help! 10 year old son. so full on / intense almost daily rages at the moment Help and advice would be great.

[keeponthesunnyside]

Hello

My 10 year old son has always been extreme. He is very clever, very able, very quick, very charming ( a ta recently described him as very charasmatic ) and has incredibly fast reactions. He has suffered from extreme and often violent temper tantrums for years - anything can trigger these - putting on his shoes, the sleeves on his coat - as well as more obvious triggers - coming off the computer or having to get his homework done. Once he has flipped he can make a tantrum rumble on for hours. Though he behaves with control at school and is very popular. Eventually when he was about 7 I got some help for him and my younger DS but to be honest as DS1 described it recently - 'she was a nice woman but she didn't get very far.' Though things did get better ( much less violent ). Recently ( especially over the summer holidays ) I thought how far we had come but Y6 seems to have triggered new rage. We are back to almost daily tantrums - very clever rages where he picks on either me or my younger son until someone flips. I am a single mum with two sons and I work really really hard to keep us all ok though I think I have felt guilty for years as the children had a hard time when they were v young - exh became an alcoholic and I had to leave him, we lived in very cramped conditions with not much money. I have a good job now - but we still live in cramped conditions and not really much money but oh my goodness I do my best - they have a lot of attention and care and love and even exh has been sober for 4 years and spends a lot of time with them - though perhaps boundaries are blurred because he picks them up from school and brings them back to my home and gives them food I buy for them. I have had a very bad weekend with my lovely beautiful son raging - eventually exhausting himself, paled face and tear streaked - I don't want to be like this mummy. I have just been reading an extreme post about very difficult teenagers and omg I am worried that he/ I just aren't going to cope. I am not sure what I am asking here yet - but I wanted to talk about it. I have just got us a councillor again through the school and she seemed much more sensible that anyone else we have seen but I was just thinking tonight - we are in a war zone and it is having a really bad effect on my younger son and I just need to say how extreme it is. Though I feel exhausted too. I love him so much and he is such a special and talented person but the highs and lows of dealing with him are extreme.

Hopefully the counsellor will give him practical tools to cope, when my son was like that it was explained that I was too close to him to give the practical skills.
In my son's case his were due to him being a perfectionist. From your short post I just wonder if he feels he has a lack of control in his life? How much responsibility does he have? Does he have chores? Do you let him do things like go to a shop alone? Does he have special privileges for being older , e.g a later bedtime. Do you give him plenty of warning for change, e.g you have another 30 mins on the computer and then you need to come off, followed by 'now 10 mins' etc. Does he have choice of when to do the homework? Do you do things with the boys separately?
Once he has started you have to just ignore totally. Talk about it once it is over.
If it is any consolation DS was dreadful pre teen but he was very easy as a teenager.

Thank you both of you. I think it was Sunday night and I felt at the end of my tether. He probably has perfectionist tendencies…and something else too ….just not sure what it is - the nearest I have found as a description is the downside of the dreaded gifted and talented. I go through all the countdowns to end computer time…prepare him for what is going to happen next - have started separate sports for each boy…. started letting him walk some days to school on his own/ to the shop - I think by working full time - we are always squeezing things into too short time - but even when I wasn't the tantrums were the same.

I think the 'Explosive Child' book looks really useful - I can see exactly from the outline sent - that adjusting my own expectation and frustration to the problems will help. I am patient for hours and days and weeks but sometimes it just gets too much. Once he is in a rage he can be like a clever lawyer finding the thing that will hurt my youngest son or myself most - pushing and goading. After a fantastic Halloween ( we made cakes, costumes, games, had friends over ) he woke the next morning in a rage - ( I think upset it was over ) he came into my room and just started haranguing me. Hopefully the counselling will help too. Bit pissed off with the school they gave SO much homework that it was always eating into the fun time of the holiday. I am not sure if I have explained it well enough - he is great - but it is quite extreme/abusive.

I found the explosive child helpful too. But year 6 was a shocker. Rage the whole time. I put it down to

Hormones
Being bullied a bit at school for being bright
Fear, shared throughout the year , about year 7
Fear about growing up
Fear of losing one of us
Too little sleep
Not enough boring 1950s food
Not enough 1950s boredom
Too many hyper tv games.

As soon as we went into. Janet and john life, he improved.

And I explained how every la must ensure every child has a place somewhere. And he would end up in a school.

And we went through the what if someone dies bit, with wills and guardian and neighbours.

It's a really hard time for them. Esp boys. I don't think many are ready to move at this age.

And I bought an inflatable punchbag.

Sounds a great book, I wish it had been around when we were going through it.