I wonder sometimes if I have any maternal feelings whatsoever for DS1...

[Maisiethemorningsidecat]

He's been a challenge (putting it politely, and mildly given some of the bahviour we've had over the years), with constant arguing with everyone in the family, demands, cheek, violence on occasion, and refusal to do as he's told even after consequences are put in place (which they are, regularly and consistently)

We've just finished another round of sessions with the child psych, which has helped a bit, but after enjoying 2 weeks of (relative!) peace without him whilst he's been away with the Scouts, he's arrived back all guns blazing. This weekend has been miserable; he's tired, he's bored and he's back amongst family, so it's been pretty hideous for all of us. I really do wonder if I have any maternal feelings for him, which is a horrible thing for his mum to say, I know . The other 2 have a pretty awful time of it when he's about, it's just constant and our whole family life seems to hinge on how he's feeling. I'm sick of it - and we've still got the whole of his teenage years to come. Help....

Oh lord.

Well, it sounds very high pressured what you and your family are going through. And I think your response in wondering whether you have any maternal feelings is pretty mild actually. It can be utterly crushing this kind of circumstance.

It's incredible how just one person's moods can destroy a whole weekend, making everyone miserable.

I have the same only my ds is 5. His constant bad temper and unreasonable, hysterical, manic behaviour creates an enormous level of strain. Some mornings, I wake up, feeling utterly drained and low, thinking I have at least another 13 years of this obnoxious person, yelling at me to wake up at 5.30 am because he wants the t.v. on.

How is he at school and scouts? Has the child psych come up with any useful tools for you to implement within your family so that you're not all held to ransom every weekend?

I think it is unreasonable for every parent to actually like every child they have. Sometimes there are going to be problems like personality clashes, difficult personalities etc.

But I would assume that you love him. Tell him you love him at least - lie if you have to because he'll pick up on your lack of feelings and it'll make him worse. And force yourself to hug him. I don't know if you do these things already.

But you know, you don't have to like him. At least not at all the time. There's a big difference.

Thanks, Winky. Yes, it's very pressured, and sounds very similar to your situation. He used to do the same thing - he's almost 13 now, but used to wake very early in the morning, and then start demanding TV and breakfast and if he didn't get it would start screaming. I can utterly relate to the feeling that you have of looking at an obnoxious person and mentally ticking off the years left that we have to put up with him

He came upstairs to apologise to me, which I accepted and agreed it was necessary. He then wanted to know when he was getting is ipod back, kicked up stink when I told him he wasn't for the rest of the day and as I'd explained earlier, dh and I were going to talk about it. He then starting screaming at his sister for leaving a sleeping bag on his floor and walloped her. They are away to Granny's for 3 days now - she's very kindly to help out during the school holidays, and quite frankly I'm glad to see him go. I did (and regularly do) tell him I loved him, but I don't like him, not one bit.

We work very closely with the school - he's just finished his first year at High School, and did well academically as is always the case, but did throw his weight around in class. Fortunately the school is very strong on discipline and so dealt with it immediately, and we're getting regular reports to allow us to reward when appopriate and out consequences in place when not.

Yes, the apology to get back the confiscated item, be it toy or story, is hot favourite tactic in our house too.

Has the child psych given you any useful feedback?

Does he behave better when it's just one parent or two?

I mean, for the sake of your sanity, perhaps one day out of a weekend, he spends time with just one parent - take it in turns - whilst the other is with the rest of the children?

I've often fantasised about my dh leaving, take ds1 with him so I can live in then normal stress that my other children bring to our lives. Believe me, anything that they have brought so far is peanuts compared to ds1. Anyway, that's how bad things have got. And I'm very happily married!

But you're not alone. I know how utterly wearing and depressing it is. I wonder if I should warn ds1's future wife about him and the children they might produce .

The child psych really just reinforced what we already do - consequences, rewards, ground rules, consistency. It's no better, or worse, when it's one parent or both. Basically he decides what he wants, and then goes after it. If it's not forthcoming, then all hell breaks loose. Consequence is put in place. He throws a major fit. Calms down. Apologises. Either things settle down, or depending on his mood it escalates when re realises the consequence still stands. More temper. Further consequence if necessary. Repeat last 2 stages. Oh, and throw in a healthy dose of vitriol, cheek and screaming at us all for good measure.

Gahhhhh - it feels like Groundhog day here sometimes

I share the same fantasy, if it's any consolation, and we're happily married too! Perhaps we could send the boys off to a desert island somewhere together, where they could happily make each other's lives miserable

Flippin heck ladies, that sounds really tough all round. Obviously I have no magic advice or I would be writing a book about it and making millions!

I used to work with people with learning difficulties, often after awful behaviour (violence, destroying rooms etc) soemone would come and apologise and then straight away say 'oh but we're still going to the cinema tonight aren't we?' Erm not too likely mate... My tactic was to say straight after their apology, okay, so you're sorry, what was it you did that was wrong / not acceptable? Well I hit X cos he said such and such. Well if that happened again, what could you do differently? Well I would tell him it was none of his business and walk away. So that way, you know whether the problem was not knowing what behaviour was okay / not okay (and some people genuinely did not know what else to do other than lash out, or lacked any impulse control) or whether he does know what is acceptable. Then if you see a meltdown / crisis approaching, you can say, remember when we talked about doing X instead of Y? And hopefully that will aid in getting feelings and behaviour under more control.

Apologies if you do these already and you are all sat there thinking, 'well duh nemo...'

No, not at all, Nemo.

Sometimes I look back at incidents and think, "Well, OF BLOODY COURSE that was going to happen, you chump."

But only sometimes. Sometimes he goes mad over whether I turn left and not right. .. ..not so much now actually.

Another one here who has sympathy. My ds is 11 and every day he just has to kick off about something. It's just so tiring.

It is a different situation as he has learning difficulty and cerebral palsy, BUT the constant tears, tantrums, hitting, biting etc is never ending.

I really don't think (in our situation anyway) there is a way to improve things particularly. He is the way he is. We do all of the things recommended but he still gets angry.

I do love him. But I get so frustrated by him. I would love him more if he learned to behave and not to scream his head off.

So, sympathies indeed. But unfortunately no answers. But I understand your struggle with loving your child in such circumstances. It's a tough one. I agree with Winky to make the effort to say you love him and hug him. It does assuage some of the guilt too.

I am in similar situation and actually just came here to post about it.
My DS is 5 and tonight I reached the point where I just lost it with him and told him that frankly I didnt like him very much
I feel terrible about it, and I did say 'I love you very much' but some days I finish dealing with one of his tantrums and then just lie on my bed and sob for an hour about how did I end up here like this. And how the hell am I going to make it through the next 13 years ....

The awful thing is he CAN be a lovely little boy but more and more often he just isn't

I am half way through reading The Explosive Child- dealing with the Chronically inflexible child and am hopeful I will get some tips from there. Otherwise I am not sure what to do. No idea how I go about getting any additional help but I am getting desperate ...

Thanks for all the advice here, guys - it's all very welcome . It's also reassuring that I'm not the only parent going through this, but wish for your sakes that I was.

Nemo - the child psych did suggest that, and we do use the "how could you have done that differently" approach after the event, which he's very good and knows what he should have done in theory. Unfortunately once the red mist descends and he's set himself on one course of action then you might as well try and move the moon, it's that hard to get him to appreciate that he's not going to get whatever it is he wants. Our big concern is that he's going to become a horrible adult, who will make the lives of his partner (if he ever gets one! and his work colleagues hell, and will end up very lonely .

I'm very interested in the Explosive Child book - will look into that, thanks. Have you found it helpful so far?

Week 2 of the school holidays.

Nothing pleasant has come out of ds1's mouth.

Every single sodding thing has to be challenged, ignored or thrown back in my face.

I really wonder why I make an effort taking him places? I'm so tempted just to park him in front of the telly all day whilst I take the other two out. If it wasn't illegal - he's five - I'd do it.

Life is so much more pleasant when he is not around. And a constant source of aggro when he is. I've tried responding all sorts of tactics. Nothing seems to make a difference. I'm not strong or clever enough to cope with this sort of person, day in, day out.

You know, the world has some horrible people in it. And they've got to come from somewhere, haven't they? Maybe I've just given birth to one of those.

Can you afford boarding school? There's also some state boarding where you can just pay for the boarding aspect and they're meant to be quite good.

I don't think I'd want that for him, Karol, nor would I wish him on anyone else for that length of time!

The guilt of boarding school! I'd feel terrible. He'd feel like we didn't love him.

Winky - I've just reread your post in detail, and again can quite understand what you're going through. I dread the holidays with him - it's just constant arguing, constant demanding and constant nastiness. I've told him how unpleasant he can make the day when he behaves in that way, but it's just water off a duck's back to him, he just doesn't care a hoot about other people and their needs or feelings. He puts himself firmly in the middle of the picture, and then goes all out to do his damndest to get what he wants - which of course he doesn't get, which of course then causes mayhem. Even trying to agree in advance so that everyone gets what they want doesn't make a jot of difference.

He's at Granny's for the next couple of days with his sister, and I feel for them both.

You're just confirming I've got at least another decade of this, Maisie!

Well, at least we can muddle through knowing we're not alone.

The zero response to, "Please stop that," over and over and over and over does my head in though.

Like you say, zilch empathy. My 3 yo dd gets it in a snap. Ds1 doesn't.

I could have written several of these posts myself. Have ds1 who is exactly the same, hes 6.6. weve been going through the pediatritions for the last 2 yrs, no help whatsoever, ed pysch, again no help and have finally just had an appt with CAMHS which actually went really well and were hopeful things might start moving forward.

Due to have dc3 any day(8days over) and scared shitless about the fact he breaks up from school on friday, was hoping to put him in a playscheme over the holidays due to the fact the easter holidays were soooo awful. Unfortunately work has cocked up my final months wages from april and I still havent been paid so thats not going to happen now as I just cant pluck hundereds of pounds out of thin air. Its quite depressing.

can also relate to feeling no feelings iyswim. hes told me he hates me several times this week and in my head Ive been thinking hmm dont much like you either. its so hard but i do push myself to hug him and tell him i love him etc even though some days I wish he hadnt been born. like others have said life would be so much simpler without him as the family has to revolve around him. when hes having a bad patch you cant do anything with him or take him anywhere so everyone else suffers until he "comes out of it"

Hi all
It is so reassuring to know you arent alone isnt it?
The stupid thing is you have a 'nice' (reasonable afternoon or couple of hours and so quickly you start to relax and then the explosions start again...

The book... well it has no quick fixes, but it does make one think a little bit differently
Basic premise is they are not this way because they want to be or for fun, just because they are badly wired or not yet developed that bit that makes them able to cope with anything other than how they have envisaged things progressing
Its as tho, they have planned it emotionally and when you say 'turn off tv' or ask them to come to table they just cant deal with it and completely lose it. Punishment makes no difference (certainly true in our case) and forcing the issue mostly fails (also true). So the solution revolves around avoiding the vent, which feels like it is just pandering to them

Although of course it is only pandering if they are doing it on purpose isnt it? Otherwise it is no more pandering to avoid confrontations that make them explode than it is to avoid smoky pubs that set off their asthma..
God so confused!! Worth a read tho I think

Had a good day today- only 3 explosions and all managed without hitting or breakages. I jsut dont want to get into that lull and then be upset whenit all goes wrong again tomorrow

Oh and link to book