My son (5) has always been highly energetic, running before he was 1. He has an amazing personality, able to befriend anyone, fun to be around, playful, intelligent and head strong. This is the side that alot of people see but my husband and I (40) along with close friends and family often see a different side. He can be very aggressive, angry (rarely cries), taunts us and his brother (3), screams and talks excessively loudly, wants to break everything, has no sense of danger so runs off, climbs, hits us to get a reaction, or slow repetitive kicks till we break, smirks when told to stop, doesn't care if we're annoyed or frustrated, wont eat dinner, can't sit still, runs circles round the lounge, will rarely play or be calm.
Alot of what he does is repetitive until one of the 3 us gets to breaking point. Well continually ask him to stop, talk about how it makes people feel, provide consequesces, time out, non of which helps. Hell only stop when we've cracked and yelled.
For context, our 3 year old is the complete opposite and so we've noticed more recently just how much more difficult our eldest is.
We've always been told oh hes 2 that's what boys are like, and then oh hes 3 its fine and, hes 4 hes only young and then hes 5, he'll grow out it.
He also gets load of attention, one on one when we take him to clubs separately, out for bike rides etc and way more solo attention than his brother does.
Husband and I are utterly exhausted, theres no let up and were mentally drained. His personality makes it so hard to like him most of the time and its not enjoyable being with him. For that we feel like the worst parents ever.
Tonight I was putting him to bed and he said he hates me, I wasn't allowed to talk and couldn't be with him. Trying to get him to bed was a challenge, kicking me, fighting, trying to bite, smacking his head into my collar bone as I tried to hold and calm him down. Then when he was calm he slowly tried to bend my fingers back to see when id tell him to stop. I ended up just crying and for that he laughed at me but he did stop when he realised how upset I was. After putting him to bed he came down and shouted, 'I love you, dont cry'. I then put him back to bed.
It's like he only stops with extreme reactions from us. I'm exhausted, tired and feel like I want to run away for a break.