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.

Im sorry to hear you are going through similar. Does your son also have these type of meltdowns?

Souns like he's having meltdowns.
My son is autistic and was just like this at 11.
I lost count of the amount of time I had to literally sit on him mid meltdown.
The consequences won't work. He's not being naughty he has lost control, he can't regulate the behaviour at that moment whatever you threaten.
The best you can do is be calm and keep him safe. If that involves carrying him upstairs and barracading doors then that's what you do.
My son stopped having the meltdowns by about 13.
For what it's worth he's now 27, he graduated with a 1st, has a well paid managerial level job, a mortgage and a lovely finance.
Absolutely seek some support. DS wasn't diagnosed until he was 11 as he's high functioning and masks well.

I can't believe you are carrying an 11 year old to his room then sitting outside his door to prevent him from leaving.

Its possible to sort this out, by using the guide and the voice he listens to to encourage change. I would keep on making the point until it registers.

This. He needs to be allowed control and autonomy, as appropriate to his age. He is having meltdowns. At least try not to cause them by not letting him have any say.

This also, great post. Also his school is likely to be draconian, most are, ridiculously so these days. He has no respite at home which is the same.

I wonder if there is a sense of pressure ( maybe self imposed ) to be a certain way whilst in public - he is safe at home to release all those feelings

If he's autistic and masking all day at school, home is where he doesn't have to mask and it will all come out like a Formula One winner's champagne.

Poor kid's likely to be wetting the bed because he's stressed out of his mind. Wanting a shorter dog walk gets him carried upstairs and barricaded into his room. Guessing that's how you deal with him all the time, right?

Give him choices. Literally, frame the options he has as choices. "You can choose to take the shortcut home, but you'll have to walk alone, or you can choose to walk with us, but this will be the long route because we must properly walk Rover". Parents forget that they control every aspect of their children's lives, right down to whether the child even eats, and that this is terrifying for the child and makes the child feel completely helpless. So try giving him a sense of agency.

I'm a secondary teacher.
Secondary school can be very 'sit still/ don't talk/ don't make a noise' - walk slowly, no playing with a ball outside, no shouting, no running. That and have 5-6 different teachers a day who run their classrooms differently, after a long term... It would be a lot for a child who struggles with being controlled. I really would let up a bit on him in terms of him having autonomy over his decisions.

Can you elaborate?

Re the cereal. Yes it was antagonistic of him to take the cereal and go to his room. He possibly was trying to get a rise out of you, even if that was subconscious from him. But you parents did rise, and escalated the situation. You followed him and made it physical. That's not ok. Ask yourself how does that end? Him eventually being forced to comply? Physically? What does he learn from this? What are you teaching him? Things might have gone very differently if you'd ignored him taking the cereal. It's just cereal. He'd gone to his room and may have calmed down, which would be amazing. Things might have de-escalated. Or maybe he'd have upped the anti again. But so what. You could deal with that calmly too. You parents need to model for him how to de-escalate and calm. That's surely a better lesson and what you'd want him to do when he's an adult himself. Not blind obedience or angry retaliation.

I just cannot comprehend this approach to parenting. Where is the nurturing? He is with his parents, why can't they support him when he feels unable (to walk further)? Why did one parent not go back with him? Or why did you not take the short cut back together drop him off and then continue your walk with your h? You and your h sound rigid and inflexible in your approach. THIS is why he likely melts down. Because you don't see or hear him when he is reasonable.

A stressful home. Poor boy.

He learns at home to insist and not to empathise and nurture. Extremely sadly he will most likely then display this type of emotionally stunted behaviour to his future partner and family. It's extremely sad.

He did not feel unable to walk, he was absolutely fine, until we said we were going to stick to the normal route, he knows the walk. As soon as we said ‘no, we’re going to do the normal walk’ that was it, stopped, tip tapped a lamppost, then turned back on himself and started walking the way we had came. This is just one senario, a simple no about something, when he has plenty of ‘yes’s’ day to day too, can lead to the over reaction, or we have mis understood something he has said etc

I hear you. That sounds hard. Out of interest why is he going on evening dog walks in the middle of winter after a long day at school having just reached the tail end of his first term at secondary school? It is rater unusual. He did seems to prefer to go the shorter route on this occasion. Did you ask him if he feels tired or why he preferred it? Why give hime a rigid 'no'? Why not change the route as you went as a group and one group member had a different preference? Only you will know but have you addressed the multiple posts about your husband physically mandating handling your son? Reading your posts your home life sounds punitive. Of course it's not possible to say for sure based on a MN post.

First step, tell your husband to never ever physically man handle his son again. How will your h react, I wonder?

What happens if you just totally ignore it? Like when he pinched the cereal just blank him. Carry on what you were doing. Or even lock yourself in your bedroom and fully ignore him?

My friends brother was like this, she hated him growing up as he caused havoc in the house (he was more extreme than your son) but calmed down a bit as an adult and now in hospital early 30s has been diagnosed with ADHD.

Same age gaps for her family as your kids too.

He sounds similar to my foster son when he was that age. I would say 12-14 were the worst years for his behaviour. Could not handle being told no if he had it in his head he wanted to do/not do something. Lots of stomping upstairs, shouting at me, slamming his door, ranting and screaming in his bedroom. He was very controlling to other children; particularly younger ones and he always had to be the ‘best.’ He would do things like throw balls hard at other kids when playing outside but if they did it back to him he would throw it as hard as he could at the child’s head then run in the house so they couldn’t do it back. And he would choose younger kids to target so he would always have the upper hand. And when you spoke to him about his behaviour he could never see how he was at fault. I used to dread asking him to do something because of the anger and attitude I would get off him.

At around 14-15 I started noticing that he wasn’t as argumentative. And now at almost 17 I would go as far as saying he’s now a really lovely boy. There wasn’t a magic solution. I didn’t find a way to calm him down. He just grew out of it.

He needs to be taught to manage his negative feelings.
I never learned a new skill by being punished for not having it.

We seem to be getting very hung up on this walk. Let's be honest, many many teenagers will moan and groan on any length of walk, short or long! I think this is not unusual? I can't remember loving walks when I was a teen, regardless of length! I probably moaned a lot too. I can think of many grown adults who were bloody awful teenagers but they are doing fine, highly successful and actually there is no hint that they'd had some behavioural or anger issues as a teen, I am holding out hope that this is true in my case!
This thread is very interesting and has highlighted some things for me to think about - I am not being in any way dismissive of people suggesting ND but I the teenage years are filled with all sorts of dynamics and difficulties. The teacher above makes some extremely good points - kids react differently to being overloaded/overstimulated. And as the poster above says, they can grow out of it.

Yes the walk was just one small example, to show how he can react at certain times when told no, or he hears something he doesn’t want to. We have done the walk in summer, winter, rain and sun, sometimes he comes, sometimes he stays at home with his sister, the point was to show how something small blew up.

So why not de-escalate and say "OK, well we're doing the long walk but we'll see you at home"? Why refuse to accept him walking back home?

Sometimes dropping the rope and not engaging with minor stuff de-escalates the situation effectively. I found with DD that letting her decide herself and say no to some things, made her listen more to the important times we said "no". But if you treat everything as requiring you to "enforce compliance" then you will end up in a vicious circle of negativity.

May I ask whether either you or your DH are ND? As there seems to be a rigidity in some or your thinking and actions that no plans can be changed.

It sounds quite tough OP as it can be hard to hit on the right approach when you don't actually know the reason behind it. I know you've had a lot of advice and lots to think about but physically moving him probably has to end as that is a clear line where things can end up going very wrong.

Its a tough age in general without any additional issues. I hope you find out the cause/causes and can take it from there.

Not rigid, but do end up working towards a certain routine, knowing more so we can have a tough period of time if he is tired. For example - a week at school, dinner at a friends while at primary big meltdown when he got home.

As you have gone through similar, what do you suggest when he digs his heals in and won’t go up for a bath, after asking, asking again, trying to make a game out of it (which feels like babying him), things that he knows you want/need him to do. Very occasionally something might annoy him in the morning and he’ll say I’m not going to school, I tend to ignore the comment as I know he would hate to be late and have to go to school reception, so I’ll give him a minute, then say you’ll end up late and he’ll go off in a grump.

When he digs his heels - you get curious, find out the why and acknowledge. You coregulate and help get through with calmness. You’re the authority but always with empathy.

When he says I’m not going to school, you can choose to not say anything, giving him time and waiting to see if there’s more he wants to share (very different to ignoring) or you can just coregulate - you might be feeling this and that might help.