DS behaviour affecting my mental health - any advice please

[Honey1975]

Ive posted this in Parenting but am also posting here as I suffer at times with depression & am concerned that this situation is starting to affect my mental wellbeing. If anyone can help I'd be grateful as I'm feeling so low at a time of year when we are expected to be so jolly!

I am finding Christmas stressful & not very enjoyable which is making me feel quite down.

DS is 10 and has always been quite a challenging boy but his behaviour over christmas has really upset me. He is rude, disrespectful & disobedient. His attitude comes across as angry and aggressive although he is not physically aggressive. He is quite immature still and can be very silly particularly around other people. Yesterday we were with family and he was very silly which I accept was probably down to excitement but it verges on rudeness and when we try to tell him to calm down he just ignores us. He was rude to me several times in front of my family and his only thought was where his next present was coming from. There were some awkward moments when I could see people were not impressed with his behaviour which upset me as I want to bring him up to be a nice person.

I feel embarrassed and blame myself and dh as we must have gone wrong somehow bringing him up. Our dd however is the complete opposite im personality, easygoing, kind and thoughtful.

My ds has a better relationship with
DH as he is slightly more patient than me. I can just feel my relationship with ds getting worse & worse and I just don't know what to do. I have been in tears twice the past 2 days and feel like I can't take any more of this.

Is it too late to sort this out and if not please please can anyone help suggest what we should do. This is a not a very happy house right now and frankly I'm feeling really low.

Hi OP, I really relate to how you feel as I’m feeling the same as you today. We were with family yesterday and my DS (6) behaved badly and really showed me up. I’ve shouted at him so much today for his rude and disobedient behaviour. It’s so hard and I don’t have any answers I’m afraid. Feel free to rant on here... even knowing there’s someone else going through the same thing helps me. I’m sorry you’re having a crappy time too.

Also I meant to say I do think some kids are just more of a handful. I have one well behaved dd so I’ve often wondered what we’ve done wrong with ds! People who have only well behaved kids simply do not understand. They congratulate themselves on their amazing parenting, whilst judging us who are struggling! Could there be any underlying issue with your son? Have school noticed a problem at all?

OP, I saw this, and wondered whether your son might find Christmas quite stressful too, and be suffering from anxiety himself, which makes him act out, be rude, say silly things? Sometimes children of that age show their stress in this way. The Explosive Child by Ross Greene is a good book to read.

I have a child with HFA; most of the time he is polite and lovely (organised all the little cousins in christmas games etc) but when he is in a new situation or lots of people he doesn't know, party etc, can behave very oddly, and certainly when he was 10 he was all over the place. (he is now 16). My advice is (if you want it) is, try and avoid confrontations if he is rude, descalate as much as possible, make things simple and everyday reduce demands, and if he wants to watch telly or leave table or is getting increasingly worked up, quietly leave the situation with him, go for walk, put telly on, calmly downsize.. Physical activity will help a lot too, sitting still and "behaving" probably won't.

I wept a lot of tears when ds2 was younger over his behaviour at these times and failure to conform when I wanted him to, looking back I see I could have made things a lot simpler for him, and that anxiety was causing his behaviour.

He is lovely now. He really is. Patience helps too. Your dh is right.