5 1/4 yo DS REALLY acting up and strong willed.... Testosterone?

[KellyGarcia]

DS1 has always been a calm and loving little boy. Quite sensitive and always wanting cuddles. Well, he is now 5 1/4 and starting school next month. He has totally changed over night.

The issue is that he seems to be so angry all the time and does "whatever I want!" not listening or ignoring me, talking over me, being quite violent towards us all, pushing DS2 (who is 1) and generally being completely unreasonable (for a 5yo). He has been doing things like running away at the shops, running across the road, "play" hitting people and then going "Oh! Sorreeeeee...." with a smirk, being really cheeky and just generally pushing my buttons and testing boundaries. He has a chart, time outs etc that we are just continuing with as well as no Wii or whatever if he really plays up but it is just like nothing really works just now. I am dreading the coming years if he is like this at 5...

Is there a testosterone surge at this age? Is anyone else going through this or has been through it?

Going through the same thing with ds1, 5 this month. He's been at school a year and I think he is tired at the end of term.

I am just being consistent, strong and know that it will pass. Also the wine is helping. Dd1 loves money, so his pocket money (from nan etc) is in a jar with a smiley face and when he continues to be poorly behaved after a warning I move a coin to.a.jar with sad face. He can move it back for good behaviour.

At least I am not alone in this! That is a great idea about the smiley face/sad face coin jars. DS1 is just realising money is power so that might be a good way to promote better behaviour.

I am actually feeling really awful just now because I shouted at him at bedtime as he was just completely acting up, copying what I was saying, laughing in my face (overtired as he just would not go to sleep) and I feel awful. I hope this phase passes quickly as I am not doing very well with it :(

I also shouted at bedtime to make it worse I am a degree qualified nursery nurse, but my own child knows how to push mu buttons.

We used to do the jars with objects and it depended on if there was more in the happy jar, he got a treat, bit apparently he doesn't care, so there! Arghhhh

Excuse typo's, hot fat fingers and a small keyboard on my phone!