Should I get professional help? Violent 7 yr old.

[lilithxx16]

I have 2 boys who live with me and their gentle father in a stable family home. I don't smack, don't allow tv in the bedroom, only allow age appropriate content and limit screen time generally. I breastfed both each for 2 years and carried them around in a sling.

I guess I am expecting to be judged so thought I'd get that stuff out of the way first! Not that I'm perfect (not by a long way) but I do try...

My older child is a peaceloving 9 yr old who loves nature and reading. My 7 yr old is quite different. He is Herculean in his build, immensely strong and tall for his age, and he loves to wrestle! At school his behaviour is impeccable and I am told that he is gentle, caring and patient with his peers and with younger children. I have seen this side of him in action when playing with his little cousins and I often feel very proud of him.

However... at home we find him to be dominating, inflexible and demanding. He has a very volatile temper which he seems unable to control. I guess that, at the root of it, he feels very strong emotions which he cannot handle. Anyway, I try to keep to a routine as much as possible, to avoid unnecessary battles. But you can't avoid them all.

And when I do say no to him, or his brother inadvertently irritates him he often pushes, hits, kicks us etc. But I wil not give in. When he completely loses it his body is taken over by anger. He is hot and red like a volcano. I follow this up with consequences and discussion.It makes no difference. Often the consequences fuel yet more rage.

He has always had these tantrums, but lately I feel something darker has crept in. He has overtaken his older brother in strength. I am worried that soon he will overtake mine too and we will eventually find ourselves living in fear of him. And that, in the future, he will repeat this behaviour with his own family.

I think we need outside help, partly because it is so hard to stay calm and logical when you feel under attack, but I am not sure who to approach. It seems a shame to involve his school, where he is thought of so highly. I would welcome suggestions...

No idea if this will be any good but I've just seen that there is a new series on Channel 4 tonight at 9pm,Violent Child,Desperate Parents.

Channel 5, not 4

Read The Explosive child.

My dd was rigid, persistent, sanctions made no difference or made her worse, and she often went into total meltdown where nothing registered. It was all in the book.

Now at nearly 10 she has calmed down a lot. She still has her moments but is a lot better

What strategies did you find worked Oranges?

Nothing really. But that's the whole point of these kids, although dd was never violent.

The main things from the book were sanctions don't work or make it worse which was true for us. The idea is to avoid the meltdown as it is very traumatic and they cannot be reasoned with in this state.

The idea is to minimise the stress on the whole family as much as possible, and to ignore bad behaviour rather than challenge it. It suggests thinking ahead and anticipating any problems and trying to head them off before they happen.

It worked a bit for dd. Dh thought it was about appeasing her and letting her off, and to some extent this was true, but we had a much calmer happier household when we stopped challenging everything. It was horrible. She's lovely now. To some extent it is a bit like a developmental delay. They can't control the level of frustration and anger they feel like some kids. But I think it said they eventually grow out of it.

It now manifests itself in Dd as very conscientiousness, and a desire to plan ahead to avoid stress. She likes to get everything done early, and likes to go to school early to adjust to the change between school and home. That was another thing, these dc don't deal with transitions easily. You have to warn them they are going to go out, stop playing etc.

Dd also refused point blank to wear anything with buttons on. They also can have sensory issues surrounding clothes

I read that book in a stage of desperation when dd had run out of our house into deep snow last winter screaming her head off and had disappeared. It all seems like a bad dream now, she is so much more mature and easier.

Ds1 sounds similar to what you describe Oranges. Hates surprises or changing plans without warning, also had sensory stuff going on.

He's a bit more chilled but he does still stress a lot, especially about being on time for school. His younger brother pissing about in the morning is still a flash point for him.

Did stresses about being late for school too!

So I have bought The Explosive Child, and read through the chapter about Plan B (collaborative problem solving). Tried it with DD this morning after breakfast as we have been having nightmare bedtimes ... So followed guidelines for opening conversation: 'I've noticed that we've been arguing a lot at bedtime lately. What's up?' DD had a typical response and stuck to 'I don't know' for a bit. She didn't really come up with any solutions. It got me thinking ... what if the arguments and hideous rudeness are only a problem from our POV? What if she doesn't perceive it to be an issue? I ended up thinking that the unmet expectations and frustration at unsolved problems was on MY side!! I would like to have a polite, cheerful DD who is able to wind down and go to bed calmly at the end of the day. Instead I have a wound-up, tense little bundle of nerves who seems unable to end the day without major confrontation and shouting. But, maybe she doesn't see this as a problem?? How do I frame rudeness and shouting as a problem for her, in order to restart the discussion?

runningLou I think you are right – your DD’s rudeness and attitude may not in themselves be amenable to collaborative problem solving. They sound like her expressions of stress or unhappiness or unwillingness. So they probably belong in a different basket – maybe Basket C, where you don’t react to them, you just try to avoid them or prevent them from escalating. If she was articulate and self aware enough to tell you why bedtime was a problem then you might not even have the problem!

Sometimes you can't deal with the surface problem (the rudeness) directly. Instead you have to negotiate for her to do things that help with the underlying problem (such as, calm her wound-up-ness at bedtime) even if she doesn't know that's why you want her to do them. And then if she's less wound up she might be more polite and cheerful.

So you need to do more detective work yourself before you can problem-solve with your DD. Is she like this for all transitions, but she’s being especially difficult at bed-time because she’s tired? Or is there something you think she could do to wind down at bedtime, which you’d like her to try for a week to see if it helps? That would be much easier to negotiate. Although full collaborative problem solving is the long-term goal, I found it much easier (and my DS found it much easier!) if I already had an idea of what was causing the problem and if I proposed some solutions which we could then negotiate over.