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.

Which is why she should have dealt with the atrocious behaviour at the time. Not waited a few days to extract revenge, which is what not giving him the bike seems like.

She's angry with him and wants to make herself feel better by taking her anger out on him, by hurting him by withholding his present. It's public humiliation (even if the public is just mum, stepdad and sister) to shame him. It's cruel and nasty. And troubling that OP sees it as a possible substitute for dealing with his behaviour at the time it occurred ie parenting properly.

At least OP asked on here and wasn't so convinced she was right that she just went ahead and did it. It means there's hope for this family to turn things around.

Who has previously called him a “rude shit”?

You mention your DD being very well behaved, and what triggered his outburst was, in response to him making a nice suggestion, you asked him not to wake his sister. Did you initially react in a positive way to his idea? Had he even mentioned that he was going to wake his sister, does he have form for deliberately waking her up, or were you just anticipating that he was about to do something 'naughty'? Because I think the context here is important and might give you a clue to his outburst. I'm not excusing it - I'm just wondering if he feels that you prefer his sister because she's 'easier' and you immediately wanted to 'protect' her sleep rather than join in his excitement? (I'm not saying you DO prefer her, but his perception here is important).

I agree with PPs - don't link gifts, especially at Christmas, with behaviour. That will likely only make his behaviour worse.

It's public humiliation (even if the public is just mum, stepdad and sister) to shame him

@recyclingisaPITA Not the main point of your post but is there a stepdad involved? I couldn’t see where Op has mentioned her husband isn’t the sons bio dad?

This. There absolutely needs to be consequences to treating you that way, but personally I feel withholding gifts can come across as if parental love is conditional. I think consequences for bad behaviour belong in a different 'bucket' myself.

When my nephew did similar to my sister her DH took DC aside and reminded him his Mum had given birth to him and loved him every single day of his life and was one of the two people who loved him the most in the world and told him he'd be making a big mistake if he did it again. Just kind words but it made a difference and nephews behaviour towards his Mum improved. Could your DH try this. Sometimes the obvious just needs pointing out to a DC.

I have a similar age son, I find a week off screens really helps his mood massively, make sure he can't watch youtube at all it is full of shouty idiots. Early nights, less sugar.. all thr usual stuff but I find when they are going through a period of being little shhhts then you need to reign everything in for a while. Make sure there are no tv shoes eith this kind of behaviour on at home like eastenders for example. Then talk to him, and give him an alternative punishment. The bike you can give but you can also take it away. You have some time now without school as an influence to influence him. Fresh air, walks, only watching happy things on tv and an outlet for his testosrerone as boys have certain periods where they have bursts of testosterone and they go a bit crazy. Its all normal but you can nip it in the bud. Good luck you can sort it out .

His behaviour is beyond unacceptable. But I don't agree with not giving a promised Christmas present as a punishment. Agree with firm talking to about bad behaviour.

You've had a lot of good advice on this thread, @MrsPeregrine , and it sounds like you have a plan going forward.
I am turning into an old lady who enjoys doling out advice, but just a couple of other ideas to add to the mix:

• when my kids were about that age (one challenging child, two easy ones like your daughter), one thing that worked surprisingly well was their "Good Things" charts. It was so simple. Everyone had an A3 bit of paper on the wall with their name in the middle like a spider diagram. Every time they did something good, I wrote it on. So the little one had things like "put socks on by myself", the oldest one had "set the table without being asked" or whatever. It worked for nearly a year, but I couldn't believe how well it worked. Well worth a try, it can't hurt!
• the new year is a good time for renewal. You can model good behaviour as parents; recognise some rubbish habits you've got into, and make a real effort to change. Could feed into the Good Things sheet, so you and your husband have one too. I bet the kids will LOVE pulling you and your husband up on things! It's good to show that getting into bad habits is natural, but we can always learn and grow. Make it a team effort.
• Sounds like you are on the cusp of gaming causing issues. Around starting secondary school age, we moved over to having a gaming PC in the living room. While we're not without issues, I am fairly sure this has saved us from some massive massive problems - we're an open plan house, so the gaming is all done in public. Definitely worth considering.

I hope you and your family have a lovely Christmas, OP. Sounds like you are ready for a quick chat with your son today, and then park it until after Christmas. Most likely he is just a bit over-excited! But there's definitely some behaviours there to address when everything has calmed down. All best wishes.

The fact you were considering spending 500 quid for a 9 yearvold says it all. He's spoilt rotten, calling you a bitch is just beyond the beyond. Give him a stocking, no big gifts

His behaviour should absolutely be addressed, but Christmas gifts shouldn’t be used as discipline tools imo.

I have been in a similar position. DS has ADHD, and I thought that having firm boundaries, consequences etc was the best way to parent him. More than one Christmas
consisted of me wanting to withhold gifts- I never did it, but at the time felt I should.
I felt like giving him gifts was rewarding him for his behaviours, letting him get away with it.

I was wrong, I know better now. It'll be different for each individual child of course, but I know my DS was actually totally overwhelmed and disregulated. Different routines, excitement of Christmas, everything going on at school- threatening with Santa just made that worse! I'm not saying your son could have ADHD of course but there's no harm in trying strategies aimed at helping with the condition.

I agree with many other posters that he should get the bike. Partly because if he doesn’t it will probably spoil Christmas for you as much as him.

Undortunately I am not surprised at the language towards his parent. As a secondary school teacher the worst language against teachers recently definitely comes from the year 7 and 8 kids. We are regularly getting called cunts and bitches and the male teachers are constantly being called paedos.
This is a fairly recent thing in the you get years and I can only assume it is being driven by online material.

I mean the deal is you get presents for being nice and coal for being naughty - that's the game.

You could get him a lump of coal / an orange and wrap it in place of an imaginary gift that he hasn't got and on the label / attached letter write that Santa has taken a gift and left the coal because of X, Y, Z. But that would depend on whether he would take it as a reminder of good behaviour and light hearted or whether he would kick off and I expect it would be the latter.

Check what he's watching online, and your DH needs to deal with the disrespect to you. He should have stepped in straight away.
Boys this age look up to their fathers and male role models. He needs to be told firmly that the language and attitude shown to you will not be tolerated: that is not how a boy speaks to his mother (or anyone else, incidentally).

I wouldn’t give him the bike, absolutely no way. I would tell him I’d bought it but then decided he didn’t deserve it and would be waiting until I felt like he did deserve it to give it to him. This would be providing you have bought him a few other, smaller gifts.
I’m not into all this getting to the root cause if his behaviour BS, it just sounds like to me as though he’s being naughty and I couldn’t reward that. I can see that’s not what everyone would do, but for my child and my family I 100% wouldn’t be giving him the bike after the recent behaviour you've described OP

Does he have internet access on his laptop?
I would remove that immediately if so.
You can play Minecraft offline. Those servers are full of older kids and adults, and if he's displaying signs of misogynistic language and disrespecting his mother at 9 then he needs to be severely restricted as to how he access stuff like game servers, YouTube, etc. also his Dad needs to have a word and not leave it all up to you.

Does he have access to YouTube Shorts or TikTok? Or are his peers quoting memes at school?

One of my kids came home recently and told me about a kid who got in trouble for telling the teacher to get back to the kitchen and make a sandwich. A ten year old. There was also chat about women " being b1tches who drain men's wallets". The brainrot these kids have access to is mind-blowing.

Christmas is irrelevant at this point, just do whatever you were going to do - he's still your very young son, but he's clearly picking this aggression and language up from somewhere. My guess would be servers and school friends with phones.

Year 7 and Year 8 is like 12-13 though isn’t it? That’s significantly older than 9 years old. I think hitting your mum and calling her a bitch is surprising. This isn’t normal behaviour for most kids especially of that age.

Re. School It does depend on the secondary school. I am not a teacher anymore (wasn’t called those names to my face ever) but I sometimes run workshops in schools and many of my friends are teachers - and this isn’t always the reality.

Some of the teachers I know may have had the odd occasion where a child has been verbally abusive but it’s not routine or considered acceptable. But I do appreciate some schools are tougher than others.

Personally I could never accept being called a cunt and a bitch on a regular basis, so I’m glad I didn’t face that when I was a teacher.

However, I don’t think this should be normalised in any context but especially not from a 9 year old boy to his mum.

I do agree he should get the bike as planned though because withholding it seems a lazy and ineffective way of disciplining him. This bad and disrespectful behaviour seems like it’s been allowed to fester and escalate to the point of violence.

It needs to be addressed robustly every single time on the same day it happens, rather than just trying to use gifts as a way to discourage bad behaviour.

My 12 year old was an absolute horror yesterday and I lost my temper with him and told him (shouted at him) that it was unacceptable and he needed to do the thing i asked of him (which he eventually did) and today he is being a complete angel. If he had called me a bitch I certainly wouldn’t have been presenting him with a £500 present though. I’m intrigued as to how you handled it at the time? I also have a sassy eight year old and he would t dare call me a bitch. He’s more clued up than that 🤬

Love this.
I find getting angry doesn't work but having a calm chat about how words can make others feel is very effective.

You've had some good advice upthread but also wanted to mention it sounds a bit like you don't respond quickly enough to nip his behaviour in the bud.

Don't worry about your neighbours putting in sound complaints - do what's required to set boundaries without giving him a tool which he can use against you. Firmly and neutrally tell him when his behaviour is unacceptable in the moment as soon as it begins. If he kicks off, don't panic.

Unfortunately, if your emotions go haywire then his won't settle either. You've got to remain calm, reaffirm your love for him, but gently assert boundaries. You can help him regulate his emotions but don't give any indication that you're rolling back on the overall message that his behaviour was not acceptable.

I think kids do best with a "firm but fair" approach where bad behaviour is pulled up instantly, neutrally and consistently. If you occasionally let things slide then they feel like you're being unfair when you do pull them up on being poorly behaved. Knowing what to expect from your response gives them a sense of security.

Best of luck for tomorrow OP, I hope you have a great day

I’m genuinely shocked by people saying the language was just “not okay.” Not okay? A 9-year-old calling his mother a bitch is way beyond that—how is this being normalized? If I had spoken to my mother like that, I would have faced serious consequences, and rightly so.

Unpopular take, but I’d withhold the present. Kids need to learn that actions have consequences, especially as they prepare for the real world, where bad behavior doesn’t go unchecked. Sure, talking to him is important, but without real consequences, he’s not likely to grasp the seriousness of his actions. Sometimes a firm stance teaches a lesson that words alone can’t.

Additionally, I’d be looking much more closely at his circle of friends. Does he have a phone?. See what he’s browsing, how he’s communicating with other kids—does he use foul language? Is he playing games that aren’t age-appropriate, like Fortnite? Regularly checking in on these things can provide insight into what’s influencing his behavior

I actually gasped and said 'Oh my god' when I hit the part where you said he called you a bitch and started shouting at you. And then read further to see that he acts like this a lot and actually hit you!

Your 9 year old thinks this is okay.

He would not be getting a bike from me. Return the bike and any other expensive items and use the money to pay for therapy for him/your family because clearly something is going terribly wrong there.

This. I think that it goes deeper. Would you consider a positive or therapeutic parenting course? Most councils run them for free and it could be a useful space for you to explore behaviour and strategies around behaviours.

When you check his online usage, what comes up?
Where is he learning this vile, misogynist language and why does he think it's ok to be verbally abusive to his own mother? Plus actually hitting you?
I find it extraordinary that some people on here are minimising this, or just thinking it's normal.
It's not. Don't give him the bike and tell him why.