Help with 7 year old boy

[Katiejjj]

Hello,
I’ve never posted on here but am at the end of my tether.
My son is 7 and has the most awful tantrums which go on for ages (hours) He is currently in his room, throwing things around, banging, shouting how much he hates me. Because I told him he had to do 10 minutes of school work. They always happen when I ask him to do something he doesn’t want to do.
He lost his temper, shouted, so I told him to go upstairs until he could calm down and apologise or have a proper conversation. That was 1.5 hrs ago and he is still going strong.
I feel like crying, no idea what to do any more. Most of the time he is a lovely boy, but this happens about once a week and it’s bloody awful. No idea how to deal with it. He says it’s my fault as I’m mean to him (because I ask him to do something he doesn’t want to do)
Any ideas?!! Thanks.
He does have a lot of boundaries and will often take no for an answer (or do what I ask) it’s around things he hates that there are issues. He really doesn’t like school work no matter how fun I try to make it.

Maybe he can't calm down. They can't all self regulate well at that age. Maybe he needs you to talk it through with him rather than sending him up to his room to deal with it alone.

Do you give him some warning/choice when something is coming up that he hates? And some motivation i.e. after school work we can do X? That can sometimes work to avoid the tantrum in the first place.

When I say he needs you to help him, I mean give him some ideas of HOW to calm down. It's no good just saying 'calm down' if he has no idea how.

So instead say 'ok, I can see you're really cross, let's count slowly down from 10 and then we can try again' or 'i can see you're too cross for school work right now let's go and scream into a pillow for a minute' or 'lets take some deep breaths' or 'lets go into the garden and talk about it'.

You should try teaching him some calm down techniques when he is having a good day so he had them in place to use when it's a bad day.

Thanks, I have taught him loads of calm down techniques...breathing, running up and down, shouting really loud, hitting a pillow, so much. When he is in that mood there is no talking to him at all, it’s completely pointless. I always give him warning of something he doesn’t like...what can I do to help, let’s set a timer for 10 mins then after we can do something nice.....etc
I had to send him upstairs as he was hitting out at me, kicking me, and tbh I was going to really lose it so needed him away from me....couldn’t leave him downstairs alone as too much too break:(
He’s in a lovely mood again now but I’m exhausted and not looking forward to it happening again:/
Thanks for the advice

It's really hard, particularly when they're violent.

Can you talk about it with him now that he's calm? Ask him why. And what you could do to help him make it stop next time.

Thank you, it is hard, and I just feel so useless, like such a bad mum:( He doesn’t know why he does it (or at least he can’t think of a reason or explain it). I’ve asked him to try and think of how we could do the things he doesn’t like without this happening, so maybe he will have some ideas! Thanks again

You're not a bad mum! Some kids are just slower to get to grips with handling their big emotions that's all. He'll get there. In the meantime don't take it personally.

It sounds like you're doing everything right. Don't give in to his tantrums. Keep the lines of communication open by being forgiving and understanding afterwards. Keep talking to him about it, he needs to know it's unacceptable, but also that you're there to help him make changes. Keep teaching him methods for coping with big emotions, you might need to go over and over and over them before he can put them into practise. Try and avoid the tantrums wherever possible by giving him as much control as you can. If you can manipulate the situation so he 'chooses' to do the thing that he doesn't like so much the better.

It will get better as he gets bigger.