To be completely broken by DS behaviour?

[MachuPikachu]

I have DS5, DD3 and DS2. Final was a failed coil before anyone starts questioning that decision.

DS5 is extremely challenging and I’m really struggling to cope with it. At school he is well behaved and they have no concerns. At home he lacks all independence and will push back heavily on doing anything himself. He has to dress himself and I will not help with this as it’s an important skill, but he will ask repeatedly for assistance despite always getting the same answer. His younger sister dresses herself easily and with no fuss. He won’t even put a banana skin in the bin without it being a big argument.

DS5 just seems unable to play nicely with his siblings. Yesterday he kicked down a tower than DS2 had made within seconds of going into the same room. When he was told if he couldn’t play nicely with them he couldn’t play with them and removed to his room for a timeout he did exactly the same thing when allowed back down. It’s very rare that I can leave a room that they are all in because he will hurt someone or do something to upset them.

It all came to a head last night when a friend popped round and DS5 decided he wanted to ‘cuddle’ the younger ones whilst they were having their milk. He just wanted to annoy them and it did annoy and upset them and he just would not stop doing it until removed from the room. Friend stayed with him downstairs whilst I put the younger two to bed. I then took DS5 up for his stories and he decided to scream repeatedly in an attempt to wake the younger two.

I was so so embarrassed in front of my friend, her children are really well behaved and I don’t know what I’m doing wrong or how to manage this behaviour. DS5 went for a sleepover at grandmas recently and DD3 and DS2 just played so nicely together and it seemed so easy, within 5 mins of him arriving home the next day someone was crying.

I feel completely broken by his behaviour and just have no idea how to address it anymore.

AIBU to be broken by this or is this just parenting? Any advice truely welcome

I don't think it's unreasonable for a 5 year old to need help with dressing. I have a 5 year old who sometimes gets themself dressed fine and, at other times, apparently can't put socks on. We just roll with it and help where needed to get everyone out the door.

Catch him doing things right 3 times a day.

Like 'you've done a great job with that homework, you are such a hard worker, '

Or tell someone else loudly how great he is....like tell your DH (in earshot of DS5) what a lovely trip to school you two had, that DS is such fun to be with and you love spending time with him.

Or 'he's SUCH a good brother, he's really great with the two youngest!' even if he's not.

I'd exaggerate that stuff for a while, especially because DD3 and DS2 are too young to get jealous of you lovebombing DS5.

So make a point of catching him doing things right, even put a sticky note on your fridge.

Because sometimes a child gets a label of being the problem one, and then we start to look out for instances of them being a 'problem'.

I have one of these, who turns out to have ADHD. At this age he was "not on the radar for behaviour" at school but school wasn't that challenging for him in Reception.
At 5, what worked was praising him for every time he e.g. walked past DD without hurting her, and asking him to try again to walk past her calmly if he didn't.

We are only now (aged 11) having some success with household jobs but they do need to be specific and time-bound and linked to rewards - e.g. if you put everyone's plates in the kitchen, scrape them off and put them in the dishwasher, then you can have some TV time after dinner.

I've addressed the stereotyping in an pp and I disagree about it creating rivalry. It is a fact that his two siblings are younger in age. It will always be this way, there is no getting around it. Yes you can praise him for being grown up without making comparisons but he's not daft, it amounts to the same thing, that he is older. That's why I suggested trying to turn the fact that he is older from something lonely and burdensome, in to something exciting and special.

I think it's all about giving him a tool with which to relate to his siblings - just at this particular time when he is experiencing this difficulty - and once he is over this hump you can suggest and emphasise different tools about sharing, everyone being equal, everyone taking turns etc.

Op it sounds as if you are doing a great job dividing your attention between three dc and that that you already have quite a lot of one on one time with your ds. Maybe he is just finding school a bit tiring and overwhelming and pressured and needs to express that frustration at home and claim some time for himself where he can "show" you the struggle?

I think he acted out when you read him a story because in his eyes he had been put last, left out whilst you out the others first and so he was angry and sabotaged what you wanted to be nice 1:1 time

Maybe it would work if you tell him explicitly that you are just going to quickly put the little ones to bed so they don't disturb you and then he can have all your attention or give him something nice to do whilst waiting eg watch a programme that's too old for them or have a snack they don't get.

Lots of kids do act like this, regress and want 1:1 attention when younger sibs come along. My Dniece was deeply irritating around this age after her twin sisters arrived. She decided she could only go to the toilet if her mum took her to the extent she would deliberately wet herself, couldn't dress herself any longer, got really picky over food and generally was super clingy to her poor exhausted mum who was bf twins and rejected her dad and anyone else. It was tempting to see her as a naughty spoilt whiny kid but she was actually feeling sad and insecure and trying to make sure she didn't get pushed out in a really maladaptive way. She grew out of it in the end and is perfectly pleasant and more of a daddy's girl now

It is a really tough age. I feel like everyone goes on about 2-3 year olds and I am like because my two year old is a dream. The occasional tantrum lasting less than five minutes. My five year old is a volcano. Always ready to explode at the slightest provocation. I am constantly having to take headache tablets to ease a headache caused by him screaming at me. It was my eldest's toughest age as well (and he is now a teenager!!)

What I think I would do is identify two issues and really hone in on those specifically - if two is too many, pick one. Everything else just go for the path of least resistance and don't worry about changing it right now. You can go for those later.

From your post, it sounds like the two biggest issues are dressing himself and not hurting/upsetting siblings.

You said that he isn't interested in a reward chart - my guess is that either the steps to obtain the reward were too big which means that they feel unattainable, or it's being framed as this optional extra but you're trying to use it as a threat e.g. if you do that/don't do that, you won't get your reward!

So you could do one of two things with this (maybe both?)

One is to make the reward something that he currently gets but could be framed as a loss of privilege if he were to lose it - making getting the thing which is currently unconditional, conditional on certain behaviour. That could be pocket money, TV time, etc. It needs to be something that is easy for you to control and which isn't difficult to implement for the others. For example if the others get TV time and not him that would be tricky, but you could restrict/allow access to something that is only his, for example if he has his own tablet.

The other is to look at what he has to do to get the sticker/points/reward and break it down much smaller. If that means that you would be giving out the reward too much then you can use points or stickers and X number of collected points leads to the reward.

You can break down a task into times or you can break it down into steps or both. So for example, for getting dressed you could break it down into morning, before school, after school and bedtime and just start with the one which you currently have the most success with. Once you're being successful with that, increase to include the second time, or make a chart with the 4 times listed and he needs to get a sticker in 3/4 to get the reward.

For steps you could break it down like by item of clothing. Or for the being nice to siblings issue you could look at improvements e.g. not being physical (but ignore shouting etc) and then when that is better then you can look at shouting and change that to talking (but ignore rude phrasing/demanding) then work on better communication.

This is also really really excellent and will really help you immediately. It's very well designed and offers skills that build on each other one by one. If possible, complete each module together with your DH and then practice before moving on to the next. But it works when just one parent does it too.
https://www.coursera.org/learn/everyday-parenting

Beware of the assumption that "he has done it before so I know that he can do it". There is a difference between being able to do something physically, and being so well practised at it that you can do it even when stressed, tired, overwhelmed, frustrated etc. He might need more practice at the component skills or there might be some totally unrelated stressor which can be reduced to help give him more mental bandwidth (if you like) to meet the same expectation all the time.

My 16 year old still asks me to do stuff for her that she can do herself like a make a hot chocolate or a banana split. She says 'but you do it better' and I know she means that she just feels a bit loved to have me do it for her. She doesn't want to be cuddled or read to any more and often she is off with her friends and barely wants to speak to me so actually I like to do these little bits that I can do. In 2 years she'll be off.

They all learn to dress themselves and wipe their own bums in the end. Looking back now mine are teens I am not sure it's necessary to force kids to do stuff for themselves so much. Show them how for sure but if they want you to look after them still then why not?

It feels tough when you are in the thick of 3 under 5s but this too shall pass. I reckon if you just do the dressing and coat zipping for him he'll feel reassured and stop wanting it soon.

I also have three except that it's more like 1 and then 2 as the age gap is so far apart.

I think however many kids you have, remove one and it becomes harmonious. I had heard people say this about having two and I wondered WTF was wrong with me that I couldn't handle one. But it's something specifically about interrupting the normal dynamic. Having one of my younger two around is a million times easier than it ever was just having DS1. Having the two of them together is probably about the same as having just him.

Poor little chap, he’s so pushed out, just help him get dressed, he’s only 5.

I third this. Also I mainly dress my 4 year old to be honest, for ease, he’s not going to reach adulthood and not be able to get dressed. I would pick your battles.

I had three children with similar gaps and a similar issue with the eldest. When I was late 5/early six years old he was a bloody nightmare quite frankly and I will be brutally honest and say I found it hard to like him at times (I loved him obviously and he was always well cared for).

He was like yours and wouldn't do anything for himself but also had explosive tantrums and was actually quite aggressive at times. I hated taking him out with the others because it would turn into a disaster and we often felt like we were walking on eggshells around him. Same as you, he was great at school, he is actually a bit ahead of his peers and his behaviour is perfect, so there wasn't really any help to be had.

I'll echo other people - all behaviour is communication. He can't tell you what he needs with words, so he's doing it with his behaviour, and what he needs is attention and to feel like 'the baby' sometimes, rather than 'the eldest' who should be doing everything for themselves. He's only five, it's still really young. I figured that for my son, he spent most of his life having a new baby shoved in his face, a new baby who would dominate the structure of the day with their higher needs initially, who would steal focus and who would then get bigger and knock over his Lego or take his colouring book or whatever. He felt completely out of control and completely sidelined, despite our best efforts to stop that happening.

What we did was the classic lovebombing stuff. Also my DH started volunteering at his beavers group and helping coach his rugby team too, which sounds a bit weird but meant that they had a 'thing' that was theirs and didn't involve the other two and also a couple of times a week when he felt like his 'stuff' was the focus of interest. We started picking letting him stay up a bit later so he could have some time alone and he got some trips alone to his grandparents where he was spoiled rotten and given some space. Obviously not all these things are options for everyone though.

Ultimately he grew out of it. He's 8 now and lovely, he still has a temper occasionally but he can control it and he moves on quickly. He gets on very well with both siblings and is just a really nice boy. That doesn't help you now, but I do think it will get better.

I think there's a lot of great advice on here, about praising what the 5 yr old does right, boosting his confidence, giving him attention for the right things, not the wrong ones. I also think boys do need help with dressing to an older age than girls because scientifically the nerve endings have not reached the tips of their fingers til 6yrs old whereas for girls it is earlier (sorry I don't have a link to the scientific paper on this), so girls are generally more dextrous at an earlier age. He may well still need help, even if it seems he's just being annoying. FWIW my son was only 15 months when DD was born. He immediately started walking without holding onto things, the day she came home from the hospital. He also started biting me at unexpected moments, it was horrible. He was doing a younger version of the same things. The thing to remember while you tackle this is it will, like all things, pass. Good luck I hope it improves soon.

Regarding the younger two playing nicely and then everything going wrong when your eldest comes in, I think 3 children is a tricky balance. I'm one of three and had three DC and I remember lots of two against one arguments - the 'sides' varied according to what the fight was about!

There's been some good advice given and I hope you find something that works because you are obviously a very caring mum. (Then it will be one of the others being challenging lol)

We found praise to be the biggest thing that helped our DC, very over the top and 3 praise to every correction roughly. “OH MY GOSH! Did you get your socks by yourself? Thank you! That’s such a big help!” And reeeaalllyy picking our battles on correcting. We also saw a Behavioural therapist which I honestly can’t recommend enough, it was basically just parenting coaching. We do live in the US though so we’re able to access it for free. I’d 100% pay for it though seeing the impact it had. Most sessions were not with DC but just us talking through problems with the therapist.

Thanks all. I feel like compared to his friends he is already not very independent, he doesn’t cut his own food, brush his own teeth, wipe his bum, zip his coat etc. I thought it was good to encourage him to dress himself as it’s something he doesn’t struggle to do at all, he just doesn’t want to, but maybe I should just relent and do that too.

Teeth cleaning food cutting and bum wiping at home do sound behind - though we all did teeth together with timers which help diminish distractions.

I am wonder about dyspraxia or maybe ADHD - if they behave in school IME problems get dismissed - so I'd have a look at signs online and see if it fits.

Can he follow instructions - or does he forget what he's supposed to be doing - I'm wonder if that what happening with getting dressed - he need reminding to stay on track or task to get broken down into small ones and reminders of what needs doing.

My son was like this at age 5. It's totally normal. One thing that helped was to ask him, 'How do you show someone you love them?'

More often than not, that answer will indicate a need that has to be met.

Find opportunities to praise him.

I think that although he's the eldest, you have to keep in perspective that he's still only 5.
It's also an exhausting time at school and they are about bouncing off the walls.

He's also a boy. My daughter is a different kettle of fish for getting herself dressed compared to her brother's. One in particular was almost like his limbs didn't belong him - zero help even when you did it for him - but it did come.

Could you try making a game of the little ones bedtime with him? My eldest loved to pretend he was going to sleep with them. So do the winding down but pretend to get in his bed, then sneak down for his special half hour. He learned it was in his own interest to get the others asleep and liked to play along. Then he's part of it rather than excluded.

With getting dressed, can you take his clothes wherever you are doing the others? That way if it takes him ages or he gets distracted you can give gentle reminders and because you are doing something else, it won't drive you to distraction quite the same.

3 is a very tricky number to manage ds might be jealous of the close relationship the younger 2 have and want to disrupt it. I would suggest love bombing ds and praising all good behaviour. He might want you to help him dress as it’s 1 on 1 contact which he missed with you. Perhaps look up some pda strategies to see if they help.

He's crying out for attention. If I were you, I'd just help him get dressed. Use that time to chat to him, ask him questions, play around with him. It's a vicious cycle of misbehaving to get attention, you giving less, him misbehaving more.

My DS (now nearly 20) needed help with dressing right up to the age of 8. It wasn’t that he couldn’t physically put things on, more that he couldn’t manage to sequence his dressing and would ‘zone out’ and distract himself between items. I had to hand him his clothes one by one in a bare, distraction-free setting.

Also neither of my two DCs responded, at all, to reward charts, no matter how immediate or enticing the rewards. They responded to the activity, not the pay-off. Turns out that DD has an ADHD diagnosis (inattentive type) and DS has ASD (HF). They’re both at uni now and doing pretty well for themselves.

Absolutely this. “Aren’t the babies silly” just made me cringe.

I'm going to go completely against the grain here and suggest you ask your GP/school senco for help, perhaps getting him assessed for any nd issues.

The younger siblings have been here for 2 and 3 years, so normal jealousy should have run its course by now. And if he wanted more 1:1 attention, he wouldn't be waking them up when they're sent up to bed earlier than he is; he'd relish the alone with mummy time. Because then it becomes about the siblings again, no?

I'd ask for a referral. I think there's more going on here than just sibling rivalry. IT's quite extreme by the sound of it.

I have to admit I thought that would just stoke sibling resentment down the line and teach attitude of contempt to eldest and risk it becoming habit to lump two youngest together and not see them as individuals later on.

What happens if he say knocks over a tower, but instead of sending him to his room, you give the sibling who built the tower attention? Give the sibling sympathy, then ask ds “how can we make this better!?” I think this and other techniques from Siblings without rivalry will work.

For the independence skills can you be creative? My colleague has programmed her Alexa to give her kids very specific getting ready instructions in the mornings before school!! Could he help you programme Alexa possibly with a music play list? Or could a social story about getting ready help?

It sounds tough, those ages are tough. Little kids are also tired and over stimulated at this time of year!

Everyone talks about 1on1 time but the thing I found worked the best with kids at this age/stage is to make sure you hug them enough. They're getting bigger so no longer get as much physical contact day to day (& sometimes force it in a negative way!) so try to make a rule in your head that they get a hug before & after each meal & before bed - obviously lots more too but those as additions. Honestly works like magic.

(& keep going because this is a really hard bit but it gets better & easier soon 💐)