Hi I have an 8 year old son who has always been a handful since the age of about 2. We have always found it difficult to get him to do anything he didn't want to or to stop doing something we have asked him not to. He can be extremely defiant although when he is doing something he is happy with he can be so happy loving and funny with a great sense of humour. For the last 6-8 weeks his behaviour has really taken a turn for the worse. He is extremely angry and if he doesn't agree with something we say he will just growl at us or squeal as loud as he can. He has told us (and his teachers) that he doesn't like being shouted at & it makes him feel angry. We try so so hard not to shout at him, he doesn't respond well to it. However, when we need to leave for work/school and he point blank refuses to get ready or do his teeth it is very hard not to get frustrated. He then gets angrier saying we've promised not to shout (although we are actually just asking him nicely!) I do think he is playing up on the 'being angry' sonewhat. I've had a couple of chats with his teacher and it seems he is very distracted at the moment but not displaying the anger. Since the Easter holidays things have been slightly better but then something really small could set him off. A couple of times this week he has come to me later and either apologised or said he feels bad for shouting, which is something. There have been times in the past we have wandered if we should see someone about him because of his defiance. We have wandered whether he may have ODD or be on the spectrum somewhere. When he was just over 18 months old he developed an obsession with Hoovers. Everyone thought it was funny but for me I was worried because it was overwhelmingly intense. This lasted a couple of years. Since then he has developed a keen interest in computers and electronics (something which neither myself or my husband are interested in) he has taught himself so much and is on the gifted & talented register for ICT. At one point all he was talking about was different Microsoft editions and he could name them all in order. Recently he became obsessed with toy cars (and cars in general) but he is moving back to computers again. He also likes horrible histories. He has a tablet but we do not have a PlayStation etc. He is very bright. In the 1st year he got 1s and As for everything. However, now he has gone down to 2s and bs apart from Ict and music (although still where he needs to be for everything). He seems to only put effort into the areas (of life in general) that he is interested in. He struggles with his handwriting but gets angry if anyone tries to help him with it (and says the teachers make fun of it!)
I've never considered something like adhd because until now we haven't had any problems out of the norm at school. However, apparently he has just been getting up and wandering round recently.
I'm really really worried about him. I am trying to improve things with effective parenting and I am reading the books 'the explosive child' and 'how to talk so your kids will listen....'
I don't want to get him labelled unnecessarily. I feel sometimes a label can make things worse or be used as an excuse for behaviour. However, I obviously want to do the best for him. He is ok socially he doesn't speak of certain friends all the time but you can see at school he gets on with people and he is fine with his cousins & when I meet my own friends with their children. We've always had to work to get any information from him though - he is in his own world a lot of the time.
He can bicker with his sister's a lot! My 6 year old is doing so well at school and she is sporty too. I think my son gets jealous. He has never liked losing even board games where it's all about luck.
Im not sure if this has any relevance but I've also wandered lately about his eating habits - he does not stop but does not have an ounce of fat on him!! He certainly gets angry when he is hungry!! I try to feed him healthily. He eats lots & lots of fruit & veg too. I try to limit treats in the week & he drinks no added sugar squash (I can't get him to drink water).
Any advice would be extremely appreciated because the whole household is becoming very stressed and some of his habits are running off on his younger disasters.