Is my 5 year old learning how to manipulate me or is he just an unenviable mix of stubborness and sensitivity?

[foxinsocks]

ds has not been the easiest child since he started going full time at school - I know tiredness is playing a part in his behaviour and apparently, at school (according to his teachers) he is behaving fine (though they have said he is very sensitive).

3 incidents (over a month) involving him kicking his sister or me HARD. He has had his tamagotchi taken away for a day as punishment. Those nights (of the day when he has had the tama taken away) he has been up ALL bloody night insisting he is in agony (either says his leg is sore or his ear is sore with no indication of him being ill or unwell in any way).

First time it happened (leg pain), I got such a fright, I nearly rushed him to hospital but I thought I'd make him walk first and he walked fine and actually, after he had had an extended cuddle with me and some calpol, he went off to bed. Last night (ear pain), he was up virtually the whole night and only stopped crying when I was holding him and now I haven't sent him to school because he's so knackered, he can hardly keep his eyes open.

Both dh and I now believe that this waking up in pain is more of an emotional thing - he doesn't like being punished but he is incredibly stubborn and just telling him not to do something does not work.

However, we are now scratching our heads as to what to do because when we do carry out what we see is a reasonable punishment, he then keeps all of us up the whole night which is just not fair on anyone and dh is starting to lose his rag because he is knackered for work and feels that ds keeping us up is his (ds's) way of being back in control iyswim.

Arrrggh

bump while I'm still able to keep my eyes open

I'm just bumping this for Foxinsocks. Earlier this year we ended up dragging DD1 (then 5) to a consultant paediatrician because of her continued complaints of 'back pain' at bedtime. I imagined the worst and was hugely anxious until reassured by both the paediatrician and DD1's back pains morphing inexplicably into 'feeling sick'. Oh and 'pains in my heart'!!

One very helpful thing the paediatrician said is that children of this age have a very wobbly line between fantasy and reality and, because they are unable to articulate or even identify their feelings, anxiety, stress or sadness will manifest itself in psychosomatic pains. In his view, the pains in DD1's back probably felt quite real to her, however unreal they actually were.

thanks issymum - I thought of you this weekend as I took the kids to Wisley and I imagine you aren't far from there

I remember your back pain saga (and what a relief it was when it turned out to be nothing physically serious!).

I think this is a similar sort of thing - it's his way of showing emotional pain but I have no idea how to counter it. I can't not tell him off but on the other hand, I can't have him being so disruptive that all of us (including dd) are being kept up.

actually, what did you do with dd in the end? did the 'pain' go away on its own or did you come up with other strategies to deal with it?

Wisley? We have a season ticket and virtually haunt the place. If you are there again and do happen to see us (we are very identifiable - tall thin bloke in wheelchair, harrassed 40 something mother, two little Asian girls), do introduce yourself!

I seem to recall that we combined lots of extra cuddles and attention with responding to any complaints of backache in a rather 'Oh really Dear' off-hand way. The distraction of Christmas also helped.

What I tend to do now is give DD1 a cuddle and make a future promise: "If you still feel sick when I come upstairs to bed/see you in the morning, then you can have some medicine, but I'm not doing anything about it now." Of course by the time I come upstairs to bed, she's flat out and when the morning comes round, she's entirely forgotten about it.

I'll keep an eye out. It's not far from us, well it would have been even closer had I not taken my eye off the A3 momentarily and managed to drive well past the Wisley junction!

Thanks, I suspect extra cuddles are the way to go. It may be a case of taking an extra 10 minutes before bed time to have a special chat and cuddle. He is very frustrated at the moment - he sees a bit of his sister and her friends at school (in yr2) and on our walk to and from school and finds them all hard to handle because they are so much more eloquent than him and he can only (he feels) get their attention by being physical iyswim.

This is all making a lot of sense to me - my DS3 (4.5) convinced me so completely that he was ill that I took him to the GPs for a check, kept him off school for ages etc - of course he was absolutely fine and as he's my 4th child you'd really think that I wouldn't be so gullible. It turned out he was finding it hard to make friends at school and missed me during the day and was generally not happy - but the thing is I'm sure he had managed to convince himself that he was genuinely unwell. In his mind, he wasn't lying - just unable to deal with his school unhappiness. I think 4 and 5 year old boys can be hard work - someone told me (don't know if it's true) that they get their first real dose of testosterone at that stage which accounts for the quite aggressive, wilful behaviour. Good luck!

it is interesting what the paed said to Issymum - especially about the pain appearing real to the child. I see that very much with ds. With the leg pain, I really was incredibly concerned because he was grasping his leg in a way that it looked as though he was in agony!

thanks hassled - yes, your post rings true with me too.

I don't really believe ds is trying to manipulate us (it's a horrible word actually) but it can be very wearing dealing with him because it's hard to be firm yet sensitive iyswim.

Thanks for your insight though - it's good to know I'm not alone!