My DS is 6 and is currently in year 2.
I’ll preface the below (which sounds terrible on re-reading but is all true) by saying or DS is sometimes a very loving and kind boy, usually when he’s getting 100% of our attention immediately and also getting to do exactly what he wants when he wants. We absolutely adore DS and sometimes think we’ve caused this by spoiling him too much when he was younger (he’s an only child and only attended nursery at age 3 for a few months before Covid hit) - with both physical things and our full attention.
His behaviour can be absolutely atrocious at home. He still has frequent temper tantrums and not a single “technique” we’ve tried to deal with these has helped at all, he will scream for hours if we leave him to it and likely become a danger to himself, us or really damage our house/things so we sometimes have no choice but to restrain him (he’ll then try to but us, but usually calms down in 10 minutes or so if we stay silent and effectively hold his arms and legs). He’s a very petit 6 year old but he is getting bigger so I’m worried he’s not learning his owns ways of dealing with these emotions because all of our friends’ kids outgrew tantrums years ago.
He refuses point blank to follow our instructions whether this is related to either “doing” or “stopping” something and if he’s cross he regularly shout in our face (just noise, not words) and also frequently tells us how much he hates us. He seems to have learnt that this gets a reaction from me/DH but we do our best to not show it.
Whilst we’re not perfect, our family is totally normal and I think DS has a “nice” life. DH isn’t DS’ dad but has been in his life since he was 1, bio-dad has never been part of DS’ life and there’s no siblings. DS has plenty of clubs, attention from us and does not have a high amount of tech time (he sometimes plays some games on the computer, usually Minecraft or the games from school, but we decided against allowing him the mindless play on a tablet because it had an immediately negative effect on his behaviour during Covid and he’s never really asked for it since). We have tried so many different ways of dealing with this but nothing has worked and we’re at our wits end.
In school, he’s an absolute middle of the pack child. In reception he was able to attend through lockdown as we were key workers. In reception/year 1 it was always brought up that he struggled to pay attention/follow instructions but the school weren’t particularly concerned by this. However, now he’s in year 2 a few of the more challenging behaviours are also showing in school - as well as not paying attention, he’s answering teachers back and starting to say no to them. Obviously now this is a massive issue to the school and I’m constantly being dragged in to discuss this with various people.
We asked for help via our Council’s families service a few years ago but were told that we weren’t disadvantaged so didn’t qualify, but when we asked for help we could pay for none was offered. We also asked for help from the school last year (hoping they’d be able to signpost, rather than necessarily help) but they pretty much said there can’t be any issue at home because DS is fine at school, and DS was probably just in his “safe space”.
AIBU to think that had there been any help available when I asked for it, it would have been possible to “nip this is the bud” rather than the resultant situation where it’s now a huge problem?
Any genuine suggestions/help/experiences are absolutely appreciated here. Please no bashing me and assuming that we’re bad parents. We’ve definitely done things wrong on occasions, but we’re not awful people or trying to excuse the behaviour. We asked for help when it became obvious what we were doing was t working and hit brick walls - we really have tried and it’s a constant worry that our DS is the “naughty child”.
Thank you.