Thinking of not giving my son his main present.

[MrsPeregrine]

This year my son was going to get a new bike. It’s a brand new Frog one and it cost me £499, a lot more than I would normally spend on one Christmas present, but his current bike is a 3rd or 4th hand one that is heavy and stiff so difficult to ride, doesn’t have gear etc. He has other presents that he will be getting too.

However, his behaviour towards the whole family hasn’t been great at times and yesterday was particularly bad. He’s 9. This morning I woke up to him walking in our room asking if he could go on an elf hunt with his sister. I told him not to wake her up and he ended up shouting at us both and calling me a bitch and telling me I’m a rude shit several times.

Im absolutely disgusted and this behaviour is on another level to how he has been previously. I worry about what he will be like when he is older and him terrorising us in our own home. We live in a terraced house and he knows we worry about annoying the neighbours by being too noisy so if we tell him off he starts shouting and it gets louder and louder. He hit me yesterday. His sister who is 7 has never sworn at us or hit us and is generally very well behaved. She knows my son is getting a bike this year and I stupidly told him that he is getting a big present this year - which I regret now.

I just think after the way he has behaved and spoken to me this morning he doesn’t deserve it snd it’s like we will be rewarding his bad behaviour so will send the wrong message. His birthday is in April so we could save it for then. At the same time I dont want there to be a big fall out or upset tomorrow as it would ruin the day for my daughter and I don’t want him shouting and yelling when our neighbours are trying to have a peaceful day too.

What would you do?

Wish I had added a poll now and have just tried to edit my post to add one but it won’t let me.

I definitely agree that presents/Christmas should not be used as rewards for good behaviour.

He is a very unhappy little boy.
Not giving him his gifts, is going to make him more unhappy.

If he’s acting up on Christmas Day, then wait until he calms down and apologises before giving it to him but don’t use them as a reward/punishment.

His behaviour obviously needs sorting and I would try and get to the route of the problem.

Have you spoke to school about his behaviour?
He could be being bullied, especially if he’s using that sort of language.

I would look into clubs like boxing or other sport.
The exercise is great for getting rid of their built up anger, and it also gives them a supportive group.

Where is your DH in all of this? Reading your OP I assumed you were a single parent, but see you're not.

A 9yo rampaging around the house, calling his mother a bitch and hitting her is NOT the behaviour of a well adjusted, happy child.

He is either being exposed to violence/ abuse in the home, accessing it online, experienced trauma of some kind or has something neurological/medical going on.

I would be making an appointment with my GP for the new year.

That’s really shocking behaviour from a 9 year old boy. Does he ever speak to your husband like that? What was you and your husbands response? It should’ve been immediately dealt and the root of this behaviour investigated and tackled as a matter of urgency. What were the consequences for your son?

I don’t think it’s fair to blame friends at school for using bad language. I’m sure even if they are using the word bitch in the playground, they’re not necessarily going home and using it on their mothers and hitting her as well!!

That’s all on your son I’m afraid. I went to a primary school were everyone swore and not once did I swear at my mum nor did my older brothers. Not one of us hit her.

Although he does seem to have anger issues which may or may not stem from something going on at school. It still needs to dealt with robustly whether you give him the bike or not. If he’s like this at 9 and it doesn’t get appropriately addressed I can’t imagine how he will be like by the time he’s at secondary school!

I would give the presents but I would have come down very heavy if my son called me such names at the time. I.e. no console, stay in bedroom, heavy conversations, until he had profusely apologised sort of punishment

The problem here is that he is only 9. For some reason he's very angry and determined to push boundaries. If you withhold his main present, which he has been promised, and you tell him that it's because he's been a rude and unkind, then you set yourself up for a lifetime of him remembering (and reminding you, and telling everyone else) that when he was 9 he was a little bit naughty one Christmas (he won't remember how) and you punished him by not giving him a Christmas gift and telling him it was because he was a bad child. Whereas his sister (the perfect golden child) was good and therefore much more loved and got all the presents and smugly flaunted them in front of him while he sat there, emotionally abused and unloved. And that will be his truth.

This is going to scar him for life and make his behaviour worse, not better. Far from teaching him a lesson, he will forever be the victim and the scapegoat and you will mark yourself out as an emotional abuser and cruel mother. Meanwhile he will continue to behave like a horror because he will feel wounded and want to lash out. He doesn't yet have the emotional or intellectual capacity to see that some actions have unwanted consequences.

He sounds like he needs some sort of professional intervention but trust me, Christmas Day isn't the day to get a backbone and tackle this.

OP although yesterday was particularly bad you say it's not the first time his behaviour has been challenging. How have you addressed this up to now?

Withholding his present (which I know you're not going to do now) is a nuclear option. This needs dealing with on a daily basis.

I agree with the long bike rides.

Fresh air and exercise are so important.

I always took my DD for long walks/bike rides and the difference in behaviour was incredible.

It gives you both a chance to talk about things too.

You can go as a family but you could also go with just you and him or just his dad and him, whilst the other parent does similar somewhere else with DD.

He will feel much more comfortable talking 1-1 and it’ll give you a chance to rebuild the relationship.

@recyclingisaPITA
I thought simikar re the daughter. For a start 7 is different than 9 anyway.

I wish I can remember which book I read that had a chapter about not scapegoating one child and how to rebuild and improve behaviour. I think it wss 'how to talk so kids will listen' but not 100% sure.

Op you're saying you're great parents, a great team, your daughter is great so all this is on HIM and is his fault, but kids don't work like that.

Something is going on. Some thing is influencing him. School. Wider family. Online. SEN. MH. What you and his Dad are doing in response isn't curbing it.

DA gets overwhelmed and screams at me. I get overwhelmed and recognise that my reaction to him isn't always conducive to resolving the issue. I'm owning that and trying to fix my response. There's nothing awful I'm his life but his ability to put his lovely if working class life into perspective when he can't do something he wants is poor. It's a family issue.

I think you need to address his behaviour consistently and with consequences directly linked to and proportionate to his misbehaviour at the time. Withholding his main present doesn't do this, as its not an appropriate consequence for any single act, and you've lumped together a serise of things, in your mind in a way he won't iyswim? So no, give him his bike as planned, but resolve to implement a strategy for dealing with his behaviour going forward.

I agree his behaviour sounds deeper. Not giving him a much looked forward to Christmas present might work if he is totally in control of his behaviour and doing it for attention. However it sounds deeper and more like a response to things he isn't coping with internally. Not giving the bike will give him one more tricky thing to deal with and probably push him further into not managing and behaving badly as a result. I question whether punishing is just, and even if it is, it isn't likely to result in a nice Christmas for any of you.

Are you criticising him now than praising him? If so, he will respond with bad behaviour in order to get a reaction. Praise him when he is quiet, say thank you for being considerate. It's so lovely to watch you playing quietly. You are such a considerate boy. Well done on helping your sister.

He will respond really well and you can praise him again. He will be much happier.
When he does use bad language you can say when you do X (bad language) I feel Y (hurt, upset). Don't tell him he's a bad boy, say he behaved badly.

When I was growing up, our neighbours were two brothers, who could be quite naughty, at times. One year, they were threatened with no Christmas presents if they misbehaved. It didn’t work. As a result, their mother didn’t give them their Christmas presents until Easter. It was horrible! They grew up, moved out and never went back to visit. Are you sure your DS’s behaviour isn’t due to being overexcited and tired? I’d give him the present and try to enjoy the day. He’s a child and doesn’t understand adult emotions.

Let him have his gift, have a word with him once Christmas is over OP, hitting is totally unacceptable and he need to know that can NEVER happen again, has he any worries about school, online bullying SM etc, it might just be general growing up pushing boundaries of course. But you need to set boundaries now, because before you know it he will be towering over you. If you have a partner be consistent if either of you are disrespected, DH & I would always back each other up, with rudeness, but neither of my two ever hit out at us, that must have been really upsetting. I agree not to reward bad behaviour, but a Christmas present is a different matter entirely.

The last sentence - read it OP and digest and then look at what happened this morning and what he reacted to.

Without meaning to I wonder if you have created this notion of a golden child, the child who can do no wrong whose behaviour is to be held up as an example - she cannot be woken earlier either. So he is going the other way because he isn’t his sister it is his natural behaviour and he can’t be her so he is angry

@MrsPeregrine I haven’t RTFT but I suggest the book “How to talk so kids will listen and listen so kids will talk”

It is truly excellent and delivers very fast results, podcasts available if you need a quick fix!

Apologies if it has been mentioned above.

Also try the praise strategy. It sounds counterintuitive but start showering your son with praise even for the smallest things. It starts to break the toxic spell.

Mum of 3 here including one (now teen) DS who was pretty tricky. Also a former teacher and showering difficult / riotous year 8 classes with praise and positivity always delivered a turnaround.

kids get “locked in” to a grey difficult behavior and praise can start to melt it.

You're not a mind reader and if he hasn't always been like this then he is probably reacting to something that you might not be aware of.

Yes. Well-behaved can also equal "scared to step out of line".

I read the OP thinking this DC is a potential candidate for the stately homes thread, but couldn't quite put my finger on why. Then again, we have only a few short posts from OP to go on, so perhaps expecting to see everything is an unreasonable expectation by me of myself. Other posters have crystallised it for me though - it's his choice of words.

Everyone has focused on the calling her a bitch part. That is strong language from a 9yr old, but it's a standard insult for a difficult person and it concerns me more that he's called her rude. Combine the two and it does paint quite the picture, and rather articulately for a young boy. It's a strange response to being told not to wake his sister to do something fun. So perhaps he wasn't actually responding to that and that event was just the last straw that tipped him over the edge.

The favouritism and obvious resentment from OP towards him for not being better behaved like his sister, which he will almost certainly feel on some level even if it's subconscious (if I can observe it through the internet, imagine how much stronger it'll feel to him in the room with her), could be enough to cause angry outbursts.

It cements my advice to OP. Look to your parenting, because if DS is behaving like this, your parenting is far from perfect.

If you give hi the present, you would be rewarding him for atrocious behaviour.

You've had lots of wise advice on here: Give him bike, have a long chat, work out where the language has come from, consider whether the golden younger sibling has created a dichotomy between their behaviours that plays itself out on a daily basis.

Having been through similar, here's my own bit of wisdom on your situation: If he's having a tantrum, do not placate him/give him what he wants/apologise/close the windows. He sees that you're desperate to avoid bothering the neighbours and this makes you desperate to avoid this behaviour. This makes you back down/back pedal. Do not worry what the neighbours think of the noise. You can always have a word later.

No it wouldn’t be.

They are 2 completely different things.

His behaviour is awful but he’s obviously struggling and is very unhappy.

Punishing by not giving him his main present (especially one that will help with his behaviour), is not going to make his behaviour any better.

ND, from my experience.
And without making excuses for him.

I agree @recyclingisaPITA there seems to me to definitely be a golden child vibe for a 7 year old girl here that needs addressing

What was the punishment for his behaviour yesterday?

I would also be checking what else he is using the laptop for. If he has access to Minecraft he has access to the internet. A lot of parent controls can be gotten around if the kids are savvy enough. Plus if chat is available on Minecraft he could be talking to anyone - is he using a private realm, or the built in severs or open severs?