6 year olds attitude is testing me!

[Mumt02]

My son turned 6 in march and my god his attitude is awful.

Constantly back chatting. Absolutely no respect for me and his dad the way he speaks to us sometimes is disgusting! Got an answer for everything, always looking for an argument. Also very very very emotional, crying over the slightest thing that just doesn’t need to be a big deal. At his football match today he came off crying at least 5 times. He missed a goal, he got tackled that sort of thing.

we’ve taking his iPad away from him till he starts behaving but it’s not working! He said today he doesn’t even care because he knows he’ll get I back one day. It’s been nearly a week without it. Every morning we say let’s try again today and be good and he never does! It’s like he doesn’t want to be good!

the attitude is just awful and I don’t know what to do with him 😩

any help would be appreciated.

Hi,
Posting here as a mum, but also temporarily putting on my job hat (I’m a behavioural consultant) with a few ideas that may help.
It’s so hard for parents as things are usually quite complex at this age - the big feelings start to increase alongside the importance of peers as 6yr olds acclimatise to the world of school and are out of your sphere of influence for many hours a week (which can be tricky to navigate). Hence the push pull of increasing ‘confidence’ (which can manifest as ‘cockiness’ &/or tactical ignoring) vs wanting to be little still and feeling overwhelmed. It’s something I see on the daily when I work with families on home visits.
First, the iPad thing. Taking it away would work well if the challenging behaviour related to it, but depending on personality and developmental level (obviously I don’t know this for you guys), it may just seem ‘unfair’ and may not help him develop insight. If you can, a natural consequence related to the behaviour usually works best. At a really simplistic level, that might be: You were angry that your ice cream wasn’t exactly as asked, so you chucked it on the floor. Wait for calm. Don’t talk about it immediately if you can avoid it, leave it as is (unless it’s on carpet or a soft furnishing!) and give him space. Don’t fill with words. Stay calm. If he’s upset, that’s different but assume a stormy distance and disappearing into another room. When he comes to you soon asking for something, you can say “Yes, absolutely I can xyz, after you’ve cleaned up the ice cream (again stay neutral), here’s a cloth, I can go and get the bin”. If he refuses, you wait, he’ll ask for something again soon (obviously this doesn’t include vital needs). Repeat. It takes calm tenacity. Once he’s cleaned up, a light thanks then move on as if nothing had happened, no immediate sanctions, wait until he’s calm and relaxed later. At this point I’d recommend a strategy I call ‘cognitive interview junior’ as children can hate to be lectured, told off or backed into a corner (as would we) and then hear nothing, but that’s too complicated to explain here, but the end result would be to wait til he’s engaged in something calm and ideally kinetic, like Lego, join in, then discuss and announce your sanction (natural consequence) e.g. thank you for cleaning up, I understand the ice cream wasn’t how you wanted it, next time you could tell me more/draw a picture/do it yourself with help/I can try to explain better but that won’t be tomorrow, because tomorrow there will be no ice cream as your consequence, Then ‘forward focus‘ him, telling him when he can have ice cream next and would he like to tell you what he’d like now, or later.
Sorry, I really went on and on, parenting can be so hard and there were so many parts to your post. It also looks like some specific work on self-regulation would be helpful, looking at communication styles and levels (maybe there’s a mismatch that isn’t helping), some work on impulse control etc etc. but you sound so invested in helping him, and having parents that care and want to help is the most important piece of the puzzle! Thinking of you. Xx

I also withdraw my help for rudeness. Not for essential things, of course, but if you're rude to people, they won't want to help you, and so no, I'm not helping with that puzzle/getting out the craft stuff/etc. until they've apologised for being rude (and asked nicely for whatever they want). You seldom have to wait long before they want help with something.

Depending on level of rudeness, I may also make them wait a bit longer for my help than they ordinarily would have – an apology doesn't necessarily make it all better instantly.