Useless parent & terrifying 5 year old, please help me

[beeswaxinc]

I feel like the worst and most useless mother in the world.

We have had a stressful summer holidays, a short notice move due to ASB from our adjoined neighbour (nothing directly related to us but drug users and police presence including raids which affected us), I had a bit of a breakdown tbh when a neighbour had a go at us while moving in over noise (issue resolved and they have been lovely since but I couldn’t pull together and think the event was more a trigger than the cause of me breaking)

My middle son is 5, 6 in autumn, and has always been quite different from my other 2 children. Always been much more wilfull, much more difficult to settle, much more sensitive and less adaptable, and much more energetic, just overall more of a challenge but a lovely boy when going okay.

He since the move has had some pretty severe and awful meltdowns which I attribute to anxiety and overwhelm. I try very much to keep him busy and content but bed times have been the worst and he has on several occasions now been extremely violent towards me. I genuinely don’t know how to cope. I sound like the worst and most clueless parent but i’m genuinely stumped as my other 2 children have just never presented these challenges. They just do as they’re told really with little friction, have the occasional tantrum but all very normal.

My five year old gets to the point of these meltdowns seemingly out of the blue. I’m ashamed to say that my current method of dealing with it to keep my other 2 children aafe is to try and keep him in his room while I sit with him by his door, trying to get him to calm down and talk to me and try and verbalise what’s wrong instead of hitting.

But tonight has been the most extreme so far. It was the first day back at school and despite having a lovely day and normal routine, he has been trying to, I don’t know how else to say it, beat the crap out of me. He has been coming up to me when I try and soothe him looking like he is fine and then will throw a punch at my face. Or he will throw something at me. He has genuinely hurt me tonight and I am again ashamed to say I just sat there crying. When not crying I am trying to carefully hold his hands, look him in the eye at eye level as I am sitting down and firmly say “No we do not hit”.

I am just at a complete loss to understand what is happening and how to de-escalate the situation and it’s driving me to extreme thoughts (nothing sinister, but when he’s really hurt me I think about splitting with my lovely partner and going to live with my mum so I don’t have to see DS every day 😓).

I hope you can understand reading this that I would never do this, I am just at the absolute end of my tether. We had finally cracked this after 3 weeks of serious worry and I said to my mum, after all the upheaval we have finally settled him and now school is starting we will be back at square one. And here we are. I could really, really use with some practical advice here from people who have experience of children with sudden explosive and aggressive behaviour. All the discipline techniques do not work and I don’t think they would as I really think there is an underlying issue like anxiety.

Please be kind, i’m sitting here in tears and at an utter loss.

I should also say that I seem to be completely out of control as to when the meltdown ends. Tonight I just sat there grey rocking him after he had really hurt my and could only mumble “go back to bed” a few times as I didn’t want to burst into tears, he eventually just got into bed, asked me to lie near him, held my hand and fell right asleep.

How on earth do I deal with this after the fact?

That sounds awful OP ;(

Do you think he has some additional needs?

Have you ever gotten very very cross at him instead of saying no we don't hit? I would speak to the school and maybe your GP and see if you can get some help.

Do you have a partner?

Does he ever meltdown at school? Or when he’s with his dad? Or other adults? What do they think about these meltdowns?

I would ask the school for help and say you’re concerned about this behaviour and need some support with how to address it and see if they have any suggestions. I’d agree with you, there may be something underlying and you may need some professional help to get to the bottom of it. It sounds more extreme than the normal 5 year old temper tantrums.

Thanks so much for replying.

I do have a partner but because we have 3 DC and they are all quite little (others are 7 and 3) and my DS that has the melt downs seems to need/want me, it tends to be me who tries to de-escalate the melt down. We are supposed to have a rule now that if DS hits me at all, I immediately leave and DP takes over (he does not really hit my DP). But tonight it wasn't feasible for several reasons, and I guess the issue is I really need for us to learn how to get in control of these situations, because plenty of the time due to work and the other DC it will be me who has to deal with it.

I have considered he may have additional needs, perhaps ADHD, but he is going into Y1 and in reception no concerns were ever raised about his emotional development. Toward the end of the year I was messaged to say he had been play fighting with other children despite constantly being told it was not allowed (not allowed at home either) but I have never had a concern raised to me about his behaviour. I was genuinely a little surprised to find that all of his emotional development markers were marked "as expected" but could this be masking?

Does he or you know why he is angry? you may not know that is ok .

Can you offer alternatives to hitting when angry( we used to suggest he take himself away from others to a quieter place/walking away, shouting into a pillow, bouncing on trampoline- ask him to give you ideas what might help him feel calmer until the rage passes).
Try to get him to tell you and you to spot triggers before it escalates( easier said than done but again think ,long term)

When he is calm after the event tell him how it made you feel( everyone in the house) so I didn't like it when you hit me it made me sad/ afraid etc. Ask him if he can think of any thing he could do to make it better- have ideas ready( apologise hug etc).
Also tell him what you like about him/his behaviour. This may have to be teeny tiny things at first like oh you remembered to do something thank you or what a super fast runner you are- anything at all and as often as possible.
Reward calm times. We broke the day into 3 and rewards were given if he had not been violent in all 3 chunks. reward to suit you and him as appropriate.
What does he love? encourage this.
Try and choose activities he enjoys and do these as often as possible- find him and you some joy wherever possible. There is obviously something bothering him that maybe he cant express any other way just yet but you can help him learn to do this and this will be a really important life skill for him to learn. It s ok to feel angry but not ok to hurt others .
Look after you too.
Hope this helps.

He has recently begun to act up a bit more at my mum's and he will tantrum with his dad but he will not hit anyone like he hits me.

In reception I was only ever told of one melt down toward the beginning of the year and no reports since; he's only been back one day at school this year so I'm not sure how he's going to be but I am worried the pressures of the more formal setting of year 1 will just compound whatever is going on.

Are the school in a position to work with me on this? I only ever really hear that he is good at school, very shy (not like him at all at home, but think that's quite normal as DD is the same). I'm concerned they won't be able to offer much advice as they don't see any of the behaviour.

I think I should also say that most of the time, despite being wilful and cheeky he is really good. He struggles when he is with his younger brother as he seems to regress a bit and act like him?

I'm just worried he's not coping with the emotional pressures that the world is demanding of him with school. I was the same at that age, I didn't know whether I was coming or going, I was very anxious and didn't feel like I had any sense of what was going on, and no control. I wasn't aggressive though but I am female so I don't know if it just presents differently. It's not lost on me that this big big meltdown has happened on the first day of a big change for him.

The book The Explosive Child can help. Agree with others about flagging to school and keeping an eye out, I have a very similar situation with multiple kids who have their moments but are pretty 'standard' and one who can be absolutely lovely but also goes through occasional phases of tantrums that can be violent, they're getting rarer as he goes through primary but also scarier, because a flying elbow can really hurt me now, and there's little help as school sees him as sweet but a bit scatterbrained, I wish I'd done more earlier.

If you can afford a therapist, that might help? If not then you can do play therapy yourself a bit - draw pictures or play with figures and act out an episode, step by step, see if he can tell you what the different figures felt like or wanted to happen at different points. Or write out the story of a day where a meltdown happened - page 1 had breakfast, page 2 got to school etc. Without judgment and see if anything interesting comes up.

You could also try relaxation techniques like breathing, yoga - loads of YouTube videos showing you how. Talk through stages of getting angry and how we might calm down if we feel angry - can you set up a space he can go to, or a word or action he can do if he feels himself beginning to get angry?

Don't know if that helps!

Thank you that is really helpful.

This is actually the approach I have been using over the summer and it is really helping, I am calm but firm with him, he has gotten used to the dynamic and he will calm down quite quickly and apologise (it's not always hitting, but if he starts to tantrum sometimes he does other naughty things first like banging around etc). We had a couple of these episodes this evening and I felt quite happy that we had managed to sort them.

When he is calm we talk a lot about how it's not okay to hit, how it hurts and scares me, how would he feel if people were hitting him, and sometimes I am sure I can see in his eyes that he is feeling guilty and conflicted while hitting me. I am also figuring out that his triggers are basically anything while he is tired (e.g. not having a comfort item, someone else having something he wants, etc) and I need to learn how to help him learn to not escalate to hugely over things that are, trivial isn't the right word, but easily solved and moved past. I just genuinely don't know how!!

Though as said, I do feel we have made progress, it's just if I miss the triggers because I have work and 3 DC, we are in big trouble, and I can't live my life walking on eggshells around a 5 year old

My DC has a temper but sometimes she goes to a little cosy space or play tent to hide away with a book until she feels calmer, could you create that somehow?

Thank you, that is helpful :)

I have tried to think of things to help de-escalate, I do think once I have this set up it will help but I need to be careful as he can be a bit manipulative (e.g. "buying new toys will calm me down"!!). I think I'm probably putting too much pressure as well by asking him, but I am thinking of making a sensory corner just for him (as opposed to doing it communally on the dining table as usual) as he is big into sensory play, sand, playdough, anything like that.

I don't know whether it is worth banning screen time for a day at this stage for tonight's appalling behaviour. It was like being abused by a partner, he was throwing things hard at me, hitting me in the face when he could, it was really traumatic to be honest. And then 5 minutes later he is asking me to lie with him and holding my hand to go to sleep as though nothing has happened.. Just feel completely all over the place and like I am failing him and my other DC

I think that would help, he loves little dens and hide aways, as a toddler he would often end up under the bed or in funny places. I think his issues are heavily anxiety driven but I need to find the key to minimising these terrible episodes. I am fearful for myself as I imagine him doing this at 10 years, 15 years old and really bloody harming me. But then I think I am being unfair and he is a 5 year old who is struggling to communicate some intense feelings and then just feeling awful that I can't figure it out. Everything has always been relatively normal and I'm just so so gutted that things are going so badly.

What are you going to do if he turns this rage against his siblings? He could kill you right now. They are defenseless.

He's 5. You read that bit, right?

I don't think this is helpful. He is 5 years old, I am already in bits worried about the future.

I have already said the reason I bear the brunt of these meltdowns is because DP is looking after our other 2 DC so that they don't have to witness or be subjected to DS lashing out.

I don't know what I am going to do to stop them That is why I am posting, to see if any other parents have a child with similar tendencies and if so what has worked.

He is not a monster, he is my lovely boy. Something is triggering a severe reaction in him and I need to understand both how to get to the root cause and how to deal with the fallout in the mean time.

My 5 year old can hit me like this sometimes. He has a completely blessed life, lots of love and a calm environment, but OMG he has a temper at times and it’s only me he goes for. So it’s not just you.

I leave him to it now tbh. Calmly explain that he can’t hit and I remove myself from the situation. He cries and I ask I’m if he wants a hug. Often he does.

I think they are still quite young and struggle to communicate their emotions.

That sounds really difficult and I'm sorry that you're going through it. Must be horrible for your DS to be so out of control too. It could be normal emotional development but you've mentioned that he has shown some similar though (not as extreme) behaviour with other family members and at school so it might be worth asking for an assessment for ADHD/ASD.

You mentioned the school hadn't raised any concerns but my friend is going through something similar with her DD and when she broached it with the school they told her they had noticed behaviours at school but they're not allowed to raise concerns to parents unless behaviour is so extreme that they're considering exclusion/expulsion.

Has he got any sensory difficulties? My DS2 struggled with his emotions and I printed some cards from Twinkl with pictures of things he could do when angry - e.g. hitting a cushion, deep breathing, ripping some specific paper, etc. whilst his ability to manage his anger improved he continues to live on a rollercoaster of emotions.

We saw an occupational therapist when he was younger and she had some really useful ideas to help him. He has more recently been diagnosed with ADHD.

It might be his struggles to manage his emotions is part of a bigger picture.

Have a look for Yvonne Newbold (Newbold Hope) on Facebook. She specialises in anxiety-linked dangerous/violent behaviours.

We had this with DC1 at the same age. I found it very difficult to get any support or help with it if they don’t show the behaviour anywhere else, as it seems to be taboo to admit your child hits you and people seemed to assume the issue was parenting-related and we must just have not made it clear that hitting was unacceptable.

We are now looking at autism/ADHD assessment. The good news is that he generally doesn’t do it any more (age 8). The bad news is that we didn’t really find anything to stop it in the moment - we basically had to try to head him off before he got that overwhelmed (often easier said than done). Walking away once he started hitting could help, but he would generally follow me.

Good luck, it’s really difficult when they are trying to communicate such a high level of distress in such an aggressive way.

Thank you all and @WhoHidTheCoffee your experience seems really similar to mine and your post really resonates; I will definitely look into Yvonne.

I think you are right that I just need to keep persevering with trying to head off melt downs and try also to minimise my contact with him when he’s doing this and let dad take over. I guess I am quite literally his emotional punching bag..

@UsernameNotAvailableNow it really helps to hear that I am not the only one!!

My DS5 (also just going into year1) has ASD and will get a diagnosis of ADHD once 6. He can be violent and last year was horrendously so. Similarly to you it was mainly aimed at me. I have told many professionals it’s like being in an abusive relationship. I even asked one “if I told you someone in my home was beating me black and blue, screaming at me, following me to continue the abuse so I couldn’t leave and controlling what I wore, said and how I had my hair and that person was my husband you’d help. The fact it’s my son means there’s none”.

I understand how hard it is for you and you are doing amazingly. It is soul destroying.

He’s much calmer now (still violent occasionally but nothing like he was). The only thing that worked for us was either distracting him as soon as we spotted it brewing, but that’s not always possible and mainly, taking all emotion out of it. When he screamed or said horrible things I would either say nothing or “ok” in a totally neutral voice. When he hurt me I would hold his arms/legs where possible, or my husband would in total silence.

We found that by taking all reaction and emotion away from it he stopped quicker and now it’s much much less frequent.

Good luck!

You are not a useless parent. You just don't have the right tools. It sounds like you have so many things which are helping, empathy, compassion, curiosity, willingness to help him and have tried all the consistency, boundaries etc which worked for your other children. This is all very good parenting!

But they aren't working now because it sounds to me like you're missing a piece of the puzzle, which is that his behaviour is a stress response (and it sounds quite far down the line) rather than an active choice with the intention of getting something that he wants. Once you have the tools to understand and address this, the other brilliant things that you've already been doing will come back onto the fore again. Don't despair of him. He's only five and you can help him. You have more than enough skill as long as you have access to the right resources. The problem is a lot of the usual things that people suggest will make the problem worse not better. Once you understand the stress response vs conscious choice behaviour split then you'll be able to spot the difference and it won't matter if people are recommending unhelpful things (well meaningly) because you'll be able to recognise no, that won't help.

First of all I would strongly recommend that you push for an evaluation - knock down every door, keep being annoying, whatever you have to do to get him seen. There will probably be a waiting list. But he sounds extremely reactive and it is highly likely that something is going on outside of ordinary 5 year old ness. In the absence of major trauma, it's likely developmental. So understanding this can help you meet him where he is at rather than constantly expecting him to have the skills relating to his age rather than current development.

Secondly, I'm going to recommend a load of resources that you can use now and this will be overwhelming. Just pick one to start with. Don't feel that you have to look at all of them at once. Have a quick look at each social media/website/blurb and then pick one to explore further. This is in no particular order.

Stuart Shanker's Self-Reg - there's a book, the EU title is something like "help your child blah blah" but it has ...using the power of self-reg as a subtitle. There's also a FB group called Self Reg Parenting.

Mona Delahooke and her book Beyond Behaviours. She has unfortunately recently suffered a medical emergency so her social media is more about sending good wishes but there is loads of fantastic info going back that you can see there for free. Or search her name in any podcast program or on YouTube.

Ross Greene - The Explosive Child or again look for podcasts where he's done interviews. There is a great video on YouTube where he explains the whole collaborative problem solving method (now renamed but this original video from a few years ago is great)

The OT Butterfly on Instagram or her website. So much info about sensory regulation and sensory seeking.

Calm The Chaos - a tested and proven system to cut through behaviour, stress, overwhelm, etc. There's a book but it's only just come out. The website and podcast have a lot of resources. I don't know as much about this but it sounded great.

Actually that list basically is in order - whether you want to look at Mona or Stuart first doesn't really matter but I'd look at one of those two before you look at others because they explain the reframe so very very well and clearly.

Oh and zones of regulation. Sorry forgot that one. Can help you spot the patterns as it differentiates between green (ok/calm/happy) and red (total meltdown, violent, out of control, screaming, or conversely manic and hyper) and yellow, which is in between red and green and is your warning sign to start deploying all the regulating strategies possible before it ramps up to red.

As he's still 5, can you speak with a HV or sure start/children's centre (if you still have a centre, HV you should be able to just call). They might be able to refer to some support or get things moving with an assessment faster than when he's a bit older. But you'll have to be quick. If you have an early intervention hub that could also work (should be on the council's website). Make sure you emphasize the family isn't coping.

It sounds like he's had a lot of change (and it's a big step up from R to Year 1) but if there is something going on it's better to be in the system early. Don't rely on school, if his behaviour is OK there they are unlikely to prioritise.

If he can control himself so he doesn't hit his dad during a meltdown then he can control himself so he doesn't hit you. Don't stand for being his punchbag, I wouldn't sit with him and immediately do his bidding in the way your post makes it sound like you do. Find him somewhere he can go when he feels overwhelmed, even find a cushion for him to thump but you are not his punchbag.