He's 8.
He's just so relentlessly negative. Everything is "stupid". If things aren't exactly the way he wants them he pouts and has a tantrum. (Not a kicking screaming toddler tantrum but he will throw things etc.) He argues about everything. He talks back constantly. Even my parents, who think he hung the moon, have been mentioning his behavior :(
We got into it over his homework today. I tried to be as cheerful and matter of fact as possible about it but he was so relentless. "This is dumb. I hate this. This is so easy. I don't know why I have to do this when I already know it. They should let the people who are good at math do harder stuff." And on and on and onnnnnnnn. When he finished I checked it for him and he had two answers wrong so I told him to fix them. Then his pencil was broken and he railed about the pencil manufacturers and their junky pencils and their junky erasers and how there was only one work for them and it was junky and on and on and onnnnnnnnn. I told him to fix the answers he'd written messily (on purpose) and he made a mocking face and scribbled on his paper.
I sent him up to his room. I may have shouted, which is unlike me.
It's just so hard with him. Every time I ask him to do something it's "I AM" or "that's exactly what I was DOING" or something else. Every request is met with a tantrum or whining.
He has so many good qualities and I adore him, and I don't expect him to be perfect...he's a kid, not a robot. But at the same time I see his behavior getting worse and worse and his little sister copying some of it. And when he's so negative and disrespectful it's hard to have fun with him and enjoy his company :( We do read together every night and both really enjoy that.
I'm tempted to just email his teacher and let her know that homework has become a battleground and ask if I can distance myself from it. As in, he takes the necessary materials up to his room and finishes there. I can make sure it's done but nothing else, and if he does it poorly or wrong he can redo it during recess. (That is the standard consequence for not getting work done.) However, I don't want to pass the buck to the school.
I just worry for him, I think. He reminds me a lot of my brother, who lives to argue. He was (is) so clever, but dropped out of school and hasn't done well in life because everyone else is an idiot (of course) and he alienates people with his antagonistic attitude. I so don't want that life for my boy. Also it seems to me that constant negativity will make him a less resilient person, and that will be tough.
Ugh, and they get worse when they're teens?