DS2 anger and destructive behaviour

[Nc123]

Hey, I’m hoping someone can help.

DS2 is 9 and has always been a volatile, hypersensitive boy - struggled with sleeping, eating etc from day one. He’s got anxiety and is dyslexic. He also appears a bit young for his age.

He is not often angry and we’ve done a lot of work with him on learning to manage healthy emotions. That said, when he is angry he graduates very quickly to shouting, telling us to “shut up” and saying deliberately hurtful things. He also slams his bedroom door and will deliberately mess up his room eg by tearing posters off the wall and ripping them up. This escalates FAST and can be happening within a couple of minutes of him kicking off.

I’m really worried about this as the only way to de-escalate the situation is to leave him to calm down - but he is saying things deliberately to hurt and anger us. Like tonight, he shouted, “I wish I had a better dad” at DH. My instinct is that we should show him straight away that that is unacceptable but we would just wind up with a huge pile of consequences every time, which feels unworkable.

I am really worried about ending up with a teenager who can’t control his emotions if we don’t get it under control now.

Please, can anyone help?

I have a DD 8 who is similar. In her case we have a reason, she has mild cerebral palsy, which is known to affect emotional regulation. Doesn’t make it any easier though!

In DD’s case we know that she is more likely to lose her rag when tired or hungry and so we tend to take extra steps to avoid conflict at those times - 5 minute warnings before it’s time to turn off TV, tidying up happens earlier in the day not later, homework done asap after school, etc. Bit like managing a much younger child.

We have done work with her on “zones of regulation” ie recognising when she is starting to go into “yellow” (on edge/a bit irritated) so she can take a break and calm down before she’s into “red”. As once she’s into red there is no control any more. To be honest, this hasn’t hugely helped so far, mainly since she seems to go from green to red in 0-60, but I remain hopeful it will help longer term…!

I agree with you that piling on consequences does not help for a child who is genuinely unable to control themselves when angry. With DD I can threaten any consquence (and carry it out too) and it makes no difference, either at the time, or next time. Once she has calmed down she is so remorseful and upset about the consequence but it doesn’t help her control herself.

Sorry not a lot of helpful advice but much empathy.

PS did you really want this in AIBU?