5yo struggling anger/frustration

[M22BN]

Hi

I would really love to hear some advice and shared experiences as I am feeling a really bad about my son.

He is 5 and has become very sensitive over he last 6 months which he increasingly expresses as anger -towards me, his sibling his dad, anything really. The smallest thing can set him off into a real tantrum. We are trying to recognise his emotions but it is also wearing us down. It feels like he is just isn't himself. We are trying to boost his confidence at school and support him in making friends but when he last had a friend over he ended up getting upset about a toy which looked to be broken and storming upstairs and refusing to come down to see the friend who he "hated". Other times he is just defiant - if we say he can't do something he might just say "zip it" or say he is going to do it anyway. He doesn't tend to do it (the thing) but it is as if in that moment he hates us.

Intuitively I feel like he is struggling socially at school and it is having a knockon effect, he is young in the year as well. We didn't always respond in the best way before but we are really trying now to be compassionate but it is just awful.

The Explosive Child by Ross Greene can help here. There’s a book, but there’s also a lot online that’s free and it boils down to a) recognising that kids do well if they can - if he’s struggling it’s because he hasn’t got the skills to cope with a playdate. B) the best way to help him develop those skills isn’t rewards, punishment or even top-down adult solutions but collaborative work where you both try to figure out what’s up and what he can do. It’s slow, patient stuff but (for us at least) it really helps.

Also 5 year olds often don’t understand emotions and it can help to work on that.We found two usborne books called ‘all about feelings’ and ‘all about friends’ to be good here. They’re un-judgy. Lots of books about kids and emotions fall into the ‘Michael is a horrid bear who always loses his temper. Michael learns to be nice, like that lovely bear Peter’.