Anger in 9 year old child

[aimum]

I'm at my wits end with my ds aged 9. We've been seeing a lot of increased anger and aggression which we're dealing with by getting him to sit and think about alternative solutions (when he's had a chance to calm down).

However, one problem that keeps coming up are situations where he's getting hurt just through general play e.g. he may get shoved as people are rushing past him. He then gets very angry that he's been hurt by his friends and thinks of it as a deliberate act. I've tried explaining that it was probably an accident but this ends up with him shouting at me that X deliberately hurt him. Does anybody have any ideas. I think part of the problem is that he sees things as very black and white with no in-between i.e. he sees it as he got hurt by X and therefore X must be told off. He usually ends up shouting at his friends and sometimes (probably most of the time) hits them back and then he gets into trouble.

Does anybody have any ideas on how I can go about helping him tackle this problem?

Hothead, thank you, I've just ordered Huebner book, it looks good.

That PDA thing sounds a lot like DS, hmmm.

Not trying to start a bunfight, but is PDA controversial like ODD or ADHD? Is it widely recognised or widely argued whether it's real and just an excuse for bad parenting in 99% of cases?

Not looking for anyone to state their opinion about whether PDA is real, just wondering yes or no whether in your experience if it's controversial. Is it the sort of thing that if I suggest it I will likely get sneered at & scoffed at, and many Peds/Psychologists won't recognise, etc.

Most of the PDA strategies to rely on prevention rather than After-The-Fact discipline methods.

Are there any PDA strategies other than prevention?

It's not clear to me with the PDA strategies what you do after the PDA child has done something outrageous (potentially violent or destructive to others, especially other family members who will have a sense of injustice) and who will closely watch to see if you are being "fair" in your discipline methods. How do you reconcile these competing needs when PDA is involved?

I think you are very lucky to have a very understanding DS2.
My children already shriek injustices about me being too soft on DS2 when we think we are pretty hard on him. Might be easier if I had a diagnosis on a piece of paper, but without that definitely no chance of tolerance.

Other problem for me is my children are bit older, so were raised differently (worked for them).

I often fear it is my parenting... :(. But at least I have 3 others without same problems. DS is 8yo.

Does your PDA child have brief & alarming spells of reasonableness? This morning DS was entirely reasonable. I wish I had a clue why. I kept trying to lay on praise about little things he was doing.

I have a nine year old who gets like that. It was probably worse a year ago. Apparently they get a surge of testosterone around that age. Also speaking as someone who was once a boy that age, that is when I started to get into playground fights. I think it is a natural thing and lasts until you control it better.

My own boy is triggered by a number of things. Violent computer games, his older siblings winding him up, his younger brother and when he perceives that I have favoured one of the others over him.

The best thing to work is to talk it through with him and always give him a hug when he has calmed down, tell him you love him.