My 5 Year old is "malicious, nasty and vindictive", says bf. Truble is I think I agree.

[Oblomov]

My ds1 (5.7) has just gone into year one. This morning he said something to me that really shocked me. And saddened me. I was shocked by his thought processes - what had made the brain jump from one thought to another. Mentioned it to very good friend - she has a child in the same class. She and her dh were truely shocked.
We have had alot of bad behaviour over the last year. Not responding to rewards or punishments. I have posted about this before.

What do I do. Talk to the school. Take him to Dr ? I don't trust GP or HV. I don't want 'pyschological damaged' on his school records or anything.
Or maybe I am totally over-reacting. Is not unheard of
What do you think ?

Ds has had a lot of his nintendo ds this weekend. Totally ignored dh when he came home last night, because so engrossed.
Said to him this morning, no ds. just have a break, have it back tomorrow.
said he was really cross.
Then he said "right, I am going to be badly behaved from now on. Just to ruin your day. that will make you really sad"
"Nothing you can do can make me sad"

So, if this is not vindictive and nasty, then what is it ?
And can you be so nasty at aged 5.
This is clearly a child in control, non ? He is a bit too savvy for my liking.

What do I do ?

I'm starting to wonder whether it's the friend who's being a touch "malicious, nasty and vindictive" tbh - do you think she gladly leapt on the chance to say how bad your ds was because it's normally her kid's behaviour causing problems?

Sounds like your friend is being horrid to be honest not your son

Agree with the previous posters. I have a 5 year old, and she would try on such things - I think it is normal 5 year old behaviour. At other times, she can be loving and helpful and kind too - there is nothing wrong with her, she just lashes out sometimes when it all gets too much for her.

We deal with her by making her realise that her actions has got consequences, so if she said something like that I'd probably reply along the lines off "Yes, you could do that - but then you'd have the toy confiscated all day tomorrow too. Or you could be good today and maybe I'll let you have a little go later/tomorrow . Its your choice."

We have also talked lots to her about managing her emotions and turning her behaviour around (she can sometimes get into a negative cycle, where she just makes things worse and worse because she can't see how to back down... so we have talked about how she can do this). She knows its down to her and her choices as to how things end up. I think at the moment we have a 50% success rate of her turning it around! (Which usually gets lots of praise as to how mature she is etc etc...)

I realise that makes my DD sound awful, and honestly she's not. 90% she is a delightful little girl, but she is quite intelligent and her emotional levels are not always at the same level, and so on the rareish occasions she goes off on one, she really goes off on one. Last big one we had was July. When it happens, it is usually because she has got herself caught up in behaviour that she doesn't know how to undo - so then when she feels as though she's got nothing to lose, she'll go the whole hog. So we emphasise her choices, sanctions for making bad choices and lots of praise / reward for making good choices. Slowly, but surely we are getting there and she really is turning into a delightful little girl.
Sorry that was long, but I HTH.

I agree with nickschick about the technology exposure. But I think it's specifically nintendo and its ilk that require your total absorbtion for quite long stretches that I would object to, where you can't have a random thought or take your eyes off it, and the game is often rather fast paced, unlike a lot of computer games designed for 5 yo's, where you can do them at your own pace, relax a bit, look around, etc. Some are even 'educational'.

Interesting.
Thanks Karam.
There is so much to digest from everyones posts.
Have dropped myself in it with friend for totally accidentally telling someone more than i should have today. Me and my big gob. I am so cross with myself.

So I may have to work doubly hard to sort things, when I do eventually next speak to her.

It never rains but it pours, eh ?

my dcs were quite capable of saying shocking things and they didn't have nintendos when they were 5; in fact, when dd was 5 we didn't even have a television

reading the child development book I was given at school back in the 70s (yes, child development was a compulsory subject), this was something that 5yos did well before the invention of electronic games

karam has plenty of good advice

Hi Oblomov

From your ds's point of view he's had a steep learning curve year, new baby brother, starting school etc etc.

He certainly sounds pretty normal.

It's horrid when they behave 100% at school and save it all up for mummy & daddy dearest!

Hope you are all doing well. The joys of parenting.......my "baby" is off to school next week

Glad you are feeling better now.

As others have said, he is not being nasty, vindictive and malicious, he is just beig a normal 5yr old testing the boundaries and trying to get a rise and reaction out of you. He is usig shock tactics if you like.

I think it's not obvious to children of that age that you can't say hurtful things.

A clever mother I know says to her kids "You have to be kind" a lot. I've never heard her say it, but I've heard her kids saying it to my son when he wasn't being kind and it's obvious that it's something that's been said to them. Pretty impressive.

He's not bad it's the nintendo wii. I've had to ban the wii from my ds as he was a nightmare. I mentioned it to the childminder and she said she was having the same problem with her boy. It's not good for them,

In my house we call it the wii monster and I only kept it to weekends and now we just avoid it like the plague. He would poo and wet himself playing it and trying to get him to come off he would scream blue murder at me. On top of that he was really aggressive. Once we took it away he was back to being happy. It's not good.

All kids like to be in control - mine try it all the time. You have to be one step ahead of them all the time. I also think it may be good for you all to spend time as a family as well. Try to get out to a theme park/farm/zoo/park. That will help everyone to gel a bit more.

Oblov - as you've said there are some really sensible posts on here and I agree with most of them. My DD is also 5 and she can behave in the way you said, some things I've discovered are 1) TV and Computer make her behaviour worse 2) focusing on the bad behaviour makes it worse, try distractions instead 3) she can say awful things, but she doesn't actually understand the real meaning. (for example she once told me she wished I was dead, when I asked her what 'dead' meant she didn't know) Overall though she is a bright, loving and imaginative little girl not vindictive or nasty at all.

Also, remember they behave the worse where they feel the safest and being well behaved all day at school is hard going at 5 so its no wonder they let off steam at home.

Good luck, you sound lovely and I'm sure your DS's are great. Ignore your friend she sounds jealous.

Haven't read all of this, but Oblomov, you say yourself he's good as gold at school, so I wouldn't worry. He's just started a new year at school, that's really hard for them and let's face it he is only five. Mine could be a teenager some days he's so stroppy, so you're not alone. I think karam speaks a lot of sense too. Here we try and keep calm, but also make sure we win. DS never, ever gets away with being rude to us. He still tries it though

I have a 7yo ds, and this is totally what he was like at age 5. I also have 2 girls (one older, one younger) and they never seem to get so focussed on the computer games as ds does.

We have set some quite strict rules round the "screen" - no TV in the morning before school through the week, but they can watch on Sat/Sun morning (gives me and dh a bit of a lie in!). Then no more TV until after tea. At parents discretion!! If its a nice day they usually want to be outside anyway.

Computer games - strictly half an hour per day Mon-Fri and one hour a day at the weekend. This can be on ds, playstation or laptop. At the weekend I split it into 2 sessions, unless ds has all the neighbourhood primary school age boys in playing something cooperative on the playstation, which happens quite a lot - and I'm impressed with what he has learned about sharing, taking turns, cooperative play etc in doing that.

Also, computer play is in the lounge - where I can keep an eye! We only have one TV and there are no "screens" allowed upstairs (except on the very rare occasions one wants to watch a very different dvd to the others - last time it happened it was Dd1 and ds wanted to watch Star Wars and dd2 wanted to watch "Barbie and the Magic of Pegasus" so she took my laptop up and watched it in her room.

Sorry - I'm wittering on.

What I really wanted to say was that at 5 my ds was very challenging, would say hurtful things and be deliberately naughty just to "make mummy sad". Now, at 7 and a half he is delightful. Warm, loving, helpful, calm etc .... (except with his sisters, of course......)