To ask if it's futile trying to stop a 7.5 year old boy showing off and being silly?

[Pushpins40]

Exactly that. He'll try to be the real clown, the silly one - sometimes it's good natured, other times (like today in a changing room with two other kids, a girl and a boy that he's doing a swimming class with) he starts shouting, 'I can see you vagina and your penis!'.

It's embarrassing and very annoying. If it's not that sort of stuff, it's just generally trying to push boundaries, be the funny one.

How do I stop it? Can I? Am I being realistic given his age? He
We talk to him about it and I think he 'hears' but then, in the moment, of course he does exactly the same.

Ahh there you go OP, Dr Llangennith has assessed him for you.

I have a ds who has struggled with impulse control, it is getting better with time and age. When he is calm and relaxed try talking to him about what happens when he says things that he knows he shouldn't and ways round the behavior. Does he feel stressed, worried about how he is getting on with peers or tasks, is he tired or hungry? Can he describe his emotions and physical reactions before and during the outbursts? My ds is always worse when stressed and or tired.

This is a screener for childhood ADHD. Obviously it's not a psychiatric assessment - but it should give you an idea whether your child's behaviour is typical for their age or flagging up as unusual.

psychcentral.com/quizzes/child-adhd-quiz/

When he is aware of his triggers he can work on alternative responses and you can practice them when he isn't tired and stressed then hopefully when he needs prompting to modify his behavior he has other behaviors to call on. Be really positive about any good changes he can make.

I'll have a word with him tomorrow, Midgesummer. It will be interesting to find out if he knows

He said tonight that something funny comes into his brain a lot and he wants to share it (with his best friend).

I've had a quick look at ADHD. There are possible some overlaps; talking too much (A LOT). Restless before finishing tasks. etc etc

But equally, he does really well at school, has exceeded all expectations - teachers say he listens to and follows instructions well.

He's very chatty, that's for sure. Constant.

I don't know. I'm mostly worried about impulse control.

www.nhs.uk/conditions/attention-deficit-hyperactivity-disorder-adhd/symptoms/

I would say it's almost always in groups that he becomes like this.

And just for the record a) we were in the boys changing room, the girl was in there b) He didn't make a degrading remark about her vagina or the boy's penis. He just said he could see it. While it is still inappropriate, there is a marked difference, IMO

One of my DS can be like this, bit the penis and vagina bit. But being a clown, not understand inappropriate behaviour etc. He has diagnosed severe ADHD. Your DS should really ‘get it’ by now. Compare him to his peers, is there a marked difference ?

Sorry a bit late to the party with my link! Didn't refresh after finding it and posting

Is he only like that around people he knows OP? I have 2 DS's aged 9 and 11 and at home and with their friends it's bum this and willy that constantly. General daftness which whilst is annoying and sometimes embarrassing, DH assures me is very normal.

I’d forget completely about ADHD because someone on mumsnet said he doesn’t have it.

My ds has asd amongst other things!

The thing I found most helpful (to at least show I was trying even if he wasn't actually getting it!) was to keep a behavioural log.

So record a behaviour and situation (date time and place) log what was said and consequence.

I could see for myself and show others that it was infact my ds not 'getting it'.

Even at nearly 14yo if he loses his iPad for inappropriate behaviour he just hands it's over without fuss because he knows it's a consequence but can't get control or adjust his behaviour to stop it happening 🤦🏼‍♀️

What a load of balls. I swear LOTS in my personal life, not when I'm working, duh! And for God's sake, never bug a staff room if you think "tosser" is the worst thing a teacher can call a child! 😂

The point is, as other posters have said, you seem to be (as evidenced by the title of the thread) dismissing this as 'boys will be boys' sillyness which there is clearly no way for you to control, and hoping everyone will agree with you and tell you it will fix itself.

Plenty of people have pointed out that your child's behaviour will have had a negative impact on the children he targeted for his 'silly' comment. You don't seem to care. People have pointed out the impact of this kind of behaviour on their daughters - the desire to go to a single sex school for example, to get away from 'silly' boys who comment on their bodies.

As to the idea that I hate men, that's a bit of a stretch isnt it? I don't hate men as a sex class. But I do detest toxic male behaviour, not least shouting at women and girls on the street. OP's son is shouting comments at people about their genitalia. This is not ok and I don't think it's completely mad to associate him shouting "I can see your vagina" at some poor girl trying to get changed for swimming with blokes shouting "nice tits" out the window of their car at some poor girl / woman.

Do people imagine that those twatty men who go out of their way to target / intimidate/ harrass women didn't display any negative behaviours when they were children? Or that those groups of teenage boys you don't like to walk past were all perfectly behaved as pre-teens? At what age does the switch flip?

Behaviours and attitudes are engrained over years and years. In my experience, silly year 7 boys who act in the way that the OP has described were doing so in primary, amd continue to do so as they move up through school, but with the behaviour getting more extreme / inappropriate/ anti-social as they age so that they keep getting the reaction they want. But hey, again, one decade and 2,000+ pupils on which to base these observations, so, you know, I am clearly just talking out of my arse.

The other traits my DS has are related to organisation/forgetfulness/task management, some physical - coordination/tics/restlessness (although he doesn't have the "typical" getting up out of chairs when not supposed to, climbing on tables, or any issues with violence/aggression), problems relating to social connections with others (what I believe fuels the "clowning" in combination with poor impulse control), some slight sensory stuff, along with not really being in tune with longer term consequences, which is partially normal for his age but should be settling in by now.

I'm not feeling particularly sensitive about others deciding I'm "making excuses" for my child so there you go, as DH says if we go to the assessment and they say it's not ADHD, it's parenting, that would be completely fantastic as it would mean we can fix it for him and just need to do things differently. At the moment I am quite concerned that he may actually have problems which will affect him his whole life. If it can be fixed with different parenting that would be wonderful. I want an answer on this though before it's too late for us to try.

It is silly behaviour to call out and attention seek which is not unusual for this age group and unfortunately the correct terminology such as "penis" sounds worse than "willy" in the context of such silliness as it sounds less childish and innocent even though it is good for children to know clearly understood terms. We are talking about a child who may have just finished infant school and probably hasn't started juniors yet.

I've got DCs around that age and slightly younger and find if the younger one is particularly tired, he will play up and he finds the echo of changing rooms particularly satisfying for loud annoying behaviour. It can be difficult to challenge them particularly in an immediate way in a public place with no immediate escape but a consequence to be followed up such as loss of tech time seems to work in addition to talking about what they have done.

Public misbehaviour at that age is hard to deal with as the child looks old enough to control themselves the majority of the time but sometimes that self control slips and the audience may well not see you delivering the most effective means of dealing with it as it may well not be the time or the place. Oh for the toddler days when at least they were more portable at times of public nuisence

I’ve rarely seen a more boys will be boys unanimous thread since 1997. Quite worrying in 2018.

School he was doing fine at until last year when we started getting comments about him being distracted by other children, he participates well, gets good grades but the presentation of his work is shocking, especially in the last half of the last year. He'll make stupid mistakes in e.g. a maths test, every question right and then he'll have done divide instead of times but he doesn't go back to check it even though he finishes well before the end of the test, that kind of thing. Also a tendency in project work to pick somebody to work with who he messes around with rather than completing the work which is a disaster. And teachers comment that while he will follow instructions they have to repeat them several times before he will get to it which is exactly the same at home. And a child of that age is not expected to have a 20+ minute delay between being asked to do something and getting on with it. Again doesn't matter if he loses the time/privileges himself over this, which is what we usually do, he doesn't register it at the time, it is as though those 20 minutes have simply evaporated to him. Sometimes I have to go up and clap or knock on his bedroom door really loudly to snap him out of a daydream when we're supposed to be in a rush.

But. I don't think it is BWBB for a child of seven to find the idea of genitals amusing and shout about them. It is inappropriate absolutely and they must be told this but it is not sexual in nature. It's funny to them because it's taboo. The concerning factor is that he doesn't have the self control to censor this in front of adults.

BossWitch the OP has recognised that the behaviour was not acceptable, I don't believe she has come across as dismissive of his behaviour. It is common for young children of this age to try and show off and shock their peers with their behaviour. She has come on here for advice.

What is unacceptable is for you to come on here and refer to a 7 year old as a twat and tosser based on one example of his behaviour.

Out of interest, do you have children?

HarryKanes - that's absolutely not how I think. I do not think for a moment, boys being boys is acceptable.

Yep. She's great.

But no one is saying that the behaviour is fine and to let him get on with it. There is a difference in stating that it is in the normal range for children of this age to be silly and ways to deal with it compared just shrugging it off as normal and hoping they grow out of it.

Let's hope she stays that way then. Girls can grow up to be vile human beings too.

Okaaayyyy

I don't think anyone is saying that boys will be boys including OP. This behavior however isn't unknown in some DC of that age and enthusiasm for rude silliness at this age is also well recorded. OP is actively looking to address the behavior.