I'm at the end of my tether with ds aged 7 - please help.

[flashingnose]

I'm having to face the fact that DS now behaves in a way that most children don't. Although he can be lovely, thoughtful and kind, he is exhibiting the sort of obnoxious behaviour atm that I'm finding really difficult to know what to do.

Example - yesterday, he asked to go on the computer (he's allowed on for 30 mins a day). It was just before teatime and his younger sister was on it, so I said yes you can, after tea. Cue major strop, picking stuff up and throwing it at me, lying on the floor and holding my legs whilst kicking up at me etc etc. When this "red mist" descends, the only thing that works is time out, but he's getting to be a big lad and unless he takes himself, I can't (and don't want to) manhandle him into his bedroom.

I really am at a loss to know how to handle it - it's affecting my relationship with him and is also making me feel incredibly depressed which is unfair on my other children. He's rude and full of attitude as well but any punishments I threaten fall on deaf ears and he'll just throw something else at me . I want to get to grips with this before it gets totally out of control.

What on earth can I do? Please help.

Have to go out for a meeting now but will be back a little later.

Flashingnose, we are getting a similar thing occasionally atm with ds, who is 8. I try to stay calm (I don't always manage this), and remember that it is STILL about attention! And they will take negative attention over none. Oddly distraction still sometimes works (rarer now but worth a go) and if I stay calm I can sometimes calm it down. If I get cross either it works and he stops because he's shocked that I'm quite so angry - that's when I'm really shouty - OR, more often, it escalates the whole thing and he ramps it up even more, hey, it's exciting from his pov! I don't know what the answer is. We're trying a star chart atm and it does work sometimes - he got a magazine to take into school this morning for not waking us up in the middle of the night last night. Since dh is big enough to pick him up yesterday he went out in the corridor (OUTside we call it, I also wanted to show dd, who is 2 and gets taken out there for hitting, that he gets the same treatment if he's badly behaved) and did come back in contrite. sympathy. I have to remember to manage my ds's expectations too so i.e. I say 'you will be allowed x at y time but only if...' and he REALLY picks up on it if I don't follow the rules explicitly, quite rightly. I think my advice can be summed up as try to keep calm and be consistent though I know it aint easy, believe me!

'but any punishments I threaten fall on deaf ears'

It might just be the way it's written, but this line gives me the impression you don't always follow through on punishments?
I'm just doing a bit of stream of thought here, so apologies!

Could you sit done with him when he's in a good mood and ask him why he thinks he has the strops. Does it bother him after he's done it? If the punishments you come up with at the time aren't effective, could you write a list of possible sanctions when you aren't under pressure that might make more of an impact? What is he like at school?

I'll have a longer think about this.....

Totally agree with www about staying calm, and the attention thing too

We've had this for years now with DS, and we see a child psychologist. His red mist moments are terrifying, and very violent - both DH and I have been at the receiving end of what can only be decsribed as assaults for many years when his temper strikes. He's also a very strong willed little boy - always has been - so life has been fairly tough here in that respect - but he can also be very loveable. Anyway, enough of my moans! The psychologist suggested the following -

1. Sit down as a family and draw up a list of house rules that you all agree - about 5 no-go's, which must not ever, ever be broken.
2. Then draw up a list of about 4 consequences which would have a real impact in him eg no Beavers, not bedtime story, no supper or wahtever means a lot to him. Every time a house rule is borken, there is a consequence - starting with the least meaningful one to your DS, and working up the way.
3. Along side that, make up tokens which can be exchanged pocket money. We have 3 10p tokens per day. You can then use these as bargaining tools, it if you don't do X, then you will lose a token. If he loses more than 3 a day, then you're on to the consequences.
4. Star chart to reward good beahviour. He doesn't earn back tokens, or have the consequence cancelled, but he can earn treats etc through the star chart.

It hasn't stopped the red mist moments altogether, but he knows there is a consequence to everything he does, and it gives us more control. Good luck - I know how awful it is.

My DS is also 8, and nearly as tall as me. Can be very scary sometimes.

Oh, just thought of something else, I remembered reading here that someone asked their own child to decide the punishment saying that they often give themselves MUCH harsher punishments than we would so I did this with ds the other day and lo and behold, yes, he came up with MUCH harder stuff than I would have done. We haven't had to enforce it yet but will if he does xyz. We do always follow through. I tried to catch him being good yesterday too and praised him and gave him attention when he wasn't asking for it. Another thing I decided when talking to dh about it the other day is that is IS also all about boundaries, he wants to know what they are and he damn well wants to know they're there and that we will enforce them. So we are.

flashingnose, good luck. Not an expert here as my Ds is much younger but had some thoughts: my dh has worked in a school for years now and tells me VERY strongly that he notices that justice and fairness are much more important to boys. They can't bear it if they think something is unfair. So maybe is this a trigger with your son? Is it when he thinks things are unfair that he kicks off? drawing up an agreed rota for the children to be on the PC or do certain things can help this because he will know beforehand what to expect.

When he is 'rude and full of attitude' I would just IGNORE IGNORE IGNORE. Obviously tell him you won't be spoken to in that way, then absent yourself completely. It's so easy to start reacting but just don't talk to someone who doesn't talk nicely to you (and of course make sure you always talk politely to him! otherwise why wouldn't he do it back).

I reckon you can still use time out by taking yourself out of the room where he's kicking off, rather than trying to get him to his room.

It sounds to me that rotas might work with your boy because if he knows what's coming each day he gets less chance to kick off. Also using rewards for days when he doesn't do anything like this would be worth a try. And lots of hugs and positive comments "It's so much nicer to be like this than when you get cross" or something.

Do you like the sound of any of this???

Flashingnose, I would definitely go with Paolosgirl's recommendations - very similar to my own techniques with my ds (6.5), who has red mist tendencies too.
I am always bleating on about the ruthless application of following through on threats - as I think it makes a big difference. I have a list of "threats" that I can use in different situations. It is a good idea to think in advance what these will be, so that you are not caught on the hop in the midst of a red mist moment - randomly firing something out, which you may not want to really carry out.
I also think that rewarding good behaviour helps too. So you could also set up a system whereby the afternoon is divided up into half hours & for every half hour without a red mist tantrum you award a sticker/card etc & then if your ds makes it through the entire afternoon & collects the full quota of cards, he gets a small reward. This only works for a very short while, but it may help kick start a campaign for better behaviour.

Thank you all so much for responding - lots of food for thought. Yes, ds is definitely a child who responds well to firm boundaries and maybe now his siblings are older (and one has started school), we need to make everything look as fair as possible. It's also helpful to know tha he's not the only one (sorry, but YKWIM).

I kick myself when I let myself get dragged into arguments with him as I know from bitter experience that if I stay calm and controlled, the situation doesn't escalate.

Right, will sit down tonight with DH and make a list of house rules for starters.

Thank you all again .

Good luck! Could I maybe suggest that you all sit down as a family? That way the kids have ownership too, and it's easier to enforce the house rules when you can say "actually, you agreed to this". All the best .

Oh no, definitely agree but I just want to get DH signed up first before we throw it open to the masses. I'll start with a blank piece of paper but with a few ideas about what I'd like on there by the end .

Hope it all goes well for you!

paolosgirl, do you mind me asking what prompted you to seek the help of a child psychologist and how did you go about it?

Hi Flashingnose, Just wanted to add a bit to this as well. My DD, now 5.5, has been like this for some time now. We were referred to a child therapist for a separate issue when she was about 4, however all the advice we received seemed to be along the lines of 'she'll grow out of it'. Well here we are years later and she still has very scary outbursts, and some of them we can't even figure out what set them off.

We have always used a time out session on the bottom of our stairs for both of the older children (5 & 3), but if you ask DD to have a quiet few minutes on the stairs, she usually responds in kicking, scratching at my face, screaming and then slamming the stairgate over and over again.

We've tried reward charts for her on the advice of the therapist, but she insisted on getting sad faces rather than the rewards.

Ok, now reading this it sounds like she's a horrible child, but on the good days she's lovely! I'll be watching this thread with interest to see everything that is suggested, as we're almost ready to see the gp again, but the waiting list to see someone is approximately 1 year.

Sorry it's taken so long to reply. If you do get this, falshing, it was after a particularly bad spell of violence from DS that we went to our GP. Bear in mind that this was after years of getting nowhere on our own, reading umpteen books, being referred to the local Family Centre (where we had home visits once a week for an hour, for 4 weeks, only to be told by 2 social workers that there was nothing wrong with him, and that they see far worse 0, or various parenting courses and a course of anti-depressents for me. My MIL who was an infant teacher with over 30 years expereince was shocked by some of the things she saw from DS, and at nursery he was assgined a member of staff who had training on looking after children with SN's.
The GP listened to my explanation of what had been going on, and referred us straightaway to the child psychology dept. What a relief.

And apologies for awful spelling!