To ask if this is a 7yo boy phase?

[Whyismycatanasshat]

I am my wits end with my DS.
I’m sat in my room crying and wondering where the hell we’ve gone wrong with DS.

It’s been a tough weekend with him and I’ve just totally lost it with him over his behaviour at dinner time when he sat down and refused to eat a meal he’s had and enjoyed countless times, calling it disgusting and making vile retching noises over his plate whilst everyone else tried to eat.

Until 2 years ago he was a lovely child, teachers loved teaching him, he was bright and funny, people commented on his good manners, club leaders loved him, the works.

Fast forward to now, at home he is rude, arrogant, demanding, disruptive, won’t follow instructions, can be quite controlling and lies to shift blame.
At school he is rude and disruptive. But usually follows instructions.
His football coach seems to need to speak to me weekly about him not listening and doing his own thing and I get the feeling they’d rather I pulled him out.

If you tell him off he just smirks, isn’t bothered about consequences in the slightest. School say the same.

School made a referral for ADHD but after 3 meetings/sessions, we were told a lot of his behaviour is age appropriate and maybe come back in 18 months.

He has strong boundaries in place at home, as do all our DC, no iPad of his own etc, very limited tv time - most days he doesn’t use a screen at home as he’s not that interested. He plays with his cars, draws a lot, likes his Lego, he’s out in the garden and so on, he is occupied - not complaining of being bored.

We’ve tried love bombing, reward charts, talking things through, ignoring and the list goes on…

He had older and younger siblings and none have been like this.

Anyone else come through this?

DS can be like this but is on the ADHD pathway (DH is already diagnosed) we try low demand options and trying to encourage him to verbalise his feelings. We're on holiday and I asked him if he wanted to do A or B today, thinking I was giving him control, he said mummy it's too much pressure for me to decide I don't want to get it wrong, we talked about how there wasn't a wrong choice but if he wanted it to be my day to choose the activity today I was happy to.

That sounds really tough
I’d be looking to go private for an adhd referral and potential diagnosis as 18 months can seem like a lifetime at this stage and is a long time if any interventions/ plans/ medications need to be put in place. I wouldn’t wait if things were that bad. I hope you can get something sorted.

Different kids go through bad phases at different ages. If he's been assessed and they don't think there's anything diagnosable it's just maintaining consequences until he comes out the other side

7 year olds get a mini testosterone surge. He may be assimilating that.
Mine went through bad patches at 7.
Read Raising Boys, which explains it
I would keep.strong boundaries and consistent consequences. Ignore petty stuff (the dinner, so he will be hungty today, his loss). Agree your non negotiables and keep firm on those.
And above all give him good levels of attention when being good. Build lego together, draw together, watch TV together. Sometimes this behaviour is attention seeking or boredom..
Being able to occupy himself is great, but often masks a need for more parental esp dad attention. Not love bombing but consistent levels of attention.

Thanks all, I was bracing myself for the replies.

@Besidemyselfwithworry I think we will have to do that in 6 months time - can’t afford it right now - if we hadn’t booked and paid for a holiday that we can’t now cancel and get a full refund, we’d be going down the private route right now, but everyone seemed so sure we’d get a diagnosis the NHS route we thought we’d be ok! Serves us right.

@Whyismycatanasshat dont beat yourself up about booking a holiday - that’s important family time
Id have a look and see if there are any charities that might be able to support. Nobody should HAVE to go private but NHS waiting lists are so long I know lots of people who have done this.

Does he get any exercise?
I ran mine like labradors until they dropped and fed them the same.
Disgusting table manners, they are removed and can only come back to eat when they apologise properly.
What consequences does he get if he is rude and disruptive?

@Dinnaeeatallthecheese Yes, a lot of physical activity just about every day after school and at weekends, his elder sibling is
the same in that he needs to be physically active after being cooped up in school, so that’s a normal for us.
He also goes down to his Dad’s farm and likes to be doing tasks so is physically doing jobs like moving straw and water buckets.

At school he is moved to a single table and seat for disruptive behaviour. He gets sent to another teacher to explain his rudeness but I don’t think it’s effective - I have voiced that.
We remove him from the room if he is being disruptive, and are swift to call him out on rudeness towards us or siblings - as are the elder dc.
The eldest often does a better job of giving him examples of how he should be speaking in the moment than I do!

Bad table manners at home, he is usually moved to the kitchen island to eat - it’s a kitchen dining room in one so he is removed from an audience but still in the same room, and he usually gets on and settles and eats but today he wouldn’t.

No that’s not a normal 7 year old boy phase.

We had a similar thing with our DS when he was 7/8. He definitely has ADHD traits and gets support at school but no formal diagnosis. We had always given him lots of choices and involved him in decisions, and then I started to get the feeling that actually a lot of his bad behaviour (similar to what’s described by the OP) was anxiety. We set firmer boundaries, followed through with consequences, and gave him fewer choices and a more fixed routine, and he’s much much better now. I think he just needed to know where he stands. We’d thought we were doing the right thing by letting him feel grown up and involved but actually for him it had the opposite effect.