Please help, when do we stop distraction techniques and deal with anger issues?

[ByThePowerOfGreyskull]

DS1 is 4.11 and if we tread carefully he is a delightful little boy. Bright, interested in life, lots of friends at school, helpful at home.

HOWEVER, it just takes a question being worded a little less than VERY GENTLY, he slams doors, screams, shouts, kicks, hits, throws things.

I just don't know how much longer we should go ultra gently, tread on eggshells.

we have reward chart in the kitchen, if he is at the top of the rainbow on a Saturday morning he gets to choose a weekend treat from the tin (going to dim sum or swimming or that sort of thing)

He gets treat night on friday if he has done well during the week at school (this usually involves staying up 15 mins after his brother has gone to bed and looking at the stars in the garden or making pancake batter for the next morning (he LOVES cooking))

Anyway back to the point if you catch his anger at the right point he is easily distracted from it but once he is in full flow the only option is to sit it out, leaving him to come round in anything from 5-25 minutes.

HELP!

Difficult one, here are a few initial thougths, but I guess there comes a point where he has to learn to calm himself down, and sometimes venting anger is better than suppressing it. At 4.11 he is probably pretty linguistic so maybe you can talk to him before the next angry episode and ask him how he feels when he gets angry and tell him how you feel when he shouts and hits and throws things and the two of you could talk about ways to calm down when he is angry. Maybe tell him how you react if something makes you angry and how you calm down.

Is his anger frustration in disguise?

Maybe you could suggest, getting him to say I am feeling very angry because....and introduce a calm down area, a walk around the garden, deep breaths.

Walking on eggshells with him is not really an option, it is putting him in control - too much power for a little chap to handle.

he needs boundaries and to know its ok to feel angry sometimes but over big things, not normal life and hitting and so on is not an option.

Stop walking on eggshells. He is old enough to learn to control his behaviour. Personally, I think that while rewards are s good thing, "punishments" are also an important part of discipline. Maybe if he lost a reward point for every slammed door etc, he'd see that behaving that way has consequences.

Not sure I have anything helpful for you but wanted to empathise. My ds is just like this - he is almost 6. He has such a short fuse. We have 15 minutes of screaming and "I hate you!" over things many other kids would shrug their shoulders about. Sometimes I think he's getting better at controlling himself then we have a particularly angry couple of weeks again.

My personality doesn't really do walking on eggshells with anything so this has never been a great option for me. I do use playfulness and humour with him though, which can sometimes offset a potentially angry outburst. I would say this has been the most effective tool we have used.

Once he has calmed down he is completely fine again and often seems to be "making it up to me" with cuddles etc. Because of this I assume letting him vent is the best thing, although in public this can be awkward! He will have to learn to control himself in time, not sure how/when. When he's calm we can talk reasonably about what makes him angry and what he could do instead of screaming and shouting insults, but when he loses it, he loses it and can't seem to remember any of this.

Hopefully more people will be along who have come out the other end!

thanks for your replies,

I guess what I could do with is a week or so where we don't have much on where I can just play hardball, do you think if we did it would take longer than 2 weeks?

Not sure tbh. My ds is calmer if the environment is calmer, and can be very stubborn so taking the hard line doesn't work that well - he backs himself into a corner and we get stalemate.

I found a lot of helpful suggestions in a book called "Playful Parenting".

Hiya, was thinking about this in the wee small hours when my dd wouldn't go to sleep...so for what its worth, heres what I came up with...

If you stop eggshells overnight - your DS could react one of two ways, you could have ww3 or you could get short sharp shock and he realises you aren't playing ball anymore- only you can say which way you think it could go.

Its good that he can talk to you about it so
maybe, you could make a list of the things that set him off that you are having to tread so carefully about. make the list with him, and agree that you and the rest of the family would like him not to get so angry over these things and tackle them maybe two a week over a period of time. Make clear expectations that door slamming, hitting are totally unacceptable and he is a big boy now and shouldn't do it! (as amuminscot said - maybe you will have to withdraw some rewards/ treats as a punishment - or go the super nanny route and have him earn a treat)

Ask him how he feels when gets angry and why over some of the things - its is a control thing? he feels he can control you by these displays of anger - and it sound like he is as you are walking on eggshells.

Does he say he is sorry or just make it up with cuddles. He needs to begin to learn to say sorry AND understand what he is saying sorry for....sorry i hit you, etc.

I still occasionally slam doors when I'm very angry now so I suppose I wouldn't really have a problem with that tbh. I also don't really mind if a child shouts or screams . I do mind if they hurt anyone because of their anger.

I have a child who is very much like this and tbh I don't do treading gently either but actually ds just gets very angry a lot. He is slowly learning and he generally says 'I am angry because ... (and then explains why)' when he gets very upset.

We and his nursery spent 18 months encouraging him to use words instead of actions when angry and it is beginning to pay off.

He also tends to clench his hands and will sometimes sort of pinch/scratch/bite me but very gently if he gets very upset. I take that to mean he is beginning to control himself. A year ago the pinch/bite/hit would have been hard not restrained. I still continue to have no tolerance for it though no matter how gentle he is.

I have had to ride many many many many temper tantrums for ds though. Fundamentally I am not scared of him having them though and in some ways I think he has manged to learn how to control them only by having them IYSWIM.

I am by no means a calm parent but I am very calm during tantrums generally. I don't do ignoring and I don't do punishing for the tantrum as I don't see it as 'bad behaviour' as such, jsut as a child struggling to deal with their emotions.

It si hard in public though and I will say that sometimes when out I 'try a lot harder' to avert the tantrum than I might at home.

now 'I'm very angry because'(at 4.3) says /

thanks for all your replies,

have played hardball today. it seems to be paying off (for today at least)

we have talked further about the reward chart and that there are also consequences for behavior we don't like.

I nipped a tantrum in the bud in the car on the way home from school, not by pacifying him as usual, just by asking what he was really cross about, he ignored me so I guessed and he agreed so we talked about whether it was something worth getting very cross about and he said no - and then he said it was very tiring getting so cross all the time.

He kicked off again when playing in the garden and I pointed out that he could go down the reward chart as well as up and he smiled and carried on playing with his brother.

He is always clear whyhe has been angry and afterwards articulates well what has annoyed him. it is more about getting him to do it before kicking off

it is nice to hear that I am not alone in having a spirited child

Mine too... . My only comfort is that he's only like it with us at home, never at school or elsewhere. So if your lo is the same (which I'd bet he is), it's about testing things out with the people you trust most. At home too, you can let your emotions go in a way that you can't elsewhere, which I think though annoying, is actually quite healthy for a child as they need to feel anger and know what that does to them to work out how to control it, iyswim.
Having said that, I'm not at all saying let it go and give in. We most definitely don't, but I do think there's a balance between a complete rage of frustration and a manipulative yell in an attempt to get your own way. If it's the former, I sit quietly and wait for it to stop, then give him a cuddle just like I did when he was a terrible two year old, as he's very genuinely upset and distraught. If it's the latter I give him a warning along the lines of 'if you don't stop you'll have to go to your room'. Either way though, he doesn't get his way. We don't do the reward thing - we expect reasonable behaviour, so he doesn't get treats when he is iyswim. Not sure if that would work for you or not though. Suppose it depends on how bad he is