Our 6 year old is old is ignoring us

[Northerng]

6 year old boy. Just recently he takes great delight it seems in ignoring most instructions we give him. He does have SEND but this defiance is quite new and he seems to get a kick out of winding us up. Bed time is torturous. Have to ask 5 + times to do anything and then struggles to fall asleep. He is fiercely I independent on some things he really wants to do but if we say no he is reacting angrily. We are exhausted!

Ah that’s hard to deal with. I have that even now from my much older two. I don’t know what you’ve tried so far but one thing that has helped me is doing whatever with/alongside - so asking them to put shoes on I’d sit him along side and I’d do one shoe while he does the other. With my DS I’ll get his attention, give him one short instruction (brush your teeth please) and immediately take him to the bathroom and chat while he brushes his teeth, prompting him all the while. A combination of him knowing X isn’t optional and buddying him through the task.

My DS is 11 now and still struggles to go to sleep, so as long as he’s quiet in his room I don’t fight the actual sleep thing because it just raises his anxiety levels.

Lots of adopters hate them, but for us rewards charts worked wonders at that age. We included things we knew they would always get right (eg. get dressed in the morning) and stuff we wanted them to focus on. That kept them motivated, and also reinforced to us that many things were going well. Each evening we quickly went through it and gave them stars. The ones they did not get, we left empty. At the end of the week, if they got "most" (we kept that intentionally vague), they got a surprise, eg. they could watch a movie, got an ice-cream, could choose dinner. My kids loved it.