My brothers behaviour is ripping our family apart

[georgiafftl]

I am 17 and have recently been diagnosed with depression, I am facing this and treating it well and have recently formed a strong bond with my parents. However, my 5 year old brother is becoming increasingly naughty at school. Usually he is a lovely boy but has times at home where he just doesn't listen and is behaving badly at school. My parents discipline him well by giving him time outs, taking away his toys, not allowing him to do fun things at the weekend but nothing seems to be working at all as when he goes back to school the next day he repeats the same bad behaviour as before. My parents never had these issues with me as I was a very well-behaved and bright child and I think this is stressing them out as they can't find a resolution to this situation and feel quite embarrassed. My brothers behaviour makes my parents very upset, annoyed and sometimes even angry. Although they don't mean to this gets taken out on me as well as my brother and I'm tired and upset that his behaviour is ruining my parents relationship with me as I need their support going through my A-levels and wish that my brother would behave a little better so that our family could be happy together. I'm simply stuck in this situation now and wondered if anyone had any advice or is experiencing the same thing as me as I really need some help. Thank you x

Do you have any grandparents nearby, other family that you could maybe go stay with sometimes, change of scenery?

What does his teacher say about what is going on at school?

I just think you both have different needs right now with your ages and it's a big age gap

I do have grandparents nearby but I know they are very busy with other family members and would hate to intrude or offend my mum. My brothers teachers just say he doesn't listen and keeps getting into trouble by doing naughty things like throwing stones at cars or not listening to work instructions in class. He gets set out all the time and other parents have complained about him before but I don't know what to do anymore. We aren't a careless family at all but it looks that way to so many others and thats the worst part.

Rather than punishing him for bad behaviour in school (which the school should be dealing with) your parents should be encouraging good behaviour both at home and at school by using some sort of reward system.

I would suggest they do a parenting course as it seems they are stuck in a cycle of negativity and it's not fair on anyone.

We definitely do have different needs and I set up a reward system about a year ago when he would play up at bed times and that sorted the trick right out so I might try with that again, thank you for all of your responses.

We definitely do have different needs and I set up a reward system about a year ago when he would play up at bed times and that sorted the trick right out so I might try with that again, thank you for all of your responses.

some children just don't care about punishment but respond well to rewards, so lots of small immediate rewards for specific bits of good behaviour might help. star charts all round.

Why are you parenting him?
How are your parents dealing with him?

Timeouts, punishments, and rewards are not good discipline. IMO.

Perhaps he doesn't behave well because he can't not because he doesn't want to.
I agree with a previous poster time outs, punishments aren't great and clearly aren't working. Time for a different approach?
Why is it falling on your shoulders OP?

I'm just taking responsibility as I'm quite old now and hate seein my parents in this situation and my brother being like he is when I know that he is really a good lovely loving boy but I don't know why he doesn't show it more. His bad behaviour is affecting the whole household as it upsets / disappoints everyone as we thought we had brought him up better than that

I just have the feeling that something is going on that is making him angry or afraid.
Have your parents spoken to his teacher? What about frienship groups? Other relationships?

I am a little bit shocked by the fact that both you and your parents are blaming a 5yo boy for the difficulties in the family.

Most of what you tell us (apart from throwing stones at cars) seems totally normal for a high-spirited 5yo. It's the parents job to deal with it. He is not responsible for the fact that you were a different type of child.

Otoh your parents seem to be handling this really badly. Not letting him do anything fun at weekends because he misbehaved at school is going to be totally unproductive with such a young child: they have a short attention span and any punishment needs to be immediate. All their present approach is going to do is to strengthen him in the idea that he is a bad boy who doesn't deserve having fun so he might as well carry on being naughty.

As a previous poster said, your parents need parenting courses to deal with this.

Another possibility is that your brother's behaviour masks MH issues very similar to your own and that while they are coming out as depression in you, they come out as wild behaviour in him. That again would be completely normal. Very unfortunate as it's going to require your parents working double hard- but again, it wouldn't be his fault, any more than your depression is your fault.

It must be very hard to go through A-levels while suffering with depression; my own dd did that and I know what she went through. At the same time, we both also knew how tempting it was for her to blame external factors when she felt she wasn't coping. In her case, the things she blamed (boyfriend trouble etc) did no harm. You could do real harm here by letting a 5yo child think he is responsible for your illness. It could ruin his whole life.

What you need to do instead is this:

speak to your parents about the possibility of some course that would help them to deal with your db

when speaking to your parents and to yourself stop speaking as if your little brother was to blame for all the problems in your family- just think about how you phrase things

carry on with the support you are getting- and good luck to you; it's a tough and brave thing to do A-levels whilst struggling with depression