I need help with my 9 year old. He is so eruptive and grumpy

[QuintEggSentialPaints]

I dont know what to do with him anymore.

He always had problems with friendships, and I never really knew why. However, I am beginning to see his behavior at home, and I can now see what the problem is. It used to be confined to school, and the school used to tell me about it, and tell me that they were exercising time out for him to go and calm himself down.

He is losing his temper several times per day now. Shouts, swears and screams out of control. Usually this is for minor things. His brother put his cup too close to 9 year olds cereal bowl. This was enough for him to explode.
His brother accidentally dropped his beyblade down the stairs, and he erupted.
He is walking around as a thunderous cloud, on edge.

I dont know what to do with him. I dont know how to help him, help our family. I cant cope with this sort of behaviour.

Other kids shy away from him, naturally, they dont want to be on the receiving end of this.

He is a very bright boy, and well cared for at home, he has everything he needs, but I can see that his temper is really ruining it for him. I try to talk to him about how his behaviour is affecting others, and ultimately himself in that others wont play with him, but he seems unable to control himself.

I am thinking we need to get a behavioural psychologist involved, but uncertain.

Or maybe we just need to move back to the UK where he has stricter boundaries and a more disciplined school. I dont know.

Today is his birthday, and we have friends staying. They brought him fantasic gifts. Yet my son is walking around grumpy and tantrumming, muttering that this is the worst birthday in his life. It of course affects everybody. I dont know what to do.

You need to seek professional advice. A behavioural psychologist will be able to analyse the root cause of the problem - this may have something to do with the move abroad if it was after he was born? Small things can trigger children into behavioural states and the only way to solve the problem is by defining the thing that caused it. Once this is apparent, the feelings around this subject can be explored and the therapy will begin to take effect. While he is 9 years old it is OK for him to be like this because it can be controlled if he decides to become violent, but if he continues into his teens he will be too strong to be contained if he decides to use physical displays of anger. I wish you the best in your search for a resolution, hope this helps.

I would seek professional help. Unless his school is hugely disruptive and he is unhappy there, it is unlikely that just a stricter school would sort all his problems: he sounds rather unhappy and as if he needed a bit more than that.

I totally sympathise - we have had similar problems with ds(9).

We sought help in the form of the family support team (now family solutions), organised through the school. Have you spoken to the school? Is there any support/guidance on offer where you are? I would try and see a behavioural psychologist if not.
I think its important to get to the root of the problem. I was feeding the problem by getting angry and frustrated myself, not knowing why ds was behaving in that way. Now we are all a lot calmer and deal with the anger in different ways.
talking to someone else also saved my sanity and enabled ds and I to rebuild our relationship which had become very negative.

I can recommend the book 'What to do when your temper flares' from Amazon, which ds and I worked through together.
Hope this helps :)

You could read The Explosive Child in the meantime. I found it very useful.