I’m just feeling at the end of my tether with my 5.5 year old son.
Outside of the home he’s a joy - we know he is well-behaved, kind and compassionate at his daycare. He’s well-liked by the adults, other children and he’s socially well-adjusted. He copes well with adversity, physical discomfort (eg bad weather, long walks) and conflict, and is cheerful and enthusiastic about all sorts of things. He loves animals and is kind and patient with babies & smaller children.
However at home he’s often a nightmare. Although we also see his good side a lot, he constantly explodes at us if the tiniest thing doesn’t go his way. He winds up his sister (7) and though they play together, often their games end in fighting, screaming and hitting, usually initiated by him trying to upset her. With me, he will randomly slap me across the face or bite me apropos of nothing. He will often hit me as he walks past. I try to react calmly and always tell him no hitting. Rarely I shout, when I am surprised or badly hurt, or stressed. He often swears and says he hates us. DH has learned to react better - for a long time he was shouting a lot at DS when he acted out, but he tries to be calmer now. Sometimes though he can’t hide his bitterness or irritation. I try to explain to him he has to for DS’s self esteem, but I understand why he gets so frustrated. Nothing seems to work. I have tried being gentle. I have tried being firm. I have tried taking things away, or timeouts, following through with consequences. We take care to pay attention to him, to play games with him, read to him, spend time with him, take him out on excursions. He gets tons of cuddles and love. But nothing changes. This has been going on for 3 years. We feel like we are failing our son.
The worst thing is his behaviour suddenly vastly improved in spring, apparently with no change in our behaviour, and he was great for 3 months - then in June he just regressed straight back to his old, aggressive, angry, frankly violent ways.
The daycare flagged up a potential language issue, and I think that may be a reason behind his rage… I think he may have some sort of language processing disorder that makes it hard for him to get a handle on his feelings. We have begun the process with child mental health services to try and get him diagnosed but I think it’s going to be a long wait. He also seems to have really bad impulse control - he once threw a wrench into DH's face for example.
He won’t talk about anything with me. When I try to probe gently why he has such difficulty with his negative emotions and why he acts out he just covers his ears and yells at me to stop talking.
DD went through a difficult, explosive phase, but it was over by 4.5 years and was far, far less intense. Maybe this is just the same process, but taking a longer time? Is this normal? Did anyone else experience this? What could it be? Will it end? Am I doing something wrong and hurting my son?
Any advice would be so greatly appreciated.