to ask the mumsnet jury

I wouldn't stop him swimming. You need to find what really makes him tick, the thing he really wants, and stop that.

Or alternatively, go utterly hard core - every single time he is out of line he goes to his room. With no DS no skylanders to play with.

But you need to have nerves of steel like me to do that one.

I wouldn't use the swimming. It's a good skill to have.

I would normally suggest taking his toys and making him earn them back, but you say he's suffered a bereavement? How long ago and who was it? Does he need help to process it?

Keep swimming. Don't withdraw that, it might save his life one day. As Freddie said, what does he love to do most in the world ? That is where you strike..............

Don't stop him swimming, it's something he needs to learn, not a treat to be taken away as punishment.

How close was the family bereavement?

It is acceptable to pander to a child when they have lost a parent, but six months is a very long time for a 5yo.

Taking away the electronics and allowing them to be earned back would be a good start, but it may be that you need to start asking for help from outside agencies if the bereavement has affected him that badly.

There is some guidance here that may help.

www.mhprofessional.com/downloads/products/0071545271/kinz27.pdf

I find that removing all screens for a while massively improves my children in all ways.

Also, am curious to know why you are annoyed with him for being ignorant.

DS1 (6 years old) is very mouth at the moment, and every 'no' gets a huge drama, 'woe is me' reaction.

When he starts getting the whiney tone in his voice I tell him to lose that tone right away. Tantrums, out of the room into time out in the corridor straight away. If the tantrum doesn't stop in the corridor by the time I count to 5 then he goes upstairs to his room where I don't have to listen to him as much. Then I simply ignore him - being ignored is one thing he REALLY, REALLY doesn't like, but until the tantrum stops he gets absolutely no attention from me (fortunately he's not one to break things in his room). He then gets told that another tantrum will result in X being taken away from him, and then I follow through. What REALLY hurts him is when DS2 plays with X and he knows he isn't allowed to. I don't do this that often as TBH he will easily amuse himself with other toys and this really isn't a major sacrifice to him (except perhaps the IPad!)

I've also purchased a toy he really, really wants and he needs to earn a certain amount of stars to earn it.

He has a reward chart with things he has to do to earn stars, like his reading homework, getting dressed in the morning, brushing his own teeth, etc. He gets a star for the general ones if he does them every day of the week on his own without making a fuss. The homework ones has a tiered system, 4 gets 1 star, 7 gets 2 stars.

It will probably take about 5 weeks for him to earn it solely based on this. (Was a £30 toy so figure £1 per star was fair). However, he has the opportunity to earn extra stars with extra good behaviour, doing extra chores (picked the dandelion flower for me my yesterday!) etc.

He can also LOSE stars with really bad behaviour, such as too many tantrums, tantrums when we're out and about, etc. This seems to be working (so far).

Get a hold of 'how to talk so children will listen' - I return to that book again and again and it has really helped me when DS takes turns like this. He's acting out - whether that's directly because of the bereavement or because he has been spoilt since, so you need to get under the skin of that behaviour and why. Basically the book teaches you how to name and accept what the child feels, and where there is bad behaviour there is a natural consequence.

So stopping his swimming tomorrow isn't the right consequence - but if he was incredibly rude and shouty on the way to swimming you would be perfectly OK to say 'because of this shouting and rudeness I don't want to continue with this journey now, because you are making me sad and upset. We will go home now.' You have to deal with each bit of behaviour at the time and help them understand that there will be a directly related consequence. But the plan is you use the other techniques in there to help you deal with the behaviour before that point.

Anyway, I'm not on commission but I think it would really help you.

I think it is almost never a good idea to keep a child from any sort of exercise; it is so healthy for them (both mentally and physically) to be active. Children who are moody, grumpy, rude, etc., usually need more time running around or swimming, not less.

Ban things which are not good for him anyway, or let him suffer the natural consequences of his bad behaviour.

I would like to second, "how to talk so kids will listen and listen so kids will talk"

It's available cheaply on amazon.

I have even bought the sister copy for a friend who is training as a teacher"how to teach so kids can learn"

It will give you lots ideas on how to phrase things so there is no room for kids to feel hard done by and help improve your insight into how your dc interprets what you say

One thing that works for me (so far, dd is 5 nearly 6) when she ignores my requests even though I know she heard - I don't repeat the request or say anything further about it. That's if I'm sure she heard and is just ignoring. Soon enough she will come along and ask me for something (to eat, to play with, etc) and I say 'yes, sure, as soon as you do what I asked you'. Slow progress but she's gradually learning that if I ask her to do something she will eventually have to do it, so she might as well get on with it. This doesn't always work, if it's something that has to be done right away then I can't let it wait but it works for things which don't have to be done immediately eg clearing away her toys.

Hope the grandparents are being patient with him though, he's only 5 and they all go through this stage.

I love that book too.

my ds can be really mouthy, but I always find he is actually much better after exercise. It helps him to release tension I think. So I wouldn't use the swimming.

He is also much worse after lots of screens, so we have tight restrictions on screen time