To be at my absolute wits’ end?

[GeneralChaos1]

I don’t know how to get through to my 11 (nearly 12) year old son.

He is like Jekyll and Hyde. Can be an absolute dream, tells us he loves us, helpful, works hard at school, polite to people he meets.

However he can absolutely flip and speak to me like shit. He swears at me and his siblings, is so mean to his siblings all the time saying things like “you’ve got no friends, nobody likes you” etc. Also calls his brother fat a lot. He’s not, not that that matters but I can already see it having an affect on him.

I’ve just overheard him calling him an idiot and “stupid as fuck”. He swears DAILY when he speaks to me and he squares up to me too. He’s a lot smaller than me but if this behaviour continues then it’s going to become a very scary situation for me.

He spoke to me awfully at the weekend and I told him that if he ever spoke to another woman when he is older like that (he wouldn’t dare now) I would not be able to take his side in any way shape or form. It’s vile, and he speaks with so much contempt.

We have both (me and his father) asked him what’s wrong and why he feels it’s ok to speak to us like that.

I feel that we have sufficient boundaries in place for him. He does not have too much screen time (an hour a day on games), he has a regular bed time and gets enough sleep. He has one on one time with one of us. He is lucky enough to live in a nice house.

we speak to him regularly about what is going on for him, he says he’s happy. But he regularly says he’s not a nice person and the reason he speaks that way is because “he’s stupid”. We have spoken to him about how humans are all flawed and we make mistakes or have moments of behaving badly but as long as we reflect on our behaviours and how we treat others and constantly look to improve ourselves then we are doing our best.

He has a group of friends and is chatty and lovely with them, we have close family and they all say how wonderful he is. Honestly, people would be shocked if they saw the way he treated me.

the one thing that is a big sticking point is my husband gets very angry when he is really rude to the point of ending up shouting at him, which I hate. He has been doing a bit better recently as I’ve told him that I do not wish to live in a house where people communicate their unhappiness by shouting at one another. It just riles up the situation and makes it worse. I do feel he’s quite nit picky at all the children though. If something has been left out or they make random silly noises, or they struggle to get to sleep.

yet he’s a very organised and supportive hands on dad that spends a lot of time with the kids and they all adore him.

any advice -
is this normal behaviour for a 12 year old?! I’m seriously worried he’s going to be an abusive partner one day. (Oh I forgot to mention that he gaslights - only this evening he has denied something that I clearly heard him say). Also worry that his 2 siblings will not want a relationship with him when he’s older as he is hideous to them.

AIBU to have these fears and be at my wits’ end?

Sound like he's got low self-esteem which is why he feels the need to put others down and trying to make them feel bad about themselves. There is probably some general unhappiness there about his own life, possibly a friendship issue. I know you say he has friends but they don't seem to hang out much outside of school. He probably had visions of making lots of new friends starting secondary and when that hasn't happened it has knocked his confidence and he's taking it out on those he feels safest with.

Not normal and i wouldn’t be tolerating it at all. He would be getting no luxuries or screen time at all if he spoke to me like that and squared up to me. I am a very relaxed parent but I draw the line at my children being rude to me, let alone squaring up to me. What are the consequences for this? I don’t blame your DH at all for shouting, when he behaves like that, it’s no wonder he loses it. Most people would. This will only get worse.

Ours never had behaviour that extreme, but when they had their phases of jekyll and hyde (which I think all teenagers do at some point) we talked a lot about the chemistry of being a teenager, how hormones disrupt the chemical balance in the brain and create random feelings that are very intense and hard to deal with.

I think this helped them separate the feelings from their self identity, and helped us all to navigate the randomness. Eventually they became better at identifying when they were getting hormonal feelings, and channeling them in a less destructive way than lashing out.

Having a gym in the house and a punch bag that they can use to let off steam helps.