Has anyone helped their child to be less uptight?

[itwasntmetho]

Okay not an AIBU but I really need the help of the wise ones here.
My ds is 10, he's always been a bit of a victim, has a face on him if something is challenging, expects to be rescued.
He really isn't doing well socially atm, one of the really lovely school mums was brave enough to be honest with me that her child says my ds gets other kids into trouble, makes a big deal of small things and victimises himself if play is rough in general (paraphrasing).
This is a habit/ personality trait I've been pulling ds up on since forever and I don't think he ever believed me that his friends would vote with their feet and people wouldn't always overlook it. He's getting quite lonely now in school and I'm gutted for him. How can I help him break the habit?

I've never looked at martial arts, just asked ds if he'd like to go once when his friend was going but he said no, I might revisit that.

I know it sounds like inverted snobbery but it's quite a MC area and I'm sceptical about the number of profit making business' around here pushing extra curriculars as essentials, from baby sensory, toddler dancing, must start water babies straight after first jabs, tennis lessons, hockey lessons, rugby in winter, cricket in summer. I moved here because I used to nanny here and I knew so many frazzled kids I felt sorry for some of them.

How do middle ground people do it when a child isn't keen or wants to give up something? there must be a whole host of normal between me who lets it go and people who say no carry on. I think that could be good for him, but he won't naturally be keen.

the phase

“parent the child you have not the one you wish you had”

this, 100%. DH and I clash on this a bit. He frets that our DS1 is too flippant, that he gives up too easily, that he has a short attention span. That our DS2 is shy, too quiet in class, too much of a perfectionist, not sociable enough. He keeps trying to ’teach’ them to be more serious / honest / resilient/ confident / outspoken etc etc - whatever he thinks would ‘help’ them. But I’m pretty sure that what they mostly hear is “you aren’t good enough the way you are: you need to be different (to make me happy)”.

That’s who they are though - that’s them. While we all want life to be easy for our children (and we can recognise that certain personality traits make for an ‘easier’ life) I draw the line at pushing them to change their basic personalities to fit in. Look around you. The world is full of people, all different. And children learn. You can certainly point out to your DS when he is being unreasonable, in a neutral way. And yes role play can help - if he’s asking for help.

I’ve got a friend whose DD, also an only, is very like your DS. She can’t cope with other people breaking the rules: she’s grown up in a very rational, reasonable and adult world where people generally follow the rules and she has always found the rough and tumble craziness of the playground and friendships with children quite difficult to manage. She’s definitely the’ good girl’ and puts huge stock in being ‘good’ in every way. She tends to hold her (child) friends to the same standards as the adults she lives with, inevitably they fall short, and she gets very judgmental with them. So yes, she finds friendships hard and she possibly always will.

my dad was a psychiatric nurse for many years. He told me once that his hardest cases to treat / help (and he had some pretty horrible ones) were adults who felt that they had not lived up their parents expectations, whether academically, socially, behaviourally, whatever. Because that message of not being good enough, of being a failure, of being a disappointment, has been drummed into them from early childhood. And that is hard to shift in later life.

Interesting debate on roughhousing. I see both boys and girls being much more physical than we were in school (back in the dark ages). I don't mean fighting but there's a huge amount of hugging/ arm around shoulder/ linking arms (girls)/ pushing each other towards hedges (boys) that I notice from the pupils at local schools. All done in a friendly way but could be difficult for a child not used to positive physical contact.

The language you use about him is so critical, though, that I wonder whether he really does feel that you see the good things about him - I know you say you tell him those, but it sounds like you've got such harsh ideas about him that it might be coming across anyway. And that can make it harder for a child to change, because they feel like there is something wrong with who they naturally are. I had some traits as a child that my Mum didn't like, and was very much pushed into trying to change them - but it didn't help, or even made me feel worse about myself and more misunderstood. I had to come to the realisations myself about what I wanted to change, and what was just my personality and could be accepted. It would have helped a lot more if i felt loved unconditionally. So even the fact that you talk about him as being 'uptight' - you don't have to use such a loaded, negative word about him or his whole personality, but instead, could be focus on certain behaviours that are a bit rigid. It makes it sound a lot more changeable, and focuses on a core part of him that is still worthy, somehow, with external traits that are changeable if he wants. Words like 'pandering' and so on are also extremely pejorative, and even when you don't use them in front of him, might mean that your real feelings are showing through and he will pick up on that.

There are things he can do to change - reading books about friendships, encouraging him to role play, maybe working with a counsellor or someone external to you, so that it's not always you telling him to change, which can be so damaging to a child - you can then be 'on his side', accepting him for who he is, but supporting his efforts to work on things. If he thinks that his personality is just who he is, which of course many children do, then having a parent who doesn't accept them is so hard. It just feels like there is nowhere you can be yourself, because who you are naturally just isn't acceptable, and that is such a hard message for children (and such a hard message to let go of later in life). I was a bit of a negative child, prone to over thinking, and constantly being told to be positive, smile, be resilient, etc just made me feel like who I was was wrong. It took years to accept that I was fine and valuable regardless, and that I could then make choices in how I saw the world, how I presented things to other people etc, but that having a negative mindset originally doesn't actually make me a bad person. In fact it is much much easier to choose changes, when you feel accepted and understood.

So maybe working a bit on yourself as well, to see him differently and make sure that he knows that, so that it becomes a problem set of behaviours that you can work on together to help him keep more friends, if that's what he wants. Doesn't mean you have to accept the behaviours, but I suspect there is a lot of messages coming across to him that you don't accept him (even if that is not at all what you intend).

I think there's a huge difference between "forcing" a child to rough house and stopping a child doing passive aggressive over the top complaining when barely touched.

Once my DS stroked his cousin's back. His cousin kicked off about how he'd hurt him. We said it was just a stroke but nephew then insisted he was scratched etc etc.

The result is that my DS is starting to avoid his cousin and wont hug him in case he gets yelled at.

He sounds like my son OP. I was often worried about him as he was highly strung. I did some CBT with him and worked with his teachers. He's 13 and we've had a few wobbles at senior school but in the whole he has become loads more resilient. He discussed with his friends he doesn't do rough play and they avoid it with him.

I think its about teaching him how to articulate his needs in an assertive way. They say behaviour is communication so help him articulate the feelings behind the actions.

Society currently seems to reward victims but at ground level this behaviour is massively off putting.

I hated the 'rough-housing' stage and so did my DS. Which is totally OK, I hate that boys are supposed to like fighting and scrapping.

But between not liking that and not liking football, his playtimes were fairly miserable at primary school. We talked about it a lot though - if you don't want to do something you don't have to do it, but if all the other people you want to play with want to do the thing then it's going to be hard. What's more important? Joining in or not doing the thing you don't like? The thing I then focused on was being at peace with the decision he'd made. And helping him understand that if he joined in because he wanted to be with his friends that day, he couldn't change the rules/conventions to suit himself. It's really tough but it did ease massively at high school when lunch and break times look quite different.

Another thing you might want to try is parkour. It's non-competitive, you are basically using your body in line with the built environment. It's great for building confidence, knocks are par for the course but they just get back up and back on with it because of the way the (usually super-cool) instructors deal with it.

Another thing you might want to try is parkour. It's non-competitive, you are basically using your body in line with the built environment.

Is that like floor is lava? My ds loves that. I didn't know it was a thing outside of the playground.

I've got this book I could send you if you like

My 9yo is autistic and he sounds very similar (aspergers). I sometimes have to label the behaviour for what it is (manipulative).

I feel sorry for that boy.

You have just called him ''uptight'' and described him as ''someone who plays the victim'', that you have been trying to change his personality ''forever'' and you go along with what other parents tell you rather than supporting your own child...

What you should be doing is accepting him for who he is and stop trying to make him into someone he is not. I don't see anything wrong with not liking to be around kids who like to ''play rough''.

I suggest you try being a bit less critical and instead focusing on helping your kid develop his self-confidence. Maybe a new activity/sport. Have you actually asked him what he enjoys doing?

You are trying to mould this child into an alpha action man and this is not who he is. You also seem to be over-analysing every aspect of his behaviour. No wonder this kid will be anxious...

To me reading this it also sounds like you have an unhealthy attitude to parenting and the issue might not be simply with your boy. Someone has to say it.

Pressed post too soon... Gladly put this in the post to you, its just sitting on a bookshelf waiting to be passed on (but a bit awkward to suggest that they might need it!).
It turned out that all of my kids were neuro diverse in various ways and that was why they were a bit rigid about rules and rather negative about normal social interactions. In the end I accepted that they were behind in social and emotional development and just tried to discreetly provide back up but there were some difficult times (sports days, arghh). They are all adults now and all found friend groups they could handle in the end. The oldest is still a bit of a moaner though!

It sounds like he’d enjoy quieter games and rules based play - do the school have a chess club, or offer scrabble games or similar in the library at lunch time?

If not, maybe look in to joining an extracurricular chess club or Scouts, where activities are structured and work towards an end goal.

You sound like a good Mum who doesn’t want to let her DS down, while trying to prepare him for the real world. I agree with PP’s that he shouldn’t tolerate rough play if he doesn’t like it, but he may need help working on social and emotional skills.

Ask the school if they think a SEN assessment or meeting with the EdPsych might be helpful, to rule out other things; then if nothing improves I’d look in to some counselling to help him work through his feelings. It worked wonders for my DNephew at a similar age.

I need that in my life!
Thank you, can you pm me your paypal details and I'll give you some money for it? x

That book is part of a whole series of books that are good - they're all by different authors so some better than others. But if you look on amazon, you can see the different ones. Based on CBT techniques.

Might be good for you also to get a CBT type book for yourself, to work on seeing how you can change your mindset towards him into more unconditional love, to make sure that this really comes across to him. I can't stress enough how damaging it is for children to feel that their parents don't value who they are, faults and all. And how many parents will be sure that they do and that this comes across, when from the child's point of view, it doesn't. Really really worth looking carefully at yourself and thinking about this angle.

I'm not convinced that he isn't a victim and what you're trying to do is mould him into someone they're less likely to target. That's the opposite of resilience.

It's quite uncomfortable to read another parent excusing 'rough play' as the victim being too sensitive and then implying the victim is 'deliberately' getting DCs into trouble - and you agreeing and taking that focus back to your DC.

Fwiw most schools wouldn't be happy with rough play at that age. And they won't give DCs into trouble just because someone is 'playing the victim'.

Your DS is in a rugby/rough play ie violent year group that has victim blaming DCs and parents. That's what he needs support with. And yy you can do that by trying to turn him into another bullying mini-thug or by forcing the school to address the bullying issues in that year and supporting your DC to be who he is.

The series is called "What to do when...." The one about worry is a commonly recommended one, and sometimes the anger one as well.

@itwasntmetho just pm me an address and I'll post it to you, I'll slip it into the pile of stuff I send out for DH's business! No need for payment. I've also got "what to do when your temper flares" if anyone would like that.

They have a lunch club and his teacher did make sure he knew about it, I also did say to him that he can come home for lunch because I work from home, it's almost always about the lunch time and it's the middays not the teachers supervising.
I've brought him home for lunch twice this year, but mainly he opts to stay, he doesn't make use of the clubs or the offer to come home at lunch and just have the short playtimes with the other kids, but says that he doesn't have anyone to play with sometimes and sounds down about that.
I think it would be nice for him to be happy to play alone but he wants to play with the boys in his class.
There's one girl in his class that he really likes and I wish he'd play with her more often but he wants to play with the kids that he struggles with.

My daughter was/ is quite similar to how you describe your son and tended to play on her own a lot & be overlooked by the children in her class . However we moved when she was in year 6 from a small village to the edge of a large city. Her new school was much bigger & more diverse and she seemed to thrive there. She seemed to develop the ability to laugh at herself and her quirks e.g. she'd say semi-lightheatedly "I'm the sort of person who has to play by the rules and I'll be really stressy if you cheat" or "I'm honestly fine on my own for a bit if you want to do [insert extrovert activity]" rather than looking for an adult to "save" her. I think it was something to do with her nervous energy not fitting with the intensity of the cliques in the smaller school where everyone was similar and had similar values (white, middle class, competitive) - she was just accepted in the new school.
Sorry about the essay- I'm just wondering whether he's at high school yet or about to start? As it could be a chance for a fresh start with a different friendship group in which your DS can thrive and become more resillient.

There are a few things you've mentioned OP which MAY indicate your son could be neurodiverse.

Stickler for 'rules' and intolerant of anyone who will not follow them, i.e fixed mindset. black and white thinking.
Cannot help himself from pointing out peers are doing things 'wrongly' or 'outside the rules.'
this behaviour leads to peer rejection.

Emotionally immature, it's common for neurodiverse children to have an emotional age around two thirds of their chronological age.
Leads to peers calling them a baby etc. and rejection.
Younger children can be more tolerant of these traits.

Massive over-reaction to physical touch.
Sensory issue, it's not an over-reaction to the child who experiences it, it genuinely can feel as though it's intense pain and they react accordingly.
Telling a child who experiences this to ignore it or telling them it doesn't really hurt and they need to toughen up is counter-productive and leads them to think you don't believe what they say.

Socially inept.
Despite trying his best, his peers aren't interested in playing with him.

On another thread recently, an ed psych observed that the easiest way to tell if a child may be neurodiverse was to see which of them were rejected by their peers at break and lunch times.

I'd strongly suggest initially asking the school SENCO to observe your son at break and lunch times and to let you know what they think about his social skills, over sensitivity to touch and anything else they see.
Some SENCOs are brilliant, others are dire, most are somewhere in-between, but if they notice anything, they can help with interventions for him.

My eldest DC (now 14) was pretty uptight in the way you describe - very quick to perceive a wrong, and easily put out. As an objective observer I could see that it impacted him socially - not in really dramatic way, but I think it hindered him developing the solid friendships that I could see his more chilled out peers forming.

I did try coaching him a bit but ultimately it was something he had to figure out in his own time. He is on Y9 and outwardly much better at rolling with the punches (although as his mum who knows him best in the world, I can still see him struggling with his inner righteous toddler at times!). Starting secondary school is a big wake up call I think.

My DD couldn't be more different and is genuinely the most easy going person I know, by quite a margin. I honestly think these traits are with them at birth. All we can do is help polish the rough edges!

I’m reading along with interest as my eight year old is similar. Very sensitive, very empathetic to others, a strong sense of fairness.

The sense of fairness and sensitivity sometimes doesn’t go well. He gets upset when other kids break the rules. He just doesn’t understand it. Or when kids are a bit unkind. He’s very kind and can’t under that either.

To be honest we haven’t come up with a solution, but I like some of the ideas shared here.