Challenging 9 year old

[user1495827045]

Our 9 year old son had always had difficulty regulating his emotions and can become quite angry quickly and over what others would perceive to be small things. He had calmed down and had matured but in this last few weeks he has struggled again. At home, he has been saying things like 'I'm ugly' 'I want to die' 'I'd be better off gone' 'I'm a bad person'. We try and talk to him however he gets angry and can't seem to share why he feels the way he does. The last 2 days of school have been horrific, he slapped another child yesterday which resulted in him being banned from football and missing 20 minutes lunch- the teacher said he felt he had been provoked. Today however, he has slapped another child at breaktime because he said they were shouting in his ear. He then refused to leave the classroom and told his teacher he hates them (I know this isn't true as he says how much he loves her!) He then went down to the headteacher and spent an hour there before being able to return to class after lunch. The headteacher agrees he suffers with very low self esteem and said she was concerned as he is able to show remorse but no responsibility. He also likes to have something in his mouth, I thought this was to replace his thumb sucking but now I'm not sure and is also heavily obsessed with football- which is a common theme, before that it was pokemon and up until about 6 it was solidly Thomas the Tank Engine. He can be very silly around friends and shows off which comes across as immature. He can also be very messy and has recently had a really poor attitude. He is very intelligent - very good at maths. He also shows no regard for safety and will quite often run across the road before checking it is safe. I just really don't know what to do anymore - school are going to put him forwards for some emotional support but have said they don't think it's anything other than emotional regulation difficulty. It doesnt help that they agree it is a tricky year group with lots of strong characters. Is anyone else going through this and does anyone have any suggestions to help?

I would read up on ADHD.

Immaturity, lack of emotional regulation, not able to take responsibility and being quick to anger could all be signs, especially when you put them all together

Thankyou, I'm not sure where we begin with it though? Is it worth trying to get a diagnosis or just making sure we try to support our son still as much as we can? We have been looking at play therapy for him to help talk about his emotions with someone he doesn't know.

If he's hitting other children now I would speak to the school about how you get him assessed for ADHD and ASD. Puberty and High School are in the horizon and if he's not coping now, it's very unlikely to get better once those two hit.

Play Therapy might help in the short term however he may not actually be able to talk about how he's feeling, my DD can't.

Sounds alot like my 8 yo who was diagnosed ASD in reception. Constant negative self talk and talk about harming others if they are better than him or beat him in a game he wants to go and find them. Haven't found a way round it really in himself he is fine but it's like when he gets in this state he's a different person because at baseline he's so sweet and lovely. I now homeschool as school got too much and he too is very intelligent but just couldn't cope and was getting angry and physical with people.

Also says he wants to kill himself and runs away from us if he's overwhelmed or if he's fell over/hurt himself he will just run out of wherever we are which means I can't take both kids out on my own it's too much of a risk!

Hope things get better for you I know it's hard!!