets for his emotions. Taking through the coke example- he knows why parents say No, because they don’t want tooth decay, or kids who can’t sleep, or who struggle with weight. So he has to take some responsibility here too.
The same with his disgusting language. In life you don’t speak to people you love like that. And you don’t encourage children to speak to their parents like that. Would he have a problem his grandparents knowing or his friends parents? Or does he know it is absolutely appalling, want you to keep his secrets, whilst still getting to do it.

There are several people posting on this thread with lived experience and expertise in managing this situation. Do you have anything similar to offer or are these just random pontifications?