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.