Very tearful and angry 11 year old.

[Suleeb]

Really worried about my son. All of a sudden he has started to get very tearful and angry about things. Everything from not getting his own way to things just not going as he expected. He has broken our laptop by hitting it coz he couldn't get it to do what he wanted. When I spoke to him, he says that he feels stressed all the time, but didn't know why. Any help would be greatly appreciated, we hate seeing him like this.

I have no help but my 10 yo son is exactly the same recently and it's awful. I spoke to school today and have ordered him a couple of anger / stress / anxiety books for us to read / share

Bless him, probably a surge of hormones, he is probably feeling a bit out of control and scared. I have explained hormones in simple terms to my DS, he's 12 now so has had talks at school too, mainly to reassure him that what he's feeling is normal and won't last forever, its just his body growing.
Also we have found an activity which he loves dong, a self defence class, which really helps him.

My 11 year old DD is the same OP. Hormonal.

I limit computer time as it seems to make her worse. She's allowed an hour a night and then if she wants, she can watch TV....playng computer games for hours seems to make her more angry.

Also diet....limit sugar and processed foods.

Yup, hormonal. We had that too, except mine got more cynical and argumentative. He grew out of it and became quite a charming teenager. But there were a couple of years, between 10 and 12, that were like walking around with your own little cloud of misery.

It got easier once he had a) gone through puberty b) got to the stage where he could be given more freedom and knew he could handle it

My son has just turned 10 and has become argumentative and teary over minor things too, I think the stress of school, tiredness and hormones play a big role.

If in y6, he could be worried about leaving primary and moving to secondary, but not be able to quite pinpoint his anxieties. It is a time of big change.
My y6 DD is very anxious about it (she is not good with change).