Please help me with 8 year old DS

[Zog]

This morning, I'd run out of Cornflakes. Cue major strop from DS, with aggression aimed towards his younger sister and me, plus a great deal of lip to me as well. I chose to ignore it (although I did have to spend 5 minutes restraining him so he couldn't attack his sister) and eventually he calmed down enough to eat breakfast and get to school.

Does anyone else's child behave like this? At school, he is pretty much the model pupil but at home, he is frequently a nightmare. I ignore it as much as I can because shouting back only escalates things (as I have learnt from bitter experience). He seems to have little respect for me ATM but I don't know whether this is an age thing or just him IYKWIM.

It gets me down so much and is poisoning our family time together. I don't know whether I should be seeking help for him/me or whether they're all like this behind closed doors.

Please help

My ds also 8 years old is the same, a quiet, model pupil at school but at home he constantly teases and bothers his sister till she ends up shouting and screaming at him, then I have to shout and he just laughs and answers back. I hope it is an age thing and he will grow out of it. He started about 2 years ago.

Have you found a way of handling him that works when he flips?

It depends on the situation, but I am still trying the gentler approach of explaining why his behaviour is not acceptable and what usually sinks in is when I ask him to imagine what it would be like if mummy and daddy faught and hit each other.
I often hear of the "naughty step" or time out step but we live in a flat and they unfortunately share a room so I don't have any where to send him when he is misbehaving.

Thanks for replying - I think I might write him a note. It seems to work well after the event in terms of getting him to think about what he's done. Just need to pull my mood up off the floor

Know where your coming from. My 7 year old threw his shoes at me from the top of the stairs yesterday shouting "Your stupid I hate you".
I ignore it as much as I can - slanging match that time of the morning is too much to handle and I hate him going to school all upset after we've had a row. However, when he asks for a sweet when he gets in from school I remind him how horrible he was that morning and make sure I get an apology!

It helps to know he's not the only one (sorry, but YKWIM).

Any other thoughts gratefully received.

if you really want to try the naughty step idea, it doesn't have to be a step as such, use a chair in the kitchewn that's separated, pulled to one side, as long as it's always the same place and not slap bang in the middle of the sitting room.

I have a ds aged 7. He responds well to the famous mumsnet pasta jar (except we use decorative pebble as pasta can get a bit messy!

for waht it's worth, I personally wouldn't ignore 'lip' rudeness or cheekiness, as I feel for me it's giving him the green light to go on doing it unchecked.

We went over again today our thoughts on when you get or loose a stone, as I wanted to include some things that they've previously not got stones for. They had some interesting ideas. It works great for us, with my 5 & 7 year old. Not yet introduced it with my 3 yr old, think he's too young. But maybe I'm under estimating him. Not sure. hth. Bloody difficult being a mum (or dad or whatever) isn't it? Sometimes

Why do you think he is so angry towards you? Is he like that towards his dad?

Today ds was so nasty to dd on the way home from school and I couldn't stop him as he was too quick for me but I told him I was fed up of his behaviour and I didn't want him to speak to me and I walked home with dd and him trailing along miles behind but he noticed I didn't turn round and wait and I just ignored him and he is now behaving himself queitly in their room and he isn't bothering dd as he usually does.
I feel like a real rotter though but that seems to be the only way to get through to them sometimes. I'm too nice to them.