Desperate for advice - 11 year old DS

[Busydoingnothing1]

I’m looking for some advice on my 11 year old DS, who started secondary school in September. He is a clever boy, achieving greater depth in SATs in May this year, receives good reports at parents evenings, captain of his football team, liked by his friends etc.

For 70 - 80% of the time we have no problems with him at home, he is kind, caring and loving. However for the other 20% of the time his behaviour is a significant problem for the family (he has two older siblings at 16 and 18). Since he was around 5 he would have issues with controlling his anger and emotions, during which he would often resort to hair pulling, pinching and generally not listening. He would be told he would have a consequence whilst in the middle of tantrum but in that moment any threat of a consequence would not be bother him in the slightest. We have always followed through with consequences, such as no TV etc.

As he has got older this sort of behaviour has continued intermittently, in the last few years we have seen an improvement. The frequency of these tantrums and outbursts have reduced and the physical side of it greatly reduced.

That said, this behaviour does still surface and in the last week he has had three long lasting tantrums (2-3 hrs) during which he has little care or concern for any consequences he may receive or any damage or distress he causes.

Only last week when told “no” to something he’d asked for, he then went over to the window to start tapping and messing with the blinds in a way likely to cause damage. When asked to stop he proceeded to move on to the next thing, which is generally hitting/banging on something. Again told to stop so he made his way to the fridge to start messing with that. After being stopped from doing this be snatched a box of cereal from the cupboard and ran upstairs with it. When I asked him to bring it down, or be in more trouble, so he tipped out half the box and ran downstairs, put on his shoes and ran from the house. Everything he does seems aimed at getting a response from us.

He returned to the house after 5 mins and had to be physically taken upstairs by his dad, who has to sit outside his room to make sure he stayed there. Unless we do this he would continue to come downstairs and repeat this cycle of behaviour. Sometimes for 1 - 2 hours, constantly looking to do whatever he can that he knows you wouldn’t want him to.

As a consequence for the above we took away his phone/devices.

We had another similar incident last night whilst out for our usual evening dog walk. He asked to take a short cut. We told him that we couldn’t as the dog hadn’t had a big walk in the day. Up to that point he had been pleasant and chatty but in a heartbeat he resorted to being grumpy and stormed off in the opposite direction, towards home. We continued walking, shouted for him to catch up but he continued home.

When we got home he was again told his behaviour was unacceptable. As a consequence he was told he couldn’t watch TV and was told to go to his room. Again a flat out refusal to comply, so he had to be carried upstairs. This is literally the only way we can get him to go upstairs. We then had 2 hours of him jumping up and down on his floor to make noise, trying to get back downstairs, pushing his dad, shouting at his dad, saying he wants to be adopted.

When he is like this, we have tried talking to him, leaving him / giving him space, tell him off, mention consequences. Nothing ever bothers him enough to stop the behaviour until he either falls asleep or enough time passes for him to come out the other side.

Once he enters this mindset he will not back down, he is extremely defiant and in the moment doesn’t care about any consequences at all.

This past week has been the worst we have experienced for several months. The smallest of things can trigger him, with no rhyme or reason as to what will or won’t be the catalyst. One day something may trigger him, but the same thing could have happened the day before without problem.

We always try to speak to him the day after an outburst but he is always reluctant to do so, and would never mention it of his own accord. He struggles to see wrong in what he has done (it appears) with apologies being infrequent.

Once he does come out of it he returns back to being his usual happy self, being a model child, trying to be as close to us as possible, constantly at our side.

If we told anyone who knows him outside of the home how he can behave they would simply not believe us, as they all see him as being the perfect child.

We dont know what to do to manage these behaviour, we just feel at a loss. He can be worse after a busy week, when tired, but gets a good nights sleep. Any advice would be appreciated.

I have a son in year 8 and can't imagine carrying him upstairs.

What happens if you distract him at the first signs of his behaviour starting to spiral? So when he started tapping the blinds you could have said 'please can you give me a hand with x/feed the dog/come and race me on MarioKart' and refocused his attention onto something positive.

He didnt have the intention to damage things UNTIL he started dysregulating. He didn't start with that intention. You handed it to him. You didn't necessarily cause the original dysregulation; but nor did you think of strategies to prevent it happening in the first place. Why did he not want to go on the long dog walk? If you think about what his original reasons for running off, (namely that he wasn't expecting to have to do a long walk) does that make it clearer?

It's not what you do afterwards, it's what you do BEFORE the behaviour even starts

I agree manhandling an eleven year old and barricading him in his room is not acceptable.

The reaction of banning him from TV because he stropped off home before you all on a dog walk was OTT.

There are things that must be stopped (violence, serious destruction, self harm) but why does it matter if he pulls bedding off a bed?

What is an acceptable way to express anger or frustration in your house?

My DS is now 17 and a great lad. He was very like this as a small child and preteen, especially the keeping an argument going for HOURS by almost provoking it, doing things to get a Rise, almost daring us to react and punish. It was really hard to know what to do. He was diagnosed at 13 with inattentive adhd. To be totally honest, that helped a lot because it explained a lot. The only thing that worked really was to ignore, ignore, ignore. And remain totally calm. Just wait for the storm to pass. Not react and very calm. The whole naming emotions helped a bit. "I can see you are upset...." etc. Also really rethinking expectations etc. Like, why couldn't he just take a short cut and go home? What was the big deal. PICK YOUR BATTLES.

He sounds quite tightly controlled by you - why couldn't he walk home from the dog walk? What are some ways he can let out his natural frustrations?

This is a walk we do very often, he knew where we going, on this night he asked to take the short cut and was told no, as soon as we said no, he stopped walking, his demeanour changed, was asked to ‘come on’ but instead turned round to walk back towards home. Yes he is 11 and knew where we were but it was dark. Before we left, he had been fine. Chatting about school etc when we set off. For some reason, in this instance, on this evening, he heard no and then it escalated. When we returned home, what do you think should have happened? As he would not have moved forward with anything else he needed to do before bed. If we asked him to have a bath, etc he would not have done these things.

Have you been following the gentle parenting method?

'everything he does is aimed at getting a response from us'.

Indeed.

And it's working.

If my 11 year old ran upstairs with a box of cereal I'd just laugh

If they tipped half of the box all over the carpet when asked calmly to bring it back down?

so for example you could go up and calmly take it from him and hold his hands and speak calmly and do some breathing exercises together to calm down together.

But just an example. It's trial and error. You've got to find what works for your child. Got to think outside the box and you're saying what you're doing at the minute isn't working.

Tell him it's not acceptable behaviour in your best serious voice. I would not let him start destroying things, it just wouldn't happen, he would be out in the garden at best. You have to be really strong or he will just think he can do what he wants. A how dare you or two wouldn't go amiss, this is a child in the house and he will get bigger and more difficult if you don't sort it out now.

Sounds very similar, it can feel like walking on egg shells, this evening when he got home from school and after school sports, he was very short when he got home, but came round and we had a nice evening. But im on edge at the minute that saying something, him not doing something he has been asked will escalate.

This is the thing, we have said this, spoke about it after. He is not bothered when he is in this mindset.

Sounds like things are escalating that could potentially be headed off earlier. Kindly, you are playing a role in that escalation despite intending not to.

My ex (probably autistic) winds things up like crazy with my son (probably autistic) and as a result they both go off like rockets around each other. Neither knows how to de-escalate situations.
Your son needs you to model that skill. If you don't model it, he won't learn.

Some tips

Give him more space. He was probably scared walking home alone. Fine. Natural consequences. Next time he won't do that. You don't need to force the message into him once he has come home.

Ignore the small stuff. It seems to start with incredibly small stuff. Messing with a blind definitely won't hurt anyone and probably won't break it either. Forget the bath on that occasion. You're not resolving the situation faster by trying to get his behaviour back to standard in time for a bath. He won't stink if he misses one bath (or if he does, wake him up a bit earlier so he can shower before school).

Find outlets for him to express frustration. My kid thinks a certain thing around the house drives me insane (it doesn't). But that means he can get a kick out of doing the thing, (e.g. drawing all the curtains in daytime) and I don't actually care much (ok I do care but not at critical levels), so win win.

Sports. Loads and loads of sports. Amazing for self regulation and for anxiety.

Let him be imperfect and show it's ok. Sounds like he is too anxious about being "good" (when he isn't in meltdown mode) - the resultant pent up frustration is probably worse. He sounds very anxious. Childhood anxiety is a nightmare but it can be calmed.

Good luck! Deep breaths! Lots of patience.

Sounds like my 11 year old ds before the mask came off and he hit burnout. He's now diagnosed with ASD and adhd. I would really recommend focussing on connection over consequences - he sounds like he’s struggling.

You sound like you get quite hung up on small stuff that really don't matter. Why make something of taking the cereal upstairs? What does that matter? The moment you react to that he will tip it on the floor to get you to react again. What does it matter if he stropped off on the dog walk? Let him strop off home and cool down. With my DS it was to do with not being able to regulate emotions in the moment, hence the sense that he was spoiling for a fight, pushing and pushing until sometimes to be honest it all got a bit hysterical. None of the "give him a talking to" type advice did anything and just made things much much worse.
What worked was knowing triggers and remaining absolutely calm and ignoring all but actual violence or serious destruction. It's not easy. Looking back DS also struggled with transitions too. Not autistic but diagnosed adhd.
You really have to parent in a totally different way.

Warnings of consequences in the moment don't work either. Too much escalation.

Was he showing similar behaviours? Have you managed to find anyway of helping it?

I have a child who can fly off the handle but is getting much better with age.

I think I have really learnt not to punish in the moment. He has consequences that we have written down together (while calm) for hitting someone ect….. so that is a red line for us. And he understands that but I’m not shouting it out when he is losing his cool.

It’s all about deescalation in that moment, giving them ways to help regulate themselves. Whether that is a weighted blanket. Heavy work, jumping on a trampoline. My son loves this clicker toy and chewing gum. Look up OT and regulation and see what might fit with your son.

I just think it is really important that they can calm themselves down and that they don’t become angry men. That was my fear.

being physically pushed up the stairs and kept in his room by your husband is a total no no. It teaches him nothing and it escalates the situation. It also leaves him feeling out of control whether you want to teach him to stay in control of himself.

In a situation like that I would have stayed super calm and weathered the storm and done what I could to calm him (and that doesn’t mean giving in to him) You can talk afterwards about what happened.

He will be on path of minor destruction, so yes the blind thing, you are right it’s a small thing, but it’s constant things like that when in meltdown or sometimes just pushing a dining room chair as he passes when not in meltdown - if someone has talked during a conversation and he hasn’t fully finished what he was saying or he hears something he doesn’t like on a certain day.

He can be concerned how he is perceived, doesn’t like going to school with a new haircut, didn’t like having to take medication during school at primary etc due to what friends might say.

But reacting to each of those small things simply escalates the situation. You still haven't explained why he couldn't take the short cut and go home or why taking the cereal upstairs was a problem. Why not just ignore those things?

You do sound a bit regimented.
He sounds like he is struggling with stress or expectations or something.
Try to get alongside him rather than laying down the law.
None of us are perfect.
I sometimes think children rebel against the pretence that adults know it all and are wise.

You are just arguing with us all. Everyone bar one person, who shall be nameless, on this thread has given the same essential advice. Which is, try a different approach; which is NOT to escalate and confront. This is based on our own experiences of parenting explosive reactive children.

I think all children have things they know are not ok with their parents, both the things mentioned are things he knows he shouldn’t do. He didn’t take the shortcut. He just turned back round to walk home as we said we were going the way we normally do and it wasn’t the answer he wanted. He would not walk away from a teacher at school, if out on a school trip if they said he couldn’t walk a certain way round a zoo for example.