or cruel to not let ds play outside with his friends?

[IAmBooyhoo]

ever since we moved here (in july) ds'(6.5) behaviour has become terrible. i try to think of reasons everyday not to let him outside the front of the house to play but there isn't always a justifiable one and on the days i do manage to keep him in he sits at my bedroom window watching the other children playing and keeps swallowing back the tears. i have exlained to him on different occasions that his behaviour gets worse after he has been playing out with his friends and that is why he can't go out but i feel terrible about it. his behaviours include hitting me, tripping his Dbro(2) up, swearing at me, wrecking his room at bedtime, throwing things out the window/at me. when he has been playing out and it's time to come in he either runs away and i have to wait until he comes back himself (as ds2 usually sleeping and if not, ds runs so fast i can't find him when i do go looking) or he will whinge and fight and scream at me. this evening's list of names for me was vile. i am ashamed that he knows these words (not learnt from me BTW) and that he is calling his own mother them. i have heard the other children call each other all the names ds has called me so i have no doubt he is learning them from outside. i hate the battle every evening that he has been out and today's great weather has made it clear to me how hard it is going to be to keep him in in teh next few months. i can't let him get any worse. i need to reverse this and teh only way i can see is to keep him away from the source (i heard/saw a parent across the road call another child (not his own) dickhead yesterday evening as in "oi, dickhead, what did i just say to you?" the child is the same age as my ds!! we have a small back garden and while ds2 is more than happy pottering all day in it, ds1 wont entertain the idea at all. he just wants to be out with his friends. it feels really cruel to keep him in but what else can i do?

Are you a single Mum OP?

I just ask because I don't think I've read anything in your OP or subsequent posts about a DH or DP... And I was wondering about positive male role models?

I have been doing a Raising Boys course at my local children's centre. Apparently boys are quite susceptible to role modelling their behaviour on their peers and any older males that they look up to. So if you are finding that your DS is perhaps copycatting the language and behaviour of the children he plays with would it be possible for a positive male role model to have a word with him about how unacceptable this is? And to be an example of how he should behave and speak? If DSs Dad is not available for this, perhaps a male family friend or a grandfather?

Apologies if you have already thought about and tried this Op!

yes, i'm a lone parent. their dad sees them about once every 4-6 weeks for a few hours (his choice entirely).

tbh i really hate that he doesn't have a positive male role model in his life. he sees my dad and his paternal grandfather weekly but neither are good role models if i am honest. both have bad tempers, little patience threshold for naughtiness and pretty bad attitudes when it comes to what they consider discipline (paternal GF physically abused his wife and children for years, the only reason ds goes weekly is because they were granted a court order for contact, i tried to prevent it for as long as i could).

i dont really know many men. all my friends are female. from what i have seen of the male neighbours, they have nothing positive to offer either.

we are moving at the end of june but have no house yet so dont know where we will end up.

ds does go to scouts and football once a week for each although i dont know the leaders/coaches very well yet. the scout leaders seem very nice (both male and female) so i suppose these would be the closest thing to positive male role models that he has.

I had the Raising Boy book and but disliked it intensely. It is one of the few books I give away. (Bit of a hoarder of books, me.) Bollocks about women not being able to raise boys for lack of a pair of bollocks. I prefer the How-to-talk and Positive Discipline approach where you work with what you've got as a human being. I won't criticise any approach if it works, but I hope OP would be able to come to a settlement with her DS on their own terms. All the very best!

Just to clarify, I'd be very happy to keep a misbehaving child in as a punishment, because he needs pulling up about a specific occasion. But that is different from keeping him in because I am blaming other children for his behaviour and want to keep him away from any misbehaviour. I think it should be very specific, about his behaviour on a specific occasion: "you have misbehaved tonight, so you have to stay in tomorrow".

The main thing imo is to give him the clear message that he is responsible for his behaviour and that it doesn't matter if there are 57 other little boys in the same street misbehaving; you are in charge of his manners and nobody else's.