AIBU to think I should have been able to get help with behaviour of DS(6) before getting to crisis point?

[Sink23]

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.

I'm no expert at all, but this sounds like it could well be neurodiversity. I'd push for an assessment to find out, he might need different strategies than a neurotypical kid.

😂

I think the school are a bit perplexed because to them he’s gone “backwards” and ironically looking to me to explain this, when I’ve been the one raising issues at home for 3 years.

To me this was obviously the next progression, as he realises that actually teachers don’t have any more actual power than me/DH as the consequences they give don’t seem to phase him.

I’m on edge the entire time thinking the worst behaviours will spill over into school, he’s never hurt anyone but me/DH/himself but it’s a massive fear. I’m also feeling guilty that I’m feeling relieved that some things are so it’s starting to be taken seriously, but this is the escalation I’ve been trying desperately to avoid for years.

They are trying to be supportive, and I do think now if we had a private diagnosis of something it might be taken seriously rather than scoffed at by being “those parents” who needed an excuse for bad behaviour.

It’s so close to the end of year now I think they’ve basically said “see if it resolves over summer and with a new teacher and we’ll review again in September” which is ages away and made more difficult by having a new teacher that doesn’t know him.

I can only assume it’s holding him back at school, but he’s intellectually bright so up until this point seems to be adequately coasting. He probably could be getting higher grades, but at the minute he wouldn’t stand out as doing badly academically.

Have you videoed his meltdowns/anger? It might be helpful to stop professionals dismissing you.

So have you considered getting an assessment done?

I know someone whose child behaved exactly like this as a young child. He is now a teen and being assessed for ASD - it's become much more obvious now he's at secondary, before he was just considered naughty. I would definitely be thinking either an ASD or ADHD diagnosis could be likely and wouldn't rule either out. I don't know if ODD is diagnosed in the UK with ASD but it sounds like he might fit that too.
I don't think you can spoil a child with attention - maybe with permissive parenting - but this sounds like it goes beyond 'spoilt' behaviour. My friends child would probably also have been described as a spoilt brat when he was young as well.

Go down the educational psychology route via the school if you can rather than immediately going private. My understanding is that the NHS EP route will carry more weight further down the line. A private diagnosis is useful, but may not be taken as seriously - if you pay enough you will find someone to write whatever you want to hear. But that advice was a few years ago, pre-covid and the current wait times.

However, the waiting list for a diagnosis is about 2 - 3 years, so a private one might actually be the way to go.

There does seem to be more going on than just poor behaviour.

I would be tempted to assume Autism/ADHD or some other neuro-diverse condition. Read up about these, how to parent, possible trigger situations, possible foods to avoid, etc. Basically parent him as if he is neuro-diverse. It won't hurt if it turns out he isn't, as it's an empathetic way of parenting.

If your boy struggles with transitions - stopping one activity and starting another - you could try visual timetables if you don't already? Large sand timers might be useful too maybe (but perhaps not a glass one) so bedtime is when the sand is gone etc. All visual, easier to process and understand that one activity is going to follow another.

We probably did go through a phase of pleading/negotiating years ago. That’s definitely passed now as we’ve become almost apathetic towards it - we know that this gets us nowhere so everything is matter of fact now.

There are many tearful nights, but it’s very rare we show any emotion when DS is acting out. It happens to regularly and we’re past it. It no longer feels that DS is trying to personally provoke us (I think some phrases have just become habit, I’m sure by now he could be calling us much worse if he was actually trying to get a response).

There is as consistent a routine as we can get based upon work, and the routine element definitely works. If we can get DS in the bath without issues, it is almost certain that the rest of the night will go perfectly because he knows exactly what will happen. He is in bed at 7.30 every night (we don’t ever let him stay up late, probably because we’re so scared we’ll lose the routine that works) and he does sleep without any argument which feels like a miracle.

We (DH and me) do accidentally end up contradicting each other occasionally, but from experience we’ve also learnt to try to be sensible with what we say we will/won’t do because we need to back it up.

Screentime isn’t really an issue in our house and losing screentime wouldn’t particularly be seen by him as the terrible punishment that most kids would think. The only screen DS does see daily is CBBC at morning once he is dressed and ready for school. He would much rather be playing Lego, but we’ve found that the routine of knowing he leaves after XXX has finished works (compared to Lego where he always wants to do more, which would be one of the triggers for him if we said he had to stop before he was ready, even with plenty advance warning).

We do several activities out of the house and DS loves swimming, and while he doesn’t (yet) act defiant in those lessons he’s in his own little world and not paying attention for significant chunks. He also does gymnastics which is quite a similar story. We had tried football, which he said he enjoyed but he was genuinely a liability to the team due to his lack of any concentration so we had to stop that (he doesn’t seem too bothered).

In short, I’m absolutely not trying to shift blame away from us as parents by saying it’s not our fault. There definitely is fault at our side even if it’s unintentional, but our key aim is just to help our son.

Just to ask again: have you considered getting an assessment for your son?

I think this comment probably captures my “deep down” thoughts.

We were pretty much told the same about a private diagnosis being a kind of “paying gets diagnosis” and not worth much, but I do think the school would now think about viewing this as if it was through their own channels now they’re starting to see even some of the behaviour I see. I think I’ll be pushing to get them to agree to refer before summer (as in them agreeing to start their ball rolling, which will take ages to even get anything submitted and then obviously the wait itself) so that I can pay for private with their blessing rather than going over their heads.

We’ve tried timers with limited success - DS always agrees to the idea and then as soon as time is up will not accept time is done. There’s probably no more success we’ve had with this that just verbal warnings, and basically both boil down to whether DS feels ready to stop doing what he’s doing or not.

I flip between being sure there’s some kind of ND and then if we manage a few good days I manage to think we’ve found something that works/things have changed but inevitably it’s short lived. I think we usually have a couple of disaster days a week, which put everything back into reality. It feels like a total reversion to toddler tantrums/emotions and it’s not getting better even though DS is nearly 7.

But im also sure there will be posters along who will ask if he has been assessed for something as it seems you can't have bad behaviour these days without it being labelled something else)

That's because it quite often is something else.

Sorry, trying to respond to lots of things and feeling pretty emotional again this evening so not necessarily followed everything in order.

I did consider it a couple of years ago, tried discussing it with the school and they basically said he’s fine here, with the implication it was on our behaviour management at home. I took that to heart feeling that it was my fault and fixable, and also knew that there was no real route to NHS assessment without their support and a private diagnosis wasn’t really worth much.

I think now I’m finally at the point of starting the ball rolling with going private because I’m past the point of being able to think that this is “normal” and even being able to discount things would help find any underlying cause (which I accept could be our parenting, even though I genuinely think that we’re very average and normal parents).

I think the school would finally take a private diagnosis seriously if there was one as they’ve now experienced some of the behaviour, but equally what they’re seeing still absolutely sounds “spoilt brat-like defiance” compared to the absolute despair like tantrums/reactions at home.

I’m speaking with the school including SEN next week, hopefully they’ll be supportive when I bring this up. It’s still hard to be so reasonable with them when all I want to do is shout loudly how much they tried to discount this when I flagged it (even odd DS was conforming to their standards more then).

You are the mom. If you think there is something worth finding out, then do it and don’t apologise to anyone. The school are not the leaders here, you know him best.

I know it’s hard, I know you feel lost, but really, if you get an assessment and there are no issues, then great, but if there are issues, then knowing this will be like having a bunch of keys.

Dont wait for the school. You are the mom. Good luck.

Sounds like he is masking if he is relatively well behaved at school and saves his tantrums for you. Look up the fizz bottle effect.

The explosive child is a useful book in helping to managing defiant aggressive behaviour.

I would push for an EP assessment via the school. Private is not always 'not worth the paper it's written on'. Our CAMHS outsource assessment to a private provider. Yours may well do the same so you'd be seeing the same person but just a lot quicker. That said, 6 is still very young and at this age, it's more about putting the scaffolding in place rather than getting a dx.

I do think it would be worth you seeing an occupational therapist - someone who specialises in odd/autism as I think OT is really helpful with young kids. You would definitely have to go private for that.

Thank you.

I’m totally conflicted on the “spoilt with attention” thing. So much of the bad press for parents is basically due to parents ignoring their kids for the phone and I did the opposite (probably while thinking how wonderful I was for doing so). Now I regret being so “good” wondering if it’s me having caused this.

He didn’t have total control by any stretch - I took him all over the place which he had no say about really. But if we were at the park I let him choose the equipment, if we were shopping I’d let him pick which tin of peas or something from our basket to carry around to entertain himself. For the hours in the house he did pretty much have free reign, but I thought that was a good thing.

I think the thing that really makes me question if it could even be ASD is the fact he’s now seeming wise to the fact he can refuse and there’s limited actions we can take about that (which definitely seems more “naughty”), but the meltdowns do feel ASD-like in that they feel like genuine despair rather than a ploy to get what he wants. It just seems so contradictory- in that we’re being played by a very clever 6 year old child and then also dealing with the emotional rollercoaster of a toddler.

From what you have said, I also suspect neurodivergence. The thing with meltdowns due to neurodivergence is that the frequency can be quite a cumulative thing - if your son is having a generally well-regulated life with fewer demands then fewer things will 'set him off' than if he is under increasing stress with no way to ever reset fully (which leads to exploding at home and eventually, a school-refusing/being expelled breakdown). Being a reception aged child in lockdown is much lower demand than being a KS1 child at school!

You have tried all the standard neurotypical strategies and they are clearly making things worse, so now you need to read about and start using the ones for neurodiverse children and see if that helps at all. I second Ross Greene "The explosive child", definitely recommend Naomi Fisher "Changing our minds" and also read anything you can find on the internet about "low demand parenting for PDA - pathologically demand avoidant - children" (your son may not have PDA but the strategies are very widely applicable).

My fav link to roll out. Iv 3 sen kids and found the incredible years programme the most useful. There's a website, you can buy book (new or used) or get it from library or there's audiobook version. I did it as zoom classes with dh. Found it brilliant and met like minded parents with similar issues

He's very little still. Only year 1? You talk about him like he's a lot older I think. Def try parenting for asd or odd.

Honestly OP, the more you write the more this seems like neurodiversity. The length of his meltdowns, the need for strict routine, the difficulties with task shifting, the being in his own world.

Just because some things work, doesn't mean he's not ND - some things do work for ND people :)

From what you write, you both sound like excellent, highly involved, thoughtful and reflective parents. I would be surprised if this were a parenting issue.

The children I know who behave like this are either from a very difficult background or neurodivergent.

In one case a parent always blamed the older DC for everything and let the younger one off, now the younger one who is 6 is a bit of a brat and having tantrums a lot because they're now old enough to take some flak themselves.

It sounds like you were attentive and loving when he was little and he had a positive early years experience.

Children do well when they can. Behaviour like this usually has a reason.

I'd give yourself a month of being cool, calm, consistent and in control, be playful and kind and reasonable but hold your boundaries as the parent.

If after that time no improvement then I'd start to think there is something like ODD or PDA going on. Sounds like he has attention issues - so maybe more likely ODD.

Did he ever have any time in hospital or anything like that?

The more you write the more he sounds neurodivergent. One of my children is autistic. I’ve been there, including having people suggest I was making it up, people thinking he was spoilt/I was a bad parent, convincing myself when he had a few good days that we’d somehow “cracked it”, questioning everything I ever did with him…

The best thing we ever did was get him assessed. It opened doors to support, it meant we had a better idea how to parent him, he had a better understanding of himself and mostly it meant I stopped blaming myself for his behaviour or tying myself in knots trying to change it.

DS now a thriving, funny, kind boy coming up to secondary school, who with careful management and scoffolding at home and a supportive school is unrecognisable from the angry and volatile little boy in reception class who drove me to tears on an hourly basis. He’s actually a complete joy to parent a lot of the time these days. There is hope!

I’d really try and get your son assessed. It’s not a pleasant process and it’s a hard thing to face up to, but it’s been very worthwhile for us. Contrary to popular belief no one is handing out diagnoses like smarties, if he is neurotypical then that’ll be what you’re told. But most children are allowed to choose the piece of park equipment they play on or to carry some shopping. That probably isn’t why he’s bashing his head into walls in distress. You sound like an engaged, switched on parent who’s doing their best to parent a child that just isn’t following the typical path and doesn’t respond to typical parenting. It’s so much easier once you at least understand what you’re dealing with.

I'm not grasping what the problem is. Why are you at crisis point? What do you mean by this? Have you been reported to the Police or SS for abuse? What's the crisis. Why haven't you asked Senco and GP to refer you to Consultant for SN investigations. Senco should have put in an Educational Psychologist referral if things are that bad.

Your DS sounds very similar to the children I work with who have an Autism with ADHD features diagnosis. Huge meltdowns at home coupled with a rigidity or a difficulty dealing with endings, stopping, starting & change. Maybe you need a completely new approach, cutting down on anything over stimulating or arousing and creating a low arousal sensory environment might help in time. Sorry I don't have specifics but you should have been given access to CAMHS and other services. Ask your school or community health visitor about referrals. It's common for some children to cope at school but meltdown in their safe space at home. You can also get help to cope as it must be very stressful and upsetting, you're doing your best.

He’s year 2 (summerborn boy). It’s now a massive regret we didn’t keep him back a year, but he was reading short books at home before starting despite us never having tried to teach reading (just letter sounds and reading to him). He’s still right up there in maths and whilst he can physically read anything out in front of him I suspect he’s fallen back in comprehension (although he can remember and retell a story). Writing is poor as he doesn’t have the concentration to write for a long period, and if he’s not in the mood he’ll do very little.

Academically he was totally ready but socially he definitely wasn’t in hindsight.

I’m possibly now a little bit detached hence making him sound older. Most often I fall into robotic almost process driven approach trying to deal with him when he’s being particularly challenging (like the last few weeks). It’s definitely my own coping strategy to try to react consistently and without totally losing it with him. It also has the perk of being able to be turned off when things are going well, so I get to actually enjoy the nice times when we cuddle up on the sofa with a film and he offers me one of his crisps and other such lovely simple things. He’s definitely still my “little” boy.