I'm hoping someone can help me with some ideas as I'm struggling with my (just turned) 5 yo DS and it's really getting me down.
Up until starting school he was a lovely little boy - happy, confident, lots of friends, funny. But also would listen and understand when being told to do something and only occassionaly misbehaved, at which point something like timeout would work well.
Upon starting school he was clearly very tired, and this lead to quite angry outbursts. Literally over the space of the week I was wondering where my little boy had gone. It did settle down and he returned to his sunny self, but more recently we have been have increasing incidents of meltdowns and bad behaviour which I'm struggling to know how to react to.
(should probably mention at this point he has an older sister who never went through this stage at all!)
His teacher has confirmed he's well behaved at school, will wait his turn, put his hand up, get involved, is popular etc.
But at home he really seems to struggle any time he can't control the situation or something doesn't go his way.
This can result in throwing things, shouting 'I hate you', slamming doors and occassionally hitting out.
More of an issue is when we have been out and about. A few times if something minor has gone wrong (e.g. his sister going down the slide first) he has run off.
I have spoken to him about how dangerous this is, and he mustn't do it, how I might lose him or he might get hurt, and he's seemed to understand and stop. I've usually removed him from the situation and sat with him until he's calmed down and apologised and seemed to understand.
However this morning he ran off along a main road because he couldn't climb on his sisters back (she was wearing a backpack). This was so dangerous and I obviously shouted in a way that made him stop. But he was hitting me saying he hates me and he wants daddy.
I said to him we are getting him a toddler hand strap as I can't trust him, and I will follow through (he wants to be grown up and having to do anything babyish is a terrible thing for him). I still feel sick thinking about how dangerous this was.
I really need a strategy to deal with these outbursts going forward that my husband and I can be consistent with.
I feel like a shit parent at the moment and it's really getting me down. He missed his weekend activites this weekend (which he loved) becase minor things went wrong (eg he worse sandals and noone else was) and so he absolutely refused to do them.
Any advice on what to do? We have sticker charts, I'm trying to ignore bad and praise good, unless it is a red line (eg hitting, breaking somehting or running off) and in those cases it's a warning and time out, but it's clearly not stopping it from happening again :(
Help!