My 6 year old son (who is a only child) has always been very stubborn and over the last 2 weeks has had some major meltdowns. They often appear from nowhere and need careful handling - not giving in but some discussion, some space for him to have a cry and then moving on. It can be tiring and when my mum phoned to other night she asked me why I was so quiet and I just explained I had a hard time (when I took my son to the park with his friend and he went crazy over some slight altercation with some plastic drums in the playground). Today my mum phones and said he is like that because I work full time!
This has really got to me - I do work full time but my partner works part time so he picks him up at least two or three times a week, one of my parents (very kindly) pick him up one day a week (they take it in turns) and he goes to his friends house one day a week. I get home by 6.15 - 7.00 most days and spend all of my weekends with him but I am now feeling really guilty. My mum worked when me and my brother were young but only part time. I have done pretty well to avoid the working mother guilt until now but now it?s come in spades.
Any advice? It's worth saying that even when I worked part time DS was also prone to these melt downs.