Dh and I are at our wits end with ds aged 6. I ve posted about him before and things improve with a new strategy and then go terrible again. I am out of ideas with him. We have tried everything and he just doesn't care. Things are particularly bad it's now the Easter holidays so I am spending more time with him. Everyday is a battle from start to finish. It's got to the point where I dread waking him up and just don't want to spend any time with him anymore and it causes arguments between dh and I. We argue who has to put him to bed because he just stresses us out.
Nothing works, the day is a series of asking him numerous times to do things, counting down until he does it, threats, taking things away and getting into discussions about things. It's endless. I always follow through treats and he regularly has iPads taken away, no story, bed after tea, no tv, toy taken away, no play date etc. We ve done this since he was 3 so I think he's immune to it, he is so disruptive that the day could just be a string of consequences for him but no change in behaviour.
I ve tried so hard to do positive reinforcements too. Praising him for the right things, treats, star charts, marbles, stickers, play dates, surprising him with a toy, praising his sister in the hope it rubs off. This works when he chooses it to work, it works temporarily when he wants something but more often that not he doesn't care. He's asked us to stop doing pocket money and marbles. There are so many consequences I get muddled up and I think he does too. The only one he cares about is putting his beloved football cards in the bin but again if I did that every time he wouldn't have any!
He openly admits he's a good boy at school And with other people, he tells me he's never going to stop moaning, that is sister does the right thing because she wants to but he doesn't, that he's naughty. He doesn't take responsibility for any of his behaviour, it's always someone else's fault when you speak calmly to him, he argued black is white. He tells me he loved a holiday club last week, wants to go again, so I book it then spends the morning of the holiday club telling me he doesn't want to go, won't put his shoes on etc. He can switch it on and off when he wants. He smirks and rolls his eyes and just will not listen when I am trying to speak to him.
He is now at a stage where he purposely wants to annoy us and it works! I try ignoring him but he just carries on, but I can't always ignore when it's something like cleaning teeth or we need to get out the house. I end up forcing him to do things out of sheer frustration as it's ended up in a shouting match and then I end up crying that I ve done that.
I don't feel like I have dealt with his emotional issues well enough previously and so he struggles to process his emotions. I was too strict before and didn't think about the reasons why he was behaving like this. I know this was wrong now and I think that's why we are where we are now. I have tried to reverse this by listening to him more and cuddling him to calm down and then talking about it afterwards, allowing him calm down time and not giving him too many instructions all at once. This works for that situation but it's temporary, he just does exactly the same thing the next time even though he knows the consequences.
He's pretty bright and will write letters to me telling me why he behaves as he does when things get really heated. How his thoughts get jumbled and how I give him too much information. How he can't control himself. He says I expect him to be perfect. I have done the above to try and solve this and as a result there are less incidents where things escalate and his behaviour gets extreme but he is still incredibly hard work on a day to day basis. I ve tried to say we don't expect him to be perfect and told him two big things he can do to try and make us both happier. He agrees on this but reverts straight back to normal behaviour when asked to do something he doesn't want to do.
I feel like we re not supporting him properly. I wonder if there is someone else I can take him to who he might be able to open up to and get what he needs from. Who could we take him to?
Sorry it's so long. I feel there's one one to talk to in RL, DH answer this morning was to tell me what I am doing is crap and nag me for posting on here. He wants to send him to his room every time and get rid of any Mable rewards. Everyone else things Ds is lovely as they don't see this side to him. He keeps it for us. I am sat here in tears.