To summarise, if Im honest, Im starting to actually dislike my 7 year old son. He has become obnoxious lately; aggressive, rude, ungrateful - kind of what I expected of the teen years. For example today, first day of the bank holiday, Im spending the afternoon indoors, as the park and pizza outing we had planned was cut short due to him exploding when his father and I didn’t want to do exactly what he did. He straight away started screaming and calling us stupid names and pinching and hitting us. So we bought him home, put him in his room to calm down, and since he’s still being obnoxious and refusing to apologise, we're all stuck indoors. How our son is, is putting intolerable pressure on mine and his dads relationship. His dad can barely tolerate him a lot of the time and has had to leave the house to get away from him. His dad automatically blames me, as in his view Im the primary carer and must be too soft on him - Im the one that will try and reason with him and explain why what he’s done is wrong. I’ve just now had to bring him in from the garden when he threw his ball over the fence and he again immediately started screaming and shouting at me. I know all kids have days like this, I often wonder if all mums feel like this sometimes? I feel like this most of the time. No matter how positively I start each day his hatred often has me in tears by the end of the school run and no matter how much I look forward to picking him up I generally end up feeling angry and frustrated once the reality of our afternoon hits me - i.e. if a friend is not available, or I need to go to the supermarket or he need to do homework or anything other than the playdate he’s set his heart on. He has an OK social life - mainly because Ive made myself the available mum that facilitates playdates - and if Im honest I find every other kid better company than mine. Im proud of loads of his achievements and I know he struggles more than others with most school and social related things. But I just want to like him a bit more and I want us all to be happier. I should add Im naturally positive and optimistic, Im reasonably outgoing and friendly, I exercise and have supportive friends.
He’s always been 'harder work' than other kids; once he started school it became obvious he had auditory processing issues and the attendant frustrations - and we have made great progress with Tomatis listening therapy (and a tutor). Im vague about it because we have only had a general paediatric assessment (which was inconclusive) so far and have been on a waiting list for the follow up for over 6 months. Im getting as much support as the school can offer without an actual diagnosis (which seems so far off Im not even sure if its worth pursuing) - he has a one-to-one weekly with the family liaison officer who does role plays with him to explore how he reacts when things don’t go his way. She says he knows whats expected and doesn’t want to be this way - which broke my heart - but it seems he can’t control the impulse. Its had no apparent effect on his behaviour at home, he even says, when he’s in a rage, that he’s not going to listen to what she told him.
I actually enjoy maybe 1 day a month of parenting, the rest of the time, I feel like Im firefighting and Im exhausted.
Has anyone else's 7 year old emerged from this into a decent, well adjusted human being?