Hello,
Sorry, its long read.
My children see their father regular, but the house rules are different. Over the past year my eldest ds has became more challenging with his behaviour and his moods has become uncontrollable.
I say to him that if anything happens, mostly sibling fighting, he needs to calm down first, before we talk. My eldest is always a child who tests the limits at home and ive always used "time out" method, which never worked or took ages to work.
My other children just strop to their beds and never got near to using time out.
Now my eldest as a teenager, time out is non existent and when a issue arises that's when the moods hit, i've tried talking and not using time out but saying it in other ways, but its impossible.
Father is aware because ds has started to ring his father instead of calming down, a few times father has came and collected ds, sometimes the next day as ds is saying he wants to go to his fathers for a few days.
A few days ago the children has a tiff near bedtime. By bedtime it was sorted, then after I put the children to bed my eldest rang his father from his bed, which I was not aware off until I heard talking.
I dont allow phones in bedrooms over night. So the phone got took away for the day.
Halfway through the next day ds says sorry and wants his phone back, i told him that he wasnt getting it back.
So he announces that he was going to his fathers so i have to give him his phone back.
When he realises that im not texting his father, ds gets upset, and has a major mood swing and says hes going to mess the house up until he finds his phone.
I do my best to ignore him as he screams and shouts at me for his phone then he starts banging the doors as he walks through the house, throwing things around looking for his phone.
When he cant find it, He refuses to calm down. this goes on for over a hour. I give him a drink to calm down and he threatens to tip it over my head, he actually has the glass over my head!
Luckly he doesnt tip the glass, as I calmly say i dont think its a good idea as he still wont get his phone back.
Eventually he gives up and calms down and hes sorry again.
My ds says, as hes old enough now, he come and go as he pleases and when he gets upset he wants to talk to his father as im the one hes upset with.
Im finding im walking on egg shells around my ds, as it can be anything that happens then he announces he off to his fathers.
Then ds starts talking to me in a weird way, and says hes doing it for himself and i should just accept it!
Me and his father have not got on and his father lives a hour away.
I dont agree with ds going to fathers whenever he wants as i dont think it solves anything. Since hes starting going after a disagreement its got worse. Its like when ds dont get his own way hes off to his fathers.
One time ds went to his fathers he got mcdonalds breakfast then sent a picture of it to his siblings.
One day ds went, it was a day we watched a tv show together and we still watched it and ds got funny about.
Father says to let ds do what he wants.
Im struggling to know what to do for the best.
The children have been going to their fathers more as its lockdown.
I dont feel like im looking forwards to lockdown lifting as then ds will be at home more, even though im half expecting ds to not come back home at all.
Hes started saying things about his home and says that his fathers house is on a better street and is bigger.