DH and I are finding ourselves struggling with DS2’s behaviour and aren’t sure if we should seek further help, so I thought I’d try the MN hive mind first. Apologies in advance for the length but I want to give a full picture.
DS2 will be 5 in August and is in Reception. We don’t get too many reports of bad behaviour from his teacher - there’s only been one instance where she had to talk to me at pick up where he had been wilfully ignoring what she’d asked him to do. Feedback at parents’ evening is that he’s a clever boy but getting him to concentrate is hard work. His behaviour mark on his last report was ‘fair to good’.
That’s not bad at school, but we get that times 500 at home.
He ignores virtually everything we ask him to do. We have to ask him at least five times to do something (get your shoes, tidy up, move out of the way so I can do x, y, z). It’s like the world he has going on in his head is too distracting/important to pay any attention to us. Nine times out of ten if you tell him not to do something, he’ll do it anyway then laugh at us - I told him clearly not to mess about with the automatic door at the swimming pool yesterday, then he looked me in the eye and pressed the door opening button anyway. I can’t really leave him to entertain himself for any great lengths of time - he wanders from one activity to another, trashing the house as he goes. I definitely can’t leave him with marker pens, crayons etc as he’ll just start scribbling on the walls, floor...I found him ‘practicing my letters’ on the window in crayon yesterday 😣
We always give him a consistent response that we are not happy with his behaviour, but I feel like I’m bellowing at him from sun up til sun down. Many times, when I reprimand him, he calls me, ‘the worst mummy in the world’, ‘the rudest mummy in the world’ and on particularly bad days, ‘I’m going to make you dead’. I have never used that kind of language with him so I have no idea where that’s come from. We’ve tried sending him to his room for particularly bad behaviour (punching his brother or smashing up his Lego) which seems to work for a day or two, then it all goes to pot again. We’ve tried ‘love bombing’ - lots of 1:1, getting down on his level and speaking quietly with him, but it just seems to embarrass him. He puts a hand over our mouths and tells us to be quiet if we try and tell him we love him or try and get him to talk about why he behaves like he does. He’s a bit better with DH than me, I think because I lose my shit with him much more quickly, but then I spend more time with him than DH so I cop the most of his behaviour and it wears me down.
DS1 (6yo) is the exact opposite, so I don’t know if DS2 is just a ‘normal’ four year old and his beautifully-behaved, enthusiastic, loving big brother is the changeling! We go out of our way not to treat them differently but I’m sure DS2 can’t help but notice that he gets a lot more grief from us than DS1 does, but I don’t know what else to do.
His strengths - he’s a total clown and can be very funny. He’s creative - they’re having a superhero day at school and while all his friends are going as Ironman, Spider-Man etc, he wants to go as Freddie Mercury because ‘rock stars are superheroes’. He loves any and all music and especially going to theatre shows. I’d be concerned about possible ADHD, but for the fact that he sits riveted, fascinated and motionless through 2+ hour adult musicals and ballets. We do try to use this as leverage (e.g. we confiscate his beloved show programmes for bad behaviour and give them back for good) but it doesn’t work as he doesn’t really seem to care after the initial removal. We’ve tried to capitalise on his interests by sending him to dance lessons where he concentrates fairly well but I don’t know that he completely makes the connection yet that what he does in class translates to what he sees on stage, although he is very excited that his dance school will be doing a show next year that he’ll be in.
Thanks for reading this far 😳 I’d be grateful for any advice you might have.