10yr Old Boys Behaviour/Anger

[loulou1984]

Hi, I'm new here and I am having big problems with my 10yr old sons behaviour at school.

My son really struggles to keep his behaviour in check at school (he was fine the first 2 years of school but the last 3 have been difficult) and when asked to do most things he will outright refuse and this normally can lead into arguments, shouting, stamping around and more recently swearing at school. He also doesn't like to be wrong and the anger can flare up if he doesn't agree with what's going on too. He has incontinent issues also which he struggles with as to avoid his problem at school he must empty his bladder at least ever 2 hours to avoid wetting himself (he does wear Incontinence pants for some protection from accidents). This can cause further complications as sometime he will refuse to go and then his anger will flare up and his teacher has to deal with that side of things too.

At home we can get him to behave (not perfectly) due to taking his xbox away etc but most of the time the punishments revolve around his actions at school rather than at home but he is always disciplined at home if he breaks the rules and this has been in place from an early age.

The school are having a tough time dealing with him as a lot of the time its like walking on eggshells and anything can set him off in a mood and then eventually his anger will appear and it can take some time to get it turned around and get him focused again. The other observations that have been done is he has a real problem with manners and empathy (not just at school) but he can't see what he is doing wrong. A lot of the time he just doesn't seem to grasp what he has done wrong and won't admit he is in the wrong and has a different take on events even if its plainly obvious to all of us what has happened.

He has been to see CAMHS twice and they feel the educational psychologist and a program called Place to Be at his school would be better to deal with his problems but we have gotten another referral as we just can't continue going down this route with him. The school have put a lot of positive things in place to help him but more recently we have had to place more consequences in place and the school have also mentioned if it continues they may need to look at giving him some "time off" .

We have asked him numerous times why he feels angry and we don't get much from him. Just last week he was saying he sometimes he feels tired (he takes a while to fall asleep sometimes) so we have a new routine in place with a some calming tea, warm milk blackout blind and he had some white noise playing to help him sleep and last night he had a good sleep.We have also introduced healthier meals and at school instead of having crisps at break he has a nice banana. This morning he was 100% happy when he left but after being in school for 15mins he refused to check his paperwork for the trip they were going on and he got angry and the teacher had no choice but to leave him in the school and Dad had to go along to the school at 10am to talk to him to get him in a better place and he took him along to the trip so he wouldn't miss out completely.

We are running out of ideas to help him as we have pretty much tried everything we/family/school can think off. I have probably missed out stuff so please ask any questions or make any suggestions as we only want him to be happy and do well for himself!

Thanks for taking the time to read my thread (sorry it was long!)

Hi,
I'm so sorry to hear about your problems. This is perhaps not an instant cure you might hope for but I wonder if you might benefit from reading a book by Aletha Solter "Helping young children flourish". Don't let "young" put you off, it is really about children of any age. The underlying message is that children/people need to release feelings by crying/raging and when parents use punitive discipline (this includes "naughty corners" and removing privileges) in response to actions as well as feelings about strict rules, they damage both children's self-worth as well as children's ability to regulate their behaviour when punitive discipline is NOT used (for instance at school). THe alternative is to set firm limits and then accept that children are upset about this, even angry. When you are clear about accepting their feelings, they will eventually start releasing pent-up feelings and take responsibility for their own actions. I know it may sound a bit woolly from my description; the book as well as www.awareparenting.com might give you a better idea if you can shift the stuff that applies to children of much younger age. It also stresses that it is never too late to turn things around and gives many great tips.
My DS1 is half the age of yours, but some of what you are describing was in formation until recently. Since starting with Solter's approach, I can see how he is suddenly growing as a responsible person and our relationship is also rapidly becoming better and more trustful.
Kind regards
M

Hi Loulou - could I suggest you move this to Special Needs Children section? It is a lot busier on there and people with years of experience who will be really helpful and nice. Do it asap. Good Luck.