Upset my DC is the mean kid

[impossibleimposter]

My youngest DS is 6. I think he is probably on the spectrum or has ADHD (it’s in the family).

He hasn’t formed any proper close friendships at school, although I know he is rarely on his own and plays his classmates. He’s the same at parties. Teacher not worried in that sense, I’ve raised my concern about lack of friendships before but to them I suppose they always see him playing with others.

He can be so mean though. I know enough about neurodiversity to know it’s not as simple as him being mean for no reason, it’s no doubt a reaction to being overwhelmed, or feeling rejected (his rejection sensitivity is high - he is terrified of being told off) and he’s always struggled with his emotions, he goes from 0 to 60 instantly.

He is so reactive so if a classmate pushes him, or says something he doesn’t like, he’ll hit them. No number of conversations about telling the teacher are enough. He will also tell other kids off, in quite a mean way. He doesn’t speak to his peers nicely a lot of the time. It’s a shame because he is often so sweet to us and so kind to his little baby cousins.

I just don’t know how to help him here. I’d made my peace with him not having a big group of friends but to be actively disliked by so many children and their parents (many aren’t subtle at all!) is really hard, especially when I know that he is upsetting others, so their dislike is warranted. It makes me feel really hopeless. And I feel frustrated myself when some things I witness would irritate me too (a child putting his ketchup covered hands in my child’s face at a party!) but because it’s consistently my DS who reacts so angrily, he’s always the bad guy.

Teacher hasn’t been very helpful. Some days he’s absolutely fine and happy, and can brush things off. So I think they think he’s probably just being difficult. They’ve offered group ELSA to help with his anger as the teacher does acknowledge he can be really volatile, but from experience with my other child it’s a non starter.

You don’t need a diagnosis to access support. Ask for an appointment with the SENDCo at school and you can put a support plan together so everyone in school will have a concerted approach to managing his behaviour, which you can use at home too. You know what works at home and you need to know what happens at school when his behaviour is challenging.

You can request an EHCNA that may result in additional support via an EHCP ultimately. You don’t need a diagnosis, but you need evidence of need. Look at SEDIASS and IPSEA.

@Bluevelvetsofa I don’t know what works though, not really. We coregulate at home, ie if he is having a full meltdown, I pick him up, cuddle, soothe. It can take a while to calm him down. I have told his teacher we coregulate, but she doesn’t have the time nor capacity to do that.

He doesn’t get as worked up in school, he doesn’t have meltdowns and tantrums there, but the hitting out is obviously a problem. And his words too, he’ll tell children to leave him alone or to stop being silly etc.

Sounds very similar to my son.
We have many many conversations about emotional regulation. So many.
He's 10 now and has mellowed a lot. When he was 6 he could be mean and lash out, he would hit other kids or trip them up. He doesn't do any of that now. He still gets angry and outraged really easily, still sometimes in trouble at school, but isn't violent and isn't mean.
Hope that helps! I will follow for further tips...

My daughter is basically the same but instead of getting angry she gets upset. Much more socially acceptable!

Our household isn't very calm, as you can imagine. But as parents we try and stay calm (don't always succeed but we have also improved).

Wow, thank you @Oceangrey . You know where I’m coming from then.

Have you had your DS diagnosed with anything? What do you do day to day that you feel has helped?

Yes, getting upset much more socially acceptable! My DC’s cousins are similar, extreme emotions but as it’s mainly crying, much easier to deal with than anger.

I am hopeful he will mellow as he has gradually over time, but the damage is being done now at school. He had more friends in nursery because he was able to cope with the short days (we had a lot more tantrums at home then, so I suspect he was bottling up his feelings).

This was my DS at the same age. He's now 14, diagnosed ASD and on a seemingly neverending waiting list for ADHD assessment.

All I can offer you is that for DS, it got much better as he got older. At 14, he gets on well with his peers and is genuinely popular at school. He still is enraged by 6 year olds though, but now he is 14 nobody expects him to spend all day every day with them so it's less of a problem! He is starting to develop some empathy with younger children after years of modelling from us, and is very fond of and patient with my 3 yr old nephew (who in return hero worships DS) which is lovely to see.

From about age 4-10 though he was, honestly, vile to other children, and nothing helped. And yes, I know it was due to dysregulation caused by his ND, but pretty much every other child and parent we knew didn't really give a fuck about that, they just cared that he was upsetting them/their kids. Very often he would have been wound up by another child first (sometimes deliberately) but his reaction to this was generally so disproportionate that this got lost and all anyone noticed was a furious red-faced DS screaming and punching people again.

It was hard. We pared down our social circle to just a select few friends who were understanding and who made a point of teaching their children to be understanding too. We didn't go to places where there would be lots of other children. He stopped getting invited to birthday parties at about 6, and other kids wouldn't come to his parties either so we found other ways to celebrate. His childhood hasn't involved other children much, but it's been more relaxed for it!

He does now have a small social circle that he interacts really well with. He gets on very well with adults and older teenagers and plays D&D both online and at a weekend club. We also have some long standing friends with ND children who we have regular meet ups with.

I mean there is every possibility he is just being difficult. Do you actively discipline him when you see him being like this to other children?

@BoobsOnTheMoon that sounds incredibly hard. Was he like it all the time? My DS will have days (weeks?!) of no lashing out. But that’s forgotten about when he does.

Of course @Dramatic .

What do you do?

He was like it all of the time.

He couldn't engage in anything unstructured with other children. Full stop. He could, if scaffolded by an adult giving him 1-1 attention, engage in structured activities where other children were present, but only if the other children left him well alone. If we went to a museum (one of his favourite things from an early age) and other children pushed in front of him or stood too close to look at the same thing, he would lose his shit at them. It was absolutely relentless and tbh the thing that made the biggest difference was lockdown! He loved lockdown. Nobody went near anybody else, no expectations to spend time with other children. By the time things went back to "normal" he had matured and chilled out quite a lot. But we learnt from it that he actually needs a slower pace of life with less going out and less interacting with other people.

@BoobsOnTheMoon thank you for being so honest and open, I really appreciate it. Makes me feel less alone!

I’ve got so much sympathy @impossibleimposter . I don’t necessarily have any useful advice but the thing is sometimes it is a time thing. My DS is a lot younger but I absolutely dreaded this when he was a toddler as he was very volatile and I could sense the disapproval from others.

As you rightly say a diagnosis won’t be a magic bullet and I do think it’s misleading when other posters act as if it will be.

DS2 was like this in Y3 and Y4. Constant calls from the school about lashing out (often in response to teasing, but sometimes just over kids getting in his space), fights, use of inappropriate language (thanks teenage DS1 🙄).

We were back and forth to the headteachers office, lots of Serious Chats About Behaviour, absolutely no support with behaviour management, even though I emailed the Sendco multiple times (he's on the waiting list for an autism assessment). Ostracised by the other parents etc etc.

Happily, now he's in Y5 he's miraculously grown out of it, and by all accounts is very popular with his classmates. (Still waiting for the Sendco to get back to me 🙄)

My experience was with a ND child continually hitting my child. Regardless of what teachers and his parents seemed to think, it hurt my child physically and hurt his self esteem just as much as if any NT child had hit him. You say your boy is getting overwhelmed and lashing out, but also seem to be annoyed at the kids who leave him alone. Nobody is being mean to your kid by saying to their kid to keep away, they are protecting their own child. It's something you need to take on board really, people are looking after their own kid. If you can change that mindset into understanding then you might feel better about it.

In my experience, this child absolutely did behave if I called his name at the point he was getting into his zone. He would back off a bit and not hit, one time came and hugged me but usually walked off. The trouble is, teachers didn't invest resources to do this in school, and outside school the parents were always too busy chatting to spot that he was working himself up. You need to work out for yourself what his triggers are, how to intervene for good effect on him specifically, and then talk to Senco to set out very specific requests (e.g. supervise morning and afternoon break, let him sit to do art in a calm area at lunch, must be with TA who is ready with the technique if activity is open-ended group work).

My experience has been similar to @BoobsOnTheMoon and @Oceangrey
The only thing I'd add to their posts is to be wary of taking parenting advice from parents who've not walked in your shoes. They will suggest standard things which of course you've tried, these aren't feral kids who've never been shown how to behave in society. We've often put immense efforts into sourcing information, advocating, explaining, progressing a diagnosis etc. Also you may wish to stay off AIBU and move this to another area.

"He is so reactive so if a classmate pushes him... he’ll hit them". If a classmate assaults him then I don't see the issue with hitting back to stick up for himself.

Putting ketchup hands in another child's face at their party. If he is being invited to the party but it's only because the parent feels they need to invite all kids in the class, yet you know he's going to ruin it for the other children, then you don't let him go.

@DonaldMacRonald it was another child who put their ketchup hands in my child’s face.

We haven't pursued a diagnosis but I'm pretty certain he has ADHD, his sister may too, I probably do too, I see a lot of myself in him!

The school has referred them both but I guess it will take ages, I should probably look into a private diagnosis but I just haven't had the bandwidth with work and life and so on.

I think a lot of the improvement is age and maturity, and understanding the consequences of his actions. He doesn't get angry at school now but does at home with us, as I guess it's safer. He has friends but also has issues still because he gets too involved when there's classroom drama, someone else is misbehaving, someone is teasing him, etc.

He loves to read, is clever and has various interests so quite often will go to the school library and read at break time or try and chat to the teacher (poor teacher!) instead of engaging with the slightly feral madness of the playground.

He's also smart enough to have learned the lesson that it's the one who is violent that gets in trouble! He does sometimes wind other kids up while maintaining deniability, which has been a a problem at times.

He's actually brilliant with small children, and very patient with them.

Anyway our kids are not the same person, but while we still have problems it is a lot easier now.

You haven't said what you do to discipline him so I'm going to take a guess it's not much.

Do you have a partner OP?
I had a child like this, it took me a while to un pick but it was a reaction to the way my DH spoke to him. It turned out my DS was anxious and it was his way of dealing with his emotions.

I do @Busbygirl and I don’t think it’s that, but you’re correct about the anxiety - a lot of my DS’ temper has anxiety underlying to it.

@GRex of course, I understand some classmates giving him a wide berth. I also have encouraged my own DC not to play with XYZ over the years, when they come home to tell me what another child has done to them, that’s natural as parents.

What I do find disappointing is how blatant some of the parents are with their disapproval, at the school gates! And it tends to be the parents of other children who I know aren’t the best behaved, there are of course some nice non judgemental parents.

@takeoneback and @crackofdoom sorry to hear about your tricky experiences too. Was there anything that helped either of your DC, other than age/growing out of it?

Thanks @Secondguess . The SEN boards don’t get much traffic. I’m ready to ignore posters who as you say haven’t walked in these shoes but also aren’t even trying to be helpful.

I just want to give you my sympathy. My 2 boys were both like this, one is a teenager now and doing well in mainstream school, the other is a preteen and also at mainstream, he has his moments but is generally doing a lot better than he was.

Mine weren't mean kids as none of it was ever preplanned. But they were enormously reactive and would lash out a lot, especially when they were under 7 or so.

The older one has ASD and the younger is likely also ND but we are 5 years into a waiting list (and our area are no longer accepting referrals for ND assessment without MH issues so who knows what's happening).

I think they struggled to emotionally mature at anywhere near the same rate as their peers.

Not that that makes it OK at all!

The only thing that helped at home and school was teaching them to go to safe, "calm down" spaces when upset. But it took a long time to do that and they weren't able to do it consistently until maybe 9 or so.

But I totally understand how hard and lonely it is. We were social pariahs. I understand why no-one wanted to be around us, but it was still a sad place to be, especially when some people seemed to think I was OK with the behaviour, or just wasn't bothering to do basic parenting. Their kids wouldn't act like that, so clearly I just wasn't trying hard enough...

Anxiety is definitely a big factor. My older son is now medicated for it and that's made a huge difference to his life, he says so himself. Fear/anxiety is at the root of so many ND behaviours.

Sensory regulation can sit alongside emotional regulation so if you haven't already, consider looking at sensory diets. It may be that school can add sensory circuits or similar in to the school day to prevent him becoming overwhelmed and thus better able to self regulate. I would also start keeping a diary - using ABC (antecedent, behaviour, consequence) such as https://www.kentcht.nhs.uk/service/community-learning-disability-team/the-hop/my-behaviour/

This can help to understand what the triggers are and then you can work with school to try to avoid or manage them.