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'd stop trying to talk to him while he's having a meltdown. Stop trying to get him to look at you. You're just adding to his overload. Stay quiet and don't make any demands of him. It's too much.

Try wrapping him in a blanket. He may struggle at first but you may find it calms him and he likes it and feels safe. You could buy a weighted blanked and you may find he actually seeks it out and goes under it when he is starting to feel overwhelmed. It may not but you won't know until you try.

Reduce as much sensory input as you can. Reduce light by closing blackout curtains, reduce noise try noise cancelling headphones. If you have a small enclosed space you can make dark and quiet that you could sit in with him that may also help. If you don't have that facility you could have a little pop up tent that you could put a blanket over. If you make these things available all the time you may find he chooses to use them just to get away and soothe himself.

What you can do eg with the zones (Self-Reg talks about this as well, it's about state of arousal, but they identify more categories) is just notice them and look for patterns.

So my DS2 (also 5, but not at school yet as we live abroad) is quite reactive and I would have said he spends all day in yellow zone. For two days I decided I'd watch him and send little WhatsApp messages to myself with heart emojis in different colours, red/yellow/green to denote different moods along with some notes about what I had noticed or what was happening at the time, this was very helpful. I'll attach a couple of examples. I could go through it in the evening and see the time stamps (though, honestly I didn't as I was exhausted, which I am most days). I didn't think that tracking this would give me very much info, but it did, as I learned from this

He is not always in yellow. Actually there are a lot more green moments in the day than I realised.

Some things that we had kind of instinctively realised were helpful, like outside time, were showing a really clear green light on this.

There was a bit of a pattern to the day. Mornings, especially late mornings are his best time. Early morning can be tricky. Afternoon can be tricky. But there is a sweet spot in the middle.

Forgot to add my screen shots.

@BertieBotts thank you so much for your post. You are so right that these melt downs have got me in constant fight or flight mode and feeling like this behaviour is all the time, when in reality he is okay for big chunks of the day. He is also always good outside so popping him out quickly is helpful but not always practical, I will speak to work about adjusting my schedule (I WFH but I finish later than when the kids finish school) so I can be more present.

I will make a diary like yours as it’s going to be really helpful; we are in that murky stage of kind of knowing what triggers him but there is obviously stuff going on in the background leading up.

And thank you to the posters who provided tips for sensory spaces, this all sounds like stuff he would really like and I’m sure will be beneficial. I will definitely grey rock future outbursts

Honestly, the fact that you are asking for assistance is a good thing. It makes you sound like a good mother. I would ask if he had been hit at school. This might explain his behaviour. Also, don’t make yourself his scapegoat. Get your DH to step up and take over while you supervise the other kids. If you take yourself away, he will know it’s not acceptable.

I don't know whether it is worth banning screen time for a day

I don’t believe punishment is going to work here with him. However, screens do have a known effect on mood and behaviour for many children. So if you think he is more agitated afterwards then you might need to consider reducing them. Not all screen time seems to be equal either my son was worse after some things then others it was all trail and error to see what worked.

At his age violent meltdowns wouldn’t be very common so I would be inclined to push to be assessed. Just remember even if other kids don’t see it they are still going to be affected by it so it’s no harm for school and childcare to be aware.

You’ve had really excellent advice from Bertie. I work in a school with high numbers of children with SEND and tracking behaviours with colours are so helpful. It might be that you notice a pattern eg. two hours after screen time he does X, or three hours after lunch. Or it could be at 5pm every day. It’s really important to think about what happened before the behaviour, and you seem really aware of that, but it isn’t necessarily directly before. So a diary/log might help with identifying consistent triggers.

We also have a few children who really like this IKEA swivel chair with cover . It isn’t the cheapest but you might find one on marketplace if you get lucky? It has quite a small footprint so easier to fit into an existing living space than a den. They can pull the cover down once they are curled up on the chair bit, which our children really enjoy being able to do.

I know this is an old post but any update on how your son is doing now. He sounds so much like my son with the violent behaviour

Hi!

I'm sorry to hear you are going through this, it was such a bad time

I'm really pleased to say that my son is doing so much better. I bought the book The Explosive Child, and while we haven't even finished it, just having a different frame of reference for his behaviour has been so helpful.

Something really key was realising the behaviour was a communication of his distress. I only briefly mentioned our neighbours in the OP, but it actually got much worse than that. The neighbour is anti social and has MH issues, and seeing me really struggle was really difficult for him. I completely changed my approach, and we made sure each day was a fresh start. I am having to give him quite a lot of 121 attention, but he has gone from 2 - 3 x daily out of control tantrums to maybe twice a month in the evening maximum, and they are much less severe, in terms of behaviour and how long they last.

I still wonder about approaching a diagnosis, as he is still quite different to my other DC in terms of managing emotions, but my next step is to work on that when he is calm. It is difficult though, because at school he does not display any of these behaviours. Just had his report back and was proud (and relieved) to see his teacher describe him as a kind boy with a big heart, and he is meeting all expectations on the curriculum.

I do find he really needs his space, and he needs good sensory input as I believe he may be sensory seeking. I have things like slime, lego, dough etc, and I take him outside a lot as he is very active. I would like to work on his space even more so that it is adapted for his needs, and I'm even thinking of getting him a punching bag, but I need to look more into this, and ensure it is in fact an outlet and not an encouragement.

I saw that article on BBC recently about boxing being positive for ADHD kids so I think I might allow it as long is he is also learning about the respect, care and control that boxers have. His uncle boxed for the army so we have a good role model for him there too, and it is something his dad can get involved in.

Sorry for the long post, and do keep posting if it helps, I know how hard it is honestly to have an aggressive lad; it's so disruptive to family life, and you worry so much about everyone - yourself, the other kids, and the aggressive child themselves, worrying so much about what the future holds for you all.

How old is your DC?

Thanks for getting back to me. I'm glad to hear your son is doing so much better and isn't having so many tantrums.
My son is nearly 5 but has been having aggressive tantrums for around 2 years now. He was having them daily and sometimes more then once a day but in the last few weeks I feel like it's very slowly getting better as he hasn't been having quite so many of them.
Bedtime is still a complete nightmare and it takes around an hour and a half or more to get him to settle. He is aggressive and says horrible things and just won't listen and is just a bit naughty most nights. If I leave him in the room he will try and smash things and scream so don't feel like I can leave but then he will just keep trying to hurt me.
He has displayed aggressive behaviour at school as he seems to struggle with transitions and gets overwhelmed. He has improved in recent weeks at school which I'm really pleased about but it's still hard work getting him into school as he hates getting dressed and actually going in the gates so that's normally a daily battle.
I'm just unsure if his is a behaviour problem or if it's worth trying to get an assessment done for him.

@Jinxy16 You son does sound really similar to mine! He is very sweet but can also just be so adversarial. He has a younger brother and an older sister so there can be conflict there, mainly with his younger brother as they want to play together a lot, and DS doesn't understand fully that his younger brother just mirrors him, so they have silly arguments that escalate quite quickly on his part. Hitting at home is still something we need loads of work on, but it's that more manageable, reactive style sibling squabble. While it's still not okay, it's very different from those out of control tantrums. I have told my mum, you can see it in his eyes when he is in one of those, it really takes over.

His attendance at school is really good, but I can so relate to the daily battle. He also hates getting dressed and tbh I usually dress him while he is half asleep, but more recently he has been doing it himself. If he fusses, I keep a neutral voice but I tell him every single bloody time, "I am trying to help you get dressed; you can either let me do it or you need to do it yourself. Would you like to do it yourself?". And then we get somewhere. I think this time of year is easier as they do more novel or exciting things, like sports days, transition days, guest assemblies etc. And our school have recently introduced dress down Fridays, so it's always much easier. But yes, again, it's still taking careful management to ensure he is out the door without too much fuss, whereas his brother and sister just tend to get up and go.

I think with kids like these, they struggle to manage themselves in the same way other kids do. Like he seems to even at this age (6.5), need constant direction and input, and this worries me, as I really want to teach him the value in things like getting up on time, getting enough sleep, relaxing, looking after yourself basically. He won't even relax if he is tired like my 4 year old will, he needs to be actively directly and coddled to do it, otherwise he will bounce off the walls. This is where I need to pick up the explosive child book again I think, and use it with my DP to get to the collaborative problem solving stage.

I do think my son probably has a bit of anxiety; me and my DP both do, and I think it shows that he does like to feel like he is in control of situations, but unfortunately it can come across as bullying and domineering. And then, just when they need empathy the most, their behaviour has pissed you off so much that you just want them to leave you alone for a while!

I think as your DS is having struggles at school, I would broach it with them, maybe they can come up with solutions. It might not be sensible, but atm I'm not bothering with diagnoses especially as I don't think there would be much support from the school, but I have decided that regardless of the label, solutions often used for kids with autism or ADHD tend to work for my son, so I will just keep trying to find strategies to help him get along in the world. My DP is a bit too old fashioned and he tends to lecture him, but kids don't understand that kind of language. He needs to learn it through doing, and being given a positive role I think.