To not give our 10 year old his Christmas presents?

[stardust22]

Our 10 year old is threatening to tell his 6 year old Sister that Father Christmas isn't real.

He is trying to use this information to black mail us. When he is given consequences he will say either cancel my consequences or I'll tell her the truth about Christmas.

We have said we won't put up with his behaviour & if he did tell her he would not receive any Christmas presents.

He is & always has been rude & aggressive. I don't know how much information to give as this has been on going since he was 4 years old.

My husband & I have discussed not giving Christmas presents to him previously but I have always said no way.

This year I am unsure..... I know it would cause massive upset & ruin our Christmas but he acts so entitled & really only cares about himself.
I don't think it will change his behaviour as nothing we have ever done has, we are just at a loss.

If you have a real ongoing problem here your main opportunity over Christmas is to make it worse.

Is it possible for you to concentrate hard on giving your 6 year old the best possible Christmas?

I missed what the blackmailing was for? I mean what your child is trying to make you do?

Are there any adults (friends, relatives, school staff) who do well with this child?

I'd take away any 'santa' presents so he doesn't get any. Assuming you still do some presents from family, then it's not like he's missing out but if he doesn't believe in santa and wants to ruin it, then maybe he should experience not getting the santa presents.

I think you should not give him his presents. Blackmailing your parents at 10 is a deliberate act; he knows it’s wrong and be absolutely needs to know that you will follow up with the consequences

So all you PPs are advocating she threatens a punishment then doesn't follow through? confused

I imagine so, because it's a terrible threat, and a poor punishment, that will do nothing to help the situation, he's a kid, need to move the interactions so it's not threat, counterthreat, but something more productive.

It sounds like you've got stuck in a loop of threat, escalation, counter-threat, further escalation. It can't be doing any of you any good and at the centre of it is a child (because 10yo is still a child) who quite clearly has some complex emotional problems and unmet needs. Withholding gifts is only going to compound these issues.

I'd step back from it, OP and take a different approach. Take him out somewhere for some one to one time and, while you're out, talk and listen. Ask him outright why he wants to upset his sister at Christmas, be prepared for a very blunt reply such as "I don't like her" but it'll give you a starting point for discussing it. Ask him if he is happy being this way and make it clear that you know he is a good person but he's not acting like one right now. In the new year you need to seek support via your GP.

Maybe if he's told that gifts from "Santa" will only continue for as long as there is a "believing" child in the home (i.e. his little sister), he'll see that it's in his best interest to protect her belief for as long as possible.

It wasn't so long ago that Christmas gifts from Santa were (theoretically, at least) contingent on good behaviour, especially in the run-up to Christmas Day. I don't think it will kill a child to have some or even all of his Christmas gifts withheld (temporarily or even permanently, depending on the severity of the situation).

But honestly, it sounds like there are deeper issues here that will require much more work, far beyond Christmastime.

Thank you all for your replies.

I really appreciate your advice & it makes perfect sense to me to not use his Christmas presents as a consequence.

We have asked for help with regards to his behaviour in the past. I have been to the GP twice over the years but they will not offer any help unless he is referred by his school.
We have spoken to his school many times over the years, but because they don't have any problems with him at school they will not refer him.
They have said they will support us & have chats with him about his behaviour but he says & does all of the right things so there appears to be no issue.

He makes life very miserable for us all if he doesn't get his own way. I have read The Explosive Child which did help me understand more but it hasn't helped with his behaviour.

His behaviour started before we became pregnant with his Sister. We also have a 19 month old boy who he adores.

He says things like you can't control me, I can do what I want.
At the age of 5 we asked for a referral to a child development specialist as he was withholding his poo. We had tried everything but nothing helped. (He potty trained himself at 2 years 3 months. No issues, then he started nursery at 3 years 2 months & that's when it started.) The C.D.S gave us advice, use experiences rather than toys/magazines as rewards. He explained it was a control issue. (Children can control, sleeping, eating & toileting & he is using withholding as his control.)
Nothing we did helped he just got used to managing his withholding. He still holds his poo now for a few mins/hours but he goes every day so no issue.

Over the years he has hit me, bitten me, pulled my hair, kicked me. This happens when he is in a rage. He is wild when this happens screaming & wanting to fight us. (I have told the school about this but they have said its normal.) When he was 6 he slapped me across the face as I wouldn't let him go to a friend's house. (I say friend but him & the boy didn't get on.) I said, right that's it, no tv when we get home. He apologised but was still angry. I leant over to do up his seatbelt, he pulled me in by my scarf & shouted in my face, I said I was sorry.

He hasn't been physically aggresive for about a year but previously it could happen once a month or once every 6 months.

I remember the 1st time he showed behaviour like this was when he was 3.5 years old. I'd bought him a glow in the dark book, he loved it. I gave it to him in the car after I picked him up from nursery. He then insisted he wanted a toy, I explained the book was lovely & he wasn't having a toy as well. In the car he got angry, he said I will take Daddy's hammer & smash the car. If the hammer breaks I will get scellotape & put it back together so I can smash it again.

I am rambling, sorry. We give consequences but it doesn't work.

I understood the blackmailing is to stop him having any consequences for other poor behaviour.

The only way that blackmailing cannot work is if you're prepared to accept the threat happening. It removes the threat of it entirely. So just tell him to go ahead but you'll just tell her he wants to spoil Christmas if he does and the only person feeling miserable will be him. And make sure he knows that the consequences he's trying to avoid by telling her will still happen.

You just have to try to remain as calm and consistent as you can and don't deviate from your boundaries and expectations.

The best discipline strategies are those where "if you do x, then y will happen" is seen through every time. (Even if y has to happen after a long period of upset and refusal). You can't let him think for a minute that he has any control over y, by threatening blackmail.

I'd recommend reading The Explosive Child, it talks about why some children act this way and offers positive strategies on dealing with it that don't involve everyone getting into arguments.

Ultimately, behaviour is communication. He is trying to communicate something to you and your job now is to figure out what that is and how to resolve it.

This child has been struggling since he was 4, younger than his younger sister is now. If you withhold his presents, you will be confirming him in his belief that he is unloved (compared to his sister?) and you will have failed the 'test' of your love he is clearly giving you.

This sort of situation is one of the reasons why I think encouraging literal belief in Santa is a bad thing.

I'd take all the emotion out of this and just say to him calmly, 'if you tell her we will be disappointed in you, but we will simply explain to her that Santa is a lovely story to make things magical and the joy of Christmas and Santa is in what we do to make one another happy. You've done something wrong and you will be having a consequence, whether or not you tell her. Wouldn't it be better to get that consquence out of the way and all concentrate on having a happy Christmas?'

I think cancelling Christmas for him I pretty terrible. Despite the fact that you may think
he ‘deserves it’ , he isn’t going to accept that himself. He’s not going to magically realise ‘oh I’ve been a little shit, my poor family, I really must try harder to be good’ , he’s going to think ‘fuck you mum and dad, you obviously love sister more than me’.

Sorry I crossed with your post. That sounds really tough. Can you go back to school with a list of behaviours. It's not that uncommon for children to hold onto their feelings at school but let them all out at home where they feel it's "safer" to do so. Or go back to the GP and ask to be referred to a paediatrician.

I think you definitely need to look into therapy.

He sounds very unhappy.

Don't spoil Christmas for him, you'll just make the issue worse.

So let him tell her and then you can ask her what she believes and it’s all
About what she believes not what her brother has told her.
I can’t quite believe that you are not going to give him any presents on Xmas day because of this. One perhaps but are you seriously going to not let him
Have any presents?

Sorry, cross post about The Explosive Child.

Does your area have an early intervention Hub? It's a multi-agency service and parents can self-refer into it (as well as other agencies). They assess each referral and allocate it to the agency best placed to deal with it. If you don't have a Hub then check if you can self-refer into the school nursing team as they will be able to come out and see you both and offer appropriate support/onward referral into somewhere like CYPS.

Every year there are dramatic threads of

MY CHILD IS NOT DESERVING OF THEIR GIFTS AND I MIGHT WITHHOLD THEM

It's so extreme and reactionary and really makes me think of the Mum in Goodnight Mr Tom, or Dickens or similar.

Try and remember you're the adult here

Give the gifts, but if you must, remove the favoured ones for a couple of days on Boxing Day and explain calmly why.

I think you need to be more persistent with the GP. They don't have to wait for the school, especially as school isn't the issue (yet)

Some of what you write in your long post sounds within the realm of the typical, others make me (not an expert whatsoever) wonder a bit about ASC.

I do think you've over-interpreted the 'smashing the car' stuff as something sinister that it isn't, and maybe this is setting the tone for part of your interactions. Children who feel - and of necessity are - powerless can imagine, and verbalise, wild scenarios to restore some kind of a sense of power. It doesn't mean they would really go wild with a hammer.

I have been to the GP twice over the years but they will not offer any help unless he is referred by his school - I think you need to persevere with the GPs. Go every week with him if necessary. You need some support with him but clearly you're not going to get it unless and until you really start making a lot more fuss about it to GPs, school, HV if necessary.

Do keep pushing for support, when it comes to getting support with a child who is struggling it really is true that the squeaky wheel gets the grease. Be a squeaky wheel.

It's quite normal for older siblings or relatives to tell younger ones that Father Christmas doesn't exist, you can hardly punish him for speaking the truth! That would be grossly unfair and very confusing because he probably looks at you and his dad as beacons of honesty. She is going to find out sooner or later anyway and it won't kill her. Christmas can still be a time of celebration and wonder.

By all means reprimand him for other things, aggression and general bad behaviour, but try to have a reasonably harmonious Christmas which you will not have if he's the only one who doesn't receive presents.

As others have said, there's more going on here. He probably does resent his sister, I've seen that in families occasionally, but it doesn't last forever (though it may seem that way). Make a big fuss of your boy so that he knows he is loved and valued, and lead by example. You are the top people in his life right now and you want him to grow up to be a good man.

No, withholding his presents is not the way forward.

My approach would be to try and get him more on side with keeping the secret. You could perhaps make it a fun job for him- let him help you eat the mince pie left for Santa for example, let him help you put presents under the tree (or whatever your family traditions are). Turn his knowing about Santa into a bit of extra responsibility and make a fuss of it being a big 'grown up' thing that you are entrusting him with. He might enjoy being part of the secret if he's more involved and it's made into a fun/special thing for him. He's more likely to enjoy his brother's reaction in the morning (rather than be bitter and perhaps a bit jealous) if he's had a hand in making the magic.

My parents always did stocking presents from Father Christmas and main presents from them so the year my brother told our little siblings that father Christmas wasn't real he got presents from Mum and Dad but in his stocking was a note saying something like "you are on the bad list for trying to spoil Christmas for the kids, your presents will appear when you learn to be nice", through the day presents appeared as he started behaving, this both taught him a lesson and let the little ones carry on believing for a bit longer. We just told the little ones he was being spiteful, which he was by telling them.

I meant sister not brother!

Call his bluff. The more unconcerned you look about him telling his sister, the less of a hold that will have over you.

I agree with everyone that threatening to give him no presents is unwise, although understandable given how tough things are at the moment.