To worry about my Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde 4 year old

[kiltedsheep]

Hello,

I'm aware this is quite a common problem but am still hoping for advice!

DS isn't quite Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, but he's not far off. He's just turned 4 and is a bright little button - he was a pretty fluent reader at 3 and a half (I read him a lot of books all the time, and he just picked things up) and is insatiably curious about everything and obsessed with dinosaurs.

He attends nursery 3 days a week and the nursery staff rave about him. Whilst he's shy around his peers and much prefers talking to and playing with grown-ups, the staff tell me he's polite and very well-behaved.

But when he's at home, DS is a bloody nightmare m. He can't seem to cope with transitions - be it switching off the telly or time to eat his lunch - and shouts 'Nonono! I don't want to do it so I won't do it' in an almost hilariously petulant way. Disappointment of almost any sort (e.g. I shut the front door before he gets to see the postman) leads to absolutely hysterical screaming.

My Dad, who's just arrived to visit us from abroad, is pretty horrified by this. Yesterday, in the middle of a tantrum, DS hit my dad (albeit very gently) and I shouted at DS, who was inconsolable. I said there would be no TV (which he'd been watching at the time) ever again unless he apologised to Granda. He screamed and sobbed and he said he couldn't apologise, and this went on for hours until my DH came home from work. DH put on his 'I'm cross and disappointed' voice and frogmarched him to Granda's room and he apologised, where DS finally apologised, sobbing and shaking.

My Dad is worried about DS's behaviour and says I need to withdraw affection from DS, or else DS will just think his tantrums are acceptable. I don't want to do this. It's clear to me that, on some level, DS knows this isn't acceptable behaviour; he certainly recognises from books etc that tantrums aren't the way to go. Crucially, DS doesn't get what he wants if he kicks off.

But, as my dad says, how can he can behave well at nursery and badly at home, unless he thinks his mum is a soft touch? My Dad thinks that empathising with DS's rage and disappointment at home is just reinforcing these episodes, and that DS is clever enough to know he can get away with treating his mum badly.

It might also be worth noting that I sometimes suffer from depression - although it's controlled by medication - and DS's extreme emotions worry me because I recognise my own strong emotions within them (I used to self-harm to cope). DS already bites his nails and gets worried about various things a lot, and I really don't want to exacerbate his anxiety.

A further point is that I'm reluctant to take advice from my dad because my mum used to hit me as a child whenever I got 'out of line', and whilst he did his best to protect me when he was around, he often wasn't around. Unsurprisingly, I now have an amazingly shit relationship with my mum.

AIBU to worry about my son?
AIBU to reject my Dad's advice, even though I really don't know what I'm doing with parenting?

Help!

@Zaphodsotherhead Don't worry - I won't withdraw any affection! Everyone's helpful replies have reinforced what I already knew anyway, which is that it would hurt far more than help.

My mum also withdrew affection at the drop of a hat and smacked seven shades of wotsit out of me and my brother, so I've got a good model on how not to manage difficult behaviour. It's a bit too easy to excuse her parenting by filing it away under the 'Other Cultures' folder.

Heavens, KiltedSheep you've only just mentioned the new baby.

I wouldn't worry about your DS's behaviour. It sounds familiar to me. All four of my DC did this at a similar age.

And only one had ASD, by the way.

Never mind a possible diagnosis, in the meantime I would go for positive parenting, praise the good behaviour, speak calmly and don't rise to the emotional outbursts

@TheMustressMhor Thanks - it's really helpful to know that this isn't particularly uncommon behaviour. It can be easy to catastrophize, particularly on little sleep (thank you, DS2).

And DS1 is very good with the baby btw! No issues there, which is really great.

He may be very good with the baby but he could very likely still be feeling the need to push the boundaries a bit, all the same.

I honestly wouldn't pay any attention to your dad. If he was such a great parent himself he would have done more to protect you from your mum.

Small children do blow things out of all proportion. I can well imagine one of my own DS getting very upset about not seeing the postman. He is grown up now (DS - not the postman) (although the postman already was, obviously) and a well-adjusted human being (DS - although I assume the postman is also well-adjusted.)

Jeez.

My Dad, who's just arrived to visit us from abroad, is pretty horrified by this. Yesterday, in the middle of a tantrum, DS hit my dad (albeit very gently) and I shouted at DS, who was inconsolable. I said there would be no TV (which he'd been watching at the time) ever again unless he apologised to Granda. He screamed and sobbed and he said he couldn't apologise, and this went on for hours until my DH came home from work. DH put on his 'I'm cross and disappointed' voice and frogmarched him to Granda's room and he apologised, where DS finally apologised, sobbing and shaking

First of all, ignore your dad. Being 'horrified' at a 4 yr old not getting his own way is pretty OTT and not at all helpful. And the above behaviour is pretty standard for many 4yr olds.

But the rest of the above paragraph really shows why and how this behaviour happens.

Punishments if you are giving them need to be short, immediate and realistic. You failed on all 3. But you know that already. Take a deep breath, revise your strategies and be consistent with them. One of the best ways to deal with this out of control tantrum is simply to ignore or walk away. When he has calmed down you can deal with the issue that caused it. Do not be swayed by other people's perceptions of 'proper' parenting, it's easy to let things escalate when you are feeling judged by another adult because you want(need) to be seen to be trying to control it.

Any 'rules' need to be similarly short and achievable. 'No hitting ever' is nice and simple for them to understand and something you can,and should, discuss with him whilst he's calm. Forcing a child to apologise never works and means nothing.

my relative arrived from my abroad and my ds completely played up, I was appalled, said relative sat calmly, and knew that ds was just playing up and he calmed down.
it is all understandable and normal op.

@nokidshere You failed on all 3.

You sound like my mum! Are you always so brutal in your appraisal of a tricky situation? But at least the criticism is constructive, so thank you. It is a very fair point about feeling judged by my dad.

You'll see from a few posts down that I did in fact try the walk-away-and-then-address-the-issue-when-the-child-has-calmed-down approach, but the meltdown reoccurred due to my insistence that he apologise to my dad (rather than to me) for hitting him.

Forcing a child to apologise never works and means nothing. This is the key point, I guess. Perhaps I shouldn't have said to him that he needed to apologise to Granda.

It's a pity kids don't come with instruction manuals...

@bigbluebus @DisappearingGirl @EleanorReally Thanks - and to everyone else who's posted - for all your thoughts and suggestions. I know this will be a very gradual process!

Nothing that a bit of discipline would sort

Sounds like entitled child issue here and weak boundaries from the get go.

look in to pda not the asd as he seem to want to/have a need to control things around him and when it dont happen they go into extreme meltdowns

Found the thread again yay!

I get newsletter emails from Sarah Ockwell Smith and I wanted to relay this to you OP as I thought of you the instant I saw it:

I am often contacted by desperate parents in September or October who say “Help! My child has turned into a demon at home, but school say they are brilliant all day and behave really well, what have I done wrong?”

The presumption here is that the parents must have done something wrong to cause the poor behaviour, because school aren’t having the same issue. In a sense they’re correct, the behaviour is because of something they’ve done, but not in the negative way theyexpect. This happens because parents have done everything right! When you make your child feel loved, safe, supported and respect with you, they feel comfortable enough to be their authentic selves with you, or in other words, they don’t have to pretend or‘be good’ anymore. They have spent all day, at school, holding in frustration, fear, anxiety, anger and other uncomfortable emotions, because they know that it is “naughty” to let them out at school. When they get home to you however things are entirely different.There’s a massive release. Imagine your child at school and everything they have to deal with as being a bottle of fizzy drink. They have spent all day being shaken, building pressure, but have ‘been good’ and managed to keep their lid screwed on tightly.When they see you, the need to release is huge, pop, off comes the lid and the ensuing spray of all that has been bottled up inside. The technical term for this is restraint collapse, but I much prefer to think of that bottle finally releasing its pressure

This is all a wonderful compliment of your parenting skills. If you hadn’t made your child feel secure enough to be authentic with you, when they were feeling happy and otherwise, then they would continue to bottle up the feelings and the release (and subsequentmess) would likely happen at school. Causing far more problems. Many children sadly get into the cycle of not being able to release to their parents, perhaps because their parents have raised them to not share how they feel with them through constant punishmentsand exclusions, or perhaps because the parents have been too busy, or absent, to listen. The result then is constant difficulty and poor behaviour at school, as they struggle to keep a lid on things and erratically explode, without the safe release of home

What can you do about restraint collapse? Really, the best thing is to understand and accept it for what it is, a great testament to the hard work you have put into raising a child with good emotional intelligence and a strong bond with them. The effects wearoff as children settle into school and things become easier for them, however you will see it time and again throughout the school years. When it happens again (after initially ceasing) you will know that they are struggling with something at school. Don’ttake any explosions personally, they are definitely not acting this way because they hate you, it’s actually a bizarre way of them saying that they love you, lots. Instead, let your child know that it’s OK, you’re here for them and you’re big enough and matureenough to hold their difficult feelings as well as their happy ones

What a great post and an interesting perspective.