To ask what's wrong with my son

[stressedmum0f3]

He is 4.5yr old.
Since July 2017 (when his sister started crawling) he has become obsessed with her and obsessed with being horrible to her.
I am crying as I write this so please be kind.

• he will put toys in front of her, wait until she goes to get it then snatch it away
• shut her hand in doors
• make her spit on stuff
• 5 toys that he got for Christmas he has broken (his reason, he wanted to)

And now his new thing he is hellbent on waking her up, at 4am this morning he picked up two toys clashed them together and said her name multiple times, then she woke up crying. When I went through to his room, he dived back into bed pretending to be asleep. I have a 7 month old now too and the behaviour is transferring onto her. (He will throw toys at her in her high chair) or he will bang toys off the floor to get her to look at him. If she does happen to look he will run away. And the other day he has started to pick the wall off I am exhausted, I feel like I'm doing something wrong as nobody in the history of the world seems to experience this. I don't think we are all ever in the same room for too long as I cannot cope. I don't know what to do anymore. Does anybody have any advice?

You've done great to stick with this thread OP.

Not sure if this has been asked but have you actually ever had his hearing tested? It's very common for mild-moderate and sometimes even severe hearing loss to go unnoticed right up until the child starts school. A lot of parents think their child is ignoring them and being naughty when in fact the child literally can't hear, and when they do hear they don't understand fully because they haven't been able to hear consistently well to build up a good understanding of some words and phrases.

It's worth bringing up with the HV or the GP. Don't be put off if he can hear you sometimes because that doesn't mean he doesn't have a hearing loss, and don't try to test him, you need an audiologist to do it properly.

Sorry, have just skimmed the thread but my DS1 is/was a bit like this; DS2 is only 13 no younger than him and DS1 was jealous from the start. Still is really - he's now 7.5. It has literally taken YEARS of boring repetitive maintaining the boundaries, but he is actually a lot nicer to be around now. He started to get the link between him being a twat and me imposing a consequence when he was about 6, I think, whereas his brother got it much much earlier. But we do actually get along much better now - he is obviously struggling sometimes to hear me and not just to run off and jump on something/destroy something/hurt his brother, but he does try now when he never did before. It's progress.

I remember feeling just as stressed and hopeless as you sound OP, but it did get better. Just hold the line, be consistent even when it seems utterly pointless, and protect the smaller ones from physical assault (that was my red line - he got my full wrath if he hurt his brother. Didn't stop him, but he knew he'd pissed me off).

it does get better.

olivers I thought the OP said he dragged her off the bed and then filled it with toys, so her dd couldn’t get on the bed. I thought they were playing in the room, not sleeping! I might be wrong! Too many pages to scroll back!

I think the OP has acknowledged things need to change now anyhow.

sven the OP has said she has been trying to contact the HV, with no joy.

I’ve been reading this and wishing I had something useful to add. I’m impressed OP that you are willing to keep coming back to this thread and taking what you can from it. I think that some of the things that people have said about routine, boundaries and positive interactions are likely to be helpful but I do think you are being massively let down by your HV when they are not getting back to you. I hope that the upcoming meeting with nursery is useful and gets the ball rolling towards some support for you and help for your DS. My DS is only 2 and some of the behaviour that you talk about evenhe would understand not to do - it really seems like your DS has some kind of developmental delay or additional need and although a diagnosis won’t change his behaviour it might give you a better idea of which of the many parenting strategies suggested her would work for him.
I second reading ‘how to talk so kids will listen and listen so kids will talk’ if you ever have a few minutes to read anything! The best thing I have found in it has already been mentioned, I try to tell DS what to do rather than what not to do - although I don’t always remember. The jumping on the bed is a classic, DS was doing it at bedtime. I immediately said ‘stop jumping on the bed, you could get hurt’ he looked at me and kept jumping, so I switched to ‘please sit on your bottom’ he stood still ‘DS, bottom, now’ - he sat down. OK so my DS is pretty compliant and you may not get yours to sit down but indeed asking him to jump on the floor instead might work or something else he likes to do. Also with things you have to tell him a lot reduce it to one word, ‘bottom’ gets used a lot in this house, it essentially means sit down and gets used whenever there’s a risk of falling or slipping and he’s standing up and messing around, in the bath, on a bed or sofa, in his high chair etc. He knows what it means and seems to respond better to it than a long instruction. Given how delayed your DS seems to be it might be best to look at strategies aimed at younger children and toddlers like these rather than reward charts and stickers.
I hope your DP calms down a bit and is a bit more helpful he doesn’t get to cherry pick from his children and move out with the ‘easy’ one!

Op I don't believe you are failing him at all, it sounds to me like you are doing everything right with very little help at all. I have a dd who is a drama queen and although she's not naughty, I seem to find whining particularly hard to cope with. My husband is brilliant with her and just talks her out of it. I know this works, I know what I need to do to stop arguments before they start but when you wake up exhausted (I have 3 dc and they seem to be taking it in turns to not sleep!) and feel overwhelmed, you don't have the mental capacity to think rationally. I react badly and then feel guilty about doing so, vow to be better next time but it just repeats itself. Sometimes knowing what you need to do isn't the hard part

What stands out for me is that you sound depressed. You sound like you love your son very much (otherwise the comments about him needing you wouldn't be hard to hear) and I honestly think the comment about wanting him taken into care is a form of you punishing yourself because you don't think you are good enough. Perhaps you need a drs appointment for yourself to get some help/advice of who to speak to. When I was starting to sink into depression a while back my doctor told me of a few places locally I could self refer to just for someone trained to listen, that might help more than here

I think you are doing the right thing by getting him assessed as if he does have e.g. Autism, they can give you techniques that will help both of you. I think it's important even just to rule it out

Could be a combination of speech frustrations, jealousy and missing his dad, none of which are your fault though (or DH) and hopefully ss will be able to help you with that.

Oh and the high chair thing, God talk about pick your battles, I wouldn't worry about that at all. I have a niece the same age as my toddler who is better behaved mostly but just won't sit still and absolutely nothing my ds does changes that! Not all techniques work for all!

Good luck xx

Trailed from class ,to class ,to nursery , anything to get him out of the home.
No fun, reading, playing with his parents . Told time after time that he’s naughty.
No one in his family seems to like, let alone love him .

I don't normally swear on MN, but are you fucking kidding me?

He gets taken to a lot of classes, as do thousands of other kids with their parents. It's normally seen as a good thing, but even if you think he is over scheduled, I know dozens of kids who I think are over scheduled and it does not lead to scarily aggressive behavior!

Why on earth should the OP be considered bad for wanting to get out of the house? Getting out of the house rather than stuck at home is generally a good thing.

He appears to get quite a lot of 1-1 time, and attempts at playing and reading appear to be not-happening as much as they should because he is literally destroying any attempt to do so (grabbing books and ripping them up when the OP tries to read to him etc.).

He is getting told he is naughty because he is. Should there be no feedback or consequences for awful behavior?

I don't think he is much liked in his family because he deliberately does nasty things, and most human beings don't like people who do that kind of thing. See?

Some of the responses on this thread is reminding me of the "refrigerator mother" thing back in the 60s. Doctors observed that mothers of autistic children were often depressed and disengaged with their kids and decided that their deficient mothering was causing the autism. It took a long time, apparently, before it occurred to somebody to consider whether maybe, just maybe, it was the other way round--the child was autistic for reasons that were not under the mother's control and his/her behavior and social difficulties were causing mothers to feel depressed and disengaged.

My dd destroyed books at the op’s Son’s age. If you tried to read to her then she’d rip the book page. Even board books would have the paper ripped from the board.

She’s 6 now and loves being read too. She sometimes will rip a boook, but it’s a lot rarer now.

She will still break pretty much every toy she comes into contact with. We joke that she’s just doing stress testing and risk assessment. Sshe also stilll scribbles all over wwalls.

She was diagnosed with GDD at 3, upppdated to Dyspraxia at 5 with acknowledgement of sensory seeking behaviour and language delay. She used to be a terrible biter as a toddler/ preschooler and still on occasion regresses

Tbh it sounds like he's jealous og his siblings. Reward , punishment and a firm no, removal of privelidges . Rinse and repear.
Siblings can ve horrid to each other. He feels threatened. No need to overthink it. But see gp if you want.

Typos sorry

Once you have second or third children the oldest child suddenly appears SO big in comparison.

4.5 is really very, very little. He also has a speech delay. His behaviour is him communicating with you, the only way he knows how.

You say you don't understand why he would feel upset by you having a baby when he was 2.5. I really think that you need to see from his perspective.

At 2.5 you were the centre of his world. His safe place, his everything. Then one day you disappeared, for days. He was too young to understand where or why. All he knew was his safe place, his world had left him.

When you did come back you brought a baby with you. A baby that was now the centre of your world, who had taken his place, took up all your time. A baby had taken his place, taken his mummy from him.

He was hurt, confused, upset and angry...and FAR too young to understand why. He was only old enough to react. Except you were busy with the baby. You were tired. You no longer had the time for him that you'd had for his whole life. Now it was, "Ssh, DD is sleeping." "Just wait." You were cuddling his sister so he didn't get as many cuddles, you were feeding her so he didn't get as much attention.

Our adult minds understand that a baby can be a lot of work, but his two year old mind saw this baby take his place.

Then it happened again.

Your little, little boy is hurting. He lost your focus to two babies and he's discovered thay the easiest way to get your attention is to be naughty. He targets his sister because in his four year old brain it's her fault.

Shutting him out of the room you are in with dds has added to this. It sends the message that they are more important.

Being at nursery whilst they are at home with you does the same. What message do you think increasing his nursery hours will send?

My heart is sore for him.

Coolaschmoola
That’s very emotive and all but millions of children the world over have this same scenario happen to them. A couple of siblings in quick succession. Three under five is hardly unusual.

Wow! I was right with you for thr first couple of paragraphs Coola

What message do you think increasing his nursery hours will send?
Frankly I'm unable to care at this point, I get told to keep my dds safe, I physically cannot do that in the house. Upping his nursery means he gets more time with his friends, can burn off even more energy and walla might even make him more tired.
In a short few months he will be doing 9-3 at school, is there an actual harm in giving him 2 more hours at nursery?

You say you don't understand why he would feel upset by you having a baby when he was 2.5
Is NOT what I said!!! Somebody asked if the dds births happened to be traumatic, I answered they were both c sections but he'd have been that age when the first was born, so I can't see how a c section would make his behaviour turn like that.

Morning OP.

Your first priority has to be safeguarding all your children. You are now doing that. Reins on outside, not sharing a bedroom etc.

You have taken steps to get your family some help. Meeting arranged with nursery and HV (HV can make a referral to a paed and any other agency, included SS or SALT)

Next should be you. Go to your GP about your physical and mental health. You need to take care of yourself.

Yes and taking time for you does involve decreasing the time that you are solely responsible for 3 children, so upping nursery hours sounds a good plan. Hopefully it will give you the ability to be able to design and implement a rick solid routine and strategies for when your DS is at home.

If you can try try try your best to get people to help enough that you get at least an hour or something for you in the week too. Friends, family, DH. Ask the GP about what help is available. Prioritise you and giving yourself a chink of light in everything you are coping with.

Strength and positivity to you. It WILL get better

It may disrupt his sleep. DS2 has to wind down for 3 hours before bed. When he's been at relatives' and allowed to build dens in the woods at 5pm, he's utter hell for a week afterwards.

Morning OP, hope today has a tiny victory hidden somewhere for you - celebrate like crazy when you find it.

Extra time at nursery sounds just what you all need. It's good preparation for the longer school day that he'll soon have and gives you a bit of extra time to prepare for the homecoming. At 4 he won't even notice the extra hours.

It won't affect his sleep, I've had him out side running about gone 9pm, he has so much energy it's crazy.
He needs the extra stimulation badly, I can't provide that at home.

Well we aren't off to a good start today, I switched with my dp and slept downstairs with dd, at 5am ds came in seen we were asleep so slammed the door, kept pulling on the handle I woke up just as he was about to kick the cot.
I'm frankly fucking fed up, what is the point of doing this. And so because I told him to go back to bed he woke up youngest dd by crying. Although he is still asleep now so I'm just sitting here crying expecting another shit storm when he comes through the door. I dread him waking up tbh

OP have a read of this

www.autism.org.uk/about/diagnosis/children.aspx

The sleep is another pointer towards this. Your first step really does need to be to sort out whether there is a diagnosis to be made. No one can do so over the internet but there are enough from what you have said I think to make it worthwhile to start the steps to get a professional opinion.

YOU need to be proactive about this whether it is that diagnosis or another you need a professional to help.

Nursery may help (it definitely will to get their perspective on it) but be warned it could also be hard on you.

Do you not have stair gates? He shouldn’t be getting up and wandering the house alone at 5.30.

Can you do it the other way around, you or your DP sleep in a room with your son?

Yeah I do but he can open them

I could try it but I think it would be hell on earth, I don't think he'd settle knowing one of us was there. But worth trying I suppose