Desperate for help please. Violent 6 year old

[ThatBusyFox]

Having a really hard time with my 6 year old. When he gets angry he gets really violent. Tonight he punched me in the stomach (after a really long time of escalating from not listening to being rude to slamming doors to shoving me to screaming in my face).

He was frightening his 2 year old brother, I kept taking him back to his room explaining that he can come back when he is calm and he'd keep coming back and being more and more aggressive. I kept my voice calm and firm, I honestly don't know what else I could have done.

It also happened last week, this is the second time. He has otherwise no issues at all, prior outbursts were always normal for his age I think. Doing really well as school, sleeps well, lots of friends.

When he punched me I started crying and then he became apologetic, brought me his toys and pocket money, said I could have it all and that I might as well kill him. Those words were even more upsetting than the violence tbh.

Should I seek professional help? Can anyone help me make sense of it or give me tips on how to handle it?

He's in bed now and I'm tears feeling like the biggest failure. We've always had such a close bond, he's really cuddly, we have lots of fun. 2 weeks ago this would have been unheard of.

Thank you if you read this far

Speak to school, explain your home situation and ask if they’ve noticed anything. I know he’s doing well, but he could be masking.

If school have concerns, follow up with a meeting and ask them about support.

Keep home incredibly low demand and decide on non-negotiables, like hitting. Don’t over-schedule him and do give him choices about how he spends his downtime.

Also, all the kids I know have been more bananas the past couple of weeks. It’s a long term and they need the holiday!

Thank you so much for answering, I did think about talking to the school. I'm pretty sure they'll say he's perfectly fine but at least I'll feel less alone in handling it.

A couple more things that may help provide some context.

This all started because he wanted to keep playing but I said it was bath time. After asking a few times he started screaming that he'd broken his leg so he couldn't come and how dare I not help him when he's broken his leg (he does do this a lot, says he's hurt when he's not getting his way)

He also then kept saying "don't tell daddy he'll strangle me and punch me again". His dad has 100% never laid a hand on him, he also says this about me sometimes. It's weird as it's almost like he truly believes it and so it makes it OK to be violent towards us.

He's just come down and said "sorry I hit you it's because I thought you'd hurt my leg but I just remembered you hadnt".

All this talk about us hurting him and saying words like "kill" or " die" is really disturbing. He also started these two outbursts by punching himself, which is also totally new.

You could try looking at the zones of regulation with him so he could learn to recognise when he is approaching red zone and what things you can both do to prevent going into it

One possibility is that someone has been threatening to (or actually) strangling or hurting him.

Small children who have seen violence either on others or themselves will often "project" it onto others and also will use it in their play as a way of trying to process it.

Please be clear, I'm not saying this has definitely happened. But it may be worth trying to find out where his exposure to those concepts has come from.

@Octavia64 I did wonder about this. I do know he witnesses all sorts of behaviours and language at school and he's always been one to internalise through the day and be quiet and unload once he gets home (from being a baby at nursery) so this may just be a bit of an extreme version of that.

How should I handle it? We want to follow through on such bad behaviour with consequences but since by the end of it he's into all this negative self talk I don't want him to feel even worse about himself. What would you do?

And then once he fully snaps out of it it's like nothing happened for him, whereas I really struggle to be all loving towards him knowing he's been so awful to me.

Parenting is hard!

Oh and how should I go about talking to the school, is it the teacher I should reach out to?

Look at some activities like Vulcans in my tummy. It uses language of feelings which you can use daily.

It gives some for of recognition and control

I would also not engage in the anger.

Pick to one phrase ‘when you are clam I am here to help you’

Do not suggest consequences when he’s angry, but come up with some when he’s calm and apply them when he’s calm. Bringing you toys is him punishing himself because he feels he deserves a punishment - so apply one you have agreed on.

If this is completely new behaviour I would go and see a GP and stress this is new.

There are lots of behavioural things that could explain it - exhaustion at the end of term, an event may have triggered this, a ND condition. It can take time to identify what’s going on.

Does he have access to screens or violent games?

I would email the teacher and say that he has been talking a lot about strangling people and killing people and you are worried about where he is getting this from. Ask if anything is happening at school.

At the same time, try to talk to him (not when he is being aggressive) and ask things like do the other boys at school/after school club/whatever/ play strangling and hitting as well?

If he is being bullied or similar at school or elsewhere and this is how it is coming out then I wouldn't be imposing punishment per se, I'd remove him from the situation and help him calm down. The zones of regulation stuff is probably good for that.

I'd want to be 100% sure about no bullying/violence towards him before I started punishing this behaviour.

Thank you all, you're giving me lots to think about and helping me make sense of it. I will message the teacher now.

We do chat a lot when he's calm, he's not mentioned anything of worry but then he will occasionally drop bombshells weeks later of things he doesn't seem to think are a big deal but I do. So there could be something that's he's not yet realised is upsetting him.

He has been under the weather too which probably doesn't help. He did mention crying twice in school last week too which is unusual.

He doesn't have games/ipads or anything like that. Just TV at the weekend, usually cartoons or Disney movies.

Does he watch youtube or play video games that are maybe inappropriate? I would be asking for some professional help while it's still early. You did well staying calm, I think what's important is that you explain rationally that you can't do that, even if you're angry. What you can do is XYZ... then he can see other ways to let his anger out

It sounds as if he’s being exposed to something awful . I’d be extra vigilant over who he’s with, what friends he has, what screen time ha has, what he’s viewing etc

My poor boy, this is making me cry all over again. 😢

I am 100% confident this is not something he is watching, he barely has any screen time and I'm always in the room when he does. But somehow it makes it worse as that would be a lot easier to solve.

Outside these outbursts he has been totally normal though, it's really confusing 😕

Could he be copying a kid at school?

Has he seen violent on TV 🤔 Maybe at a friend's house or something....or has it come from a bad nightmare perhaps?
I think you need to be having a gentle discussion with him about where it has all come from.
You say it has been a sudden change so sounds like a circumstantial problem rather than say a SEN difficulty....
Also has he bumped his head or anything? Concussion can cause mood changes and confusion.

Maybe a visual timetable of the bedtime routine would help.

I know it is the end of term but I would try and contact the school nurse, they can offer support and point you in the direction of support.

Also approach school to see if he has had friendship problems or witnessed/been bullied.

It sounds like there could be an underlying cause which he cannot process.

Also you could spend some 1:1 with him, take him for an ice cream or something and have a chat to him about worries and you always want to hear about his worries.

Firm clear boundaries and expectations.

He is also not going to be listening to you when he is not regulated. If he will not move to his room, you need to move to give him time to calm down. You can turn the Tv off or take any tablets away etc.

I would say it's a vulnerable age for catastriphising, low self esteem and fragile sense of self.....my 7yo daughter has said some not nice things about herself such as that we don't love her, didn't want her, she is horrid etc when she is very upset, despite us showering her with love and absolutely never dreaming of saying anything of the sort.
But this does sound more extreme in your son's case.

Yes he said this too, that we hate him and "wish we never had him" (such a specific turn of phrase that I don't think he could have come up with himself so he must be hearing this stuff somewhere).

No head bump but he's been under the weather. Feeling awful myself today and think it may be Covid. He does go a little weird when I'll, I remember looking into Pans/pandas when he was younger!

Thank you @violet17 lots of good advice.

Lots of love and 1:1 time on the cards to try to get to the bottom of it.

Unfortunately I did try to keep moving away but he'd follow us stamping his feet and slamming doors and come back to scream in our faces and shove me until he got a reaction😥.

It can actually come from quite unexpected places I think.
Dd denies it coming from this, but I found out that on a bluey episode Bluey says to her dad something along the lines of (which is supposed to be a joke but i actually think is quite inappropriate) 'it's like you wish we'd never been born' which is what DD has said when upset, so I do think it may have come from there, and they are like you say quite specific phrases that they must hear somewhere!

Honestly, 9/10 times kids this age who get violent like that and aren't from an abusive home turn out to be autistic. Of course he may be the exception but I would get it checked out. Talk to him when calm and make a plan together with him what he can do instead when angry. Clear boundary that anger is ok hurting is never ok. Move yourself to keep safe. Work out triggers.

OP - we had a very violent dd around that age too. It. is. so. hard. to. deal. with. Just keep going, and telling your ds that you love him and care for him.
Our dd was diagnosed with ASD. I don't know if that is something you think os relevant to your ds??
School was so hard for her, she came home and was terrible. She turned into school refusing in the end. (But now she is actually doing a degree!!!)
He may well be picking up phrases from kids at school, but dd would come out with all sorts of stuff that shocked me (and upset/hurt me) and I still have no idea where she heard it from.

All I can say is that DD got better when we found the right school for her - a tiny private senior school. That stopped the violence at home, and she started going to school again and doing well.
Good luck. Hang on in there. xx

Thank you all for the advice and encouragement. I was feeling so down but now feel armed with things to try.

I've never considered ASD at all, no other obvious signs but I know it's a spectrum and could be subtle so I'll consider everything.

I think there is probably a bit I can do to avoid these escalations and am excited to try them (e.g. PP who said not to mention consequences until he's calmed down. I tend to threaten with consequences in the hope it will stop the outburst but makes it worse 100% of the time so that's a no brainer).

A few have mentioned giving him other ways to deal with this anger, what should these be? I've tried explaining that he could go to his room to calm down, take some deep breaths, and if he really feels the need to hit he can hit his bed. He burst into tears at that suggestion saying "but I love my bed! How could you say that!" (Hitting me on the other hand, totally fine!!)😓