I just lost it with my five year old

[leavingthehouse]

I slapped him across the face. I’m disgusted with myself and am going to make some plans to leave the house as soon as he’s in bed.

All day he’s been … destroying things I guess. He found a sharp stick and scraped the car; he took a paintbrush and ran upstairs with it getting paint all over the stairs, he poured a drink all over the floor, he grabbed a carbon monoxide detector and was grabbing it to make it beep.

I just gave him a shower and turned round and he was squeezing out my shower gel which was a gift everywhere … he’s been told not to do it so many times before. I lost it. It just felt like such a fuck you.

Like I say … I’m hoping to arrange to go. I don’t know what to do about anything. I’ve just lost it.

I do think ds has special needs. The soiling and the destructive behaviour aren’t normal IMO, it’s pointless pursuing it but I do think he probably has some learning disabilities or something.

It's amazing that you're pissed off with your husband and managed to restarin yourself from assaulting him.

I can't believe so many people are so sympathetic at you smacking a 5yo around the face, when it's clear he's been unsupervised and feels neglected.

How do you think your son will feel if you leave? Assaulted and then abandoned. That reaction is all about you and your guilt and nothing about your son.

If your kid is pissing you off, as they all do, you walk away, you don't resort to violence.

First thing on Monday morning you need to tell the safeguarding lead at school, or social services what you have done. It sounds like you and your husband need some involvement and they can refer you onto the appropriate parenting courses, and offer your son emotional support.

The soiling himself isn’t normal and you should seek help with that. Buggering about with pens etc sounds normal but tedious.

He’s not listening to you and he’s even learnt to ignore being hit. Things are not working for either of you.

Where do you think he’s been unsupervised @WiggyWiggyImGettingJiggy ? I am honestly asking that genuinely. I’ve been with him all day apart from when DH had him. Not glued to him no but with him.

well then do speak to the SENCo about his special education needs. But also look at the local offer, contact the children’s centre or social services or even the GP for mental health referral. Sencos are not a one stop shop. They might be able to refer you for early help.

OP, I understand that you feel like you can’t baby proof the house (and he’s not even a baby), but you need to find a way.

Go into his head. His height, his ability. And go around your house, room by room. Anything damaging like paint, markers, pens, makeup etc all needs to be out of reach. Breakables, things he can throw at someone and hurt them…all gone. Your husband needs to pick up after himself, and you need to keep anything you value (like that shower gel) out of reach too.

I know it’s a fucking nightmare, I get that. But his access to these things are fuelling the fire (on top of all the other stuff you can’t prevent so easily like spilling milk, incontinence). Take some stress out of your life before you end up with the police at the door.

And for god sake, apologise to that boy tomorrkw. Tell him you were wrong and that you’ll never do it again. If he tells someone at school on Monday, take whatever intervention comes.

I think the safeguarding lead will be the first person to speak to next week to explain what has happened.

Ok @leavingthehouse my last comment here will just be "If it was as simple as manage yourself I wouldn’t have got to this point.

You chose to slap your child, you could simply have just walked away, despite your obvious frustration.

Today was a slap, what happens when you've reached your limit next time?

eta; "but I do think he probably has some learning disabilities or something" so I'll just slap it out of him?

"I do love him but...." I am incandescent, your poor wee boy.

A child has no idea that shower gel can be 'expensive'. Money means nothing to them. How did he manage to get hold of it? And scratching the car with a stick - again, he has no idea that a scratch on the car is expensive to fix, and how did he get hold of a stick sharp enough to do that? Why was there a paintbrush loaded with paint left where he could grab it and run up the stairs? Do you not have a stairgate?

Looking objectively, he's a five year old. You are an adult. You are expecting too much of him.

I think all I can do is deal with myself. I’ll try to get a GP appointment asap and see about anti depressants. I have felt a bit on edge for a while; thought things were getting better but now they’ve deteriorated again. Hopefully that will help deal with things more calmly.

Order a new car seat. Don’t have much money but might be able to do something with Klarna or something to spread the cost.

I’ve already apologised to ds. I do love him but it’s like things get in the way. I can accept he hasn’t had a great day today but again it’s hard as sometimes people will have a go at you for doing too much, too little … I don’t know what’s normal, or right.

How is he getting stick and pens and paint and shower gel if he is supervised? It sounds like you've just accepted he's destructive and your dh can't be arsed. Meantime there's a confused little boy in the middle of this wanting to be parented and is being failed.

3 of my dc have SEN, one also has a disability that has required me to be awake every hour for the last decade, and it is bloody hard work, but you have to be on it constantly. Lashing out is never the answer.

@Andregroup he doesn’t. On the other hand I have told him explicitly not to empty bottles before, many times. He DOES know he shouldn’t be doing that, be really does.

@WiggyWiggyImGettingJiggy so with the stick he was in the garden and he had a stick. I had no way of knowing he was suddenly going to scratch the car. Likewise with the paint he just grabbed it and shot upstairs, I was right behind him. The shower gel, I turned round to get a towel. Every time I have been there and he’s just kind of … done it.

You also need to tell school and/ or social services what has happened. Your son who is the centre of the whole thing needs the opportunity to be supported. Even though he doesn’t seem bothered he is 5 years old and his mum slapped him. He needs a safe adult, outside of the family who can talk to him about this.

If my husband did this I would be making him leave. I know that's blunt but I genuinely couldn't forgive that.

If his phonics cards not being picked up is causing you to get as agitated as you sound, when you're not using them put them out of reach.

How much did he scribble on with the pen?

You know he's impulsive.

You know he can't seem to regulate what he's doing.

That means you need to step up and take temptation out of the way for him.

Over the years I've had to put alarms on things, locks on things, trackers on my small kids, one of mine was on reins until they were 6...

I know it's hard, but even if he has SEN you're going to need to parent him, you can't both just shrug as you seem to be doing. You need strategies.

@AlwaysTheRenegade it isn’t so much that it makes me agitated, it’s more that that sort of thing is constant … picking things up, ignoring you saying please don’t do that, dropping somewhere random. When you’ve had a day of it and you feel all you’ve done is clear up. Yesterday I tidied up really thoroughly downstairs. Then I was out for an hour in the evening. Came home downstairs was trashed, just constant.

If I thought we’d get any help from social services I would but all that will happen is that we will have ‘involvement from social services on our record, it’s just self flagellation to do that and as such would be both performative and pointless.

@WiggyWiggyImGettingJiggy i do normally. But I do also get things wrong. And I am not the only person living in the house, although I wish I was.

@TweedleTarmacShe doesn’t need therapy. Everyone has a breaking point and 5 is old enough to learn that deliberately bad behaviour has consequences. It’s not developmentally normal behaviour, I have a child this age and she doesn’t do any of this.
OP, please stop being melodramatic. My mother slapped me for a lot less, it was standard discipline just a generation ago and we’ve turned out fine. I’m not saying make it a habit but you don’t need to be leaving the house or anything drastic like that.

@Richteabiscuit14 a huge part of me wants to. I just want to walk away, the way men do sometimes, just say this family thing is not for me;!8 regret it. God if only.

@leavingthehouse I was your son. I was desperate for attention so would go for negative attention just because I wanted someone to notice me.
I have lifelong issues because of the abuse I suffered at the hands and minds of my parents. Leaving would be the worst thing you can do. You are withdrawing yourself for your needs.
Sorry to sound so harsh but you need to get yourself help and work with the child's father to create a safe environment whilst you do.
And yes, it is on you to remove ALL potential items that he might use.

So what’s the alternative? Either you continue to lose your rag and he gets hit again at home without the authorities knowing (I’m sure before today you said you’d never hit him), or he tells a teacher at school next week that ‘mummy hit me’ and they get involved anyway.

It’s about your son’s safety, not you worrying about things being on record.

The alternative is that I seek help to regulate my emotions; I do a better job. I don’t need ‘had social services involvement’ on my file to do that and bluntly that is what would happen; social services really only intervene in very extreme cases and while I think this was extreme and so do you from a SS viewpoint it isn’t.

Your unhappy marriage could well be causing his behaviour too.

This isn't just "getting things wrong", you assaulted your child for the failings of you and your husband.

I see you're not involving social services because you're worried about it being performative? Says it all really. They could very well help your son.

When your ds tells the school their involvement will be taken out of your hands anyway.

I knew this thread would be bad before I opened it but fucking hell I wasn’t expecting to read that you hit your five year old round the face.

I wonder if the sympathetic responses would still stand if it turned out you were the father and not the mother. Of course they wouldn’t .

You smacked a tiny child in the face, Christ.