Stroppy, rude, defiant angry five year old boy

[biscuitsinthebiscuittin]

I honestly feel out of my depth with him and I don’t know how to manage his temper, moods, the way he speaks to me.

He will just shout ‘NO’ or start angrily talking over me; if you try to get him to eg go to his room to calm down until he can be a bit pleasanter he won’t.

I really am not enjoying being his parent at the moment

I have a 5 year old girl and we are struggling with similar behaviour too, did he start school in September? I’ve been attributing a lot of it to that, she really has been exhausted. The only things that help are plenty of down time in her pjs playing with toys and time just us doing something together, colouring/a game/a puzzle but time where I’m focused on her. She has a sister and unattributed some of her behaviour to jealousy too though. We used to be so close but I feel like there is more distance between us now. We went on holiday this week to Butlins and that helped give us some connection time too.

Thanks @RedRobyn24 , he did, yes! I’m not totally sure whether he’s tired or not but we had a busy morning and I do think he was tired … the way he spoke to me on the way home was horrible though and quite upsetting.

Is he 5 going on 6 or has he turned 5 recently? Boys get a little hormone boost around 6y so if he's coming up to that age, it could be his hormones. But like @RedRobyn24 , I have a DD in reception (4.5y) and she is also completely exhausted, run down, catching loads of bugs. We cancelled all holiday clubs over half term and have just let her chill at one with one of us, play with her toys, mess about in her room - zero pressure. That does seem to have helped. Last night she slept from 7.30pm - 9.15am this morning, which is unheard of so hopefully she is catching up with herself a bit.

Sorry, cross post with your update! In that case, I'd say dont underestimate how exhausted they all are.

I’m not really seeing any overt signs of tiredness. I’d say half term has been a mix; he hasn’t had any big days out but has been swimming, on a nature walk, soft play … went to an event run by a local museum but was very low key and quite chilled (although the massive brownie he persuaded me to buy him in the museum cafe not so much!)

To be fair they just are exhausted by the world in general, and any extra demands are just too much, adults often just giving one instruction or question after another, it's just got to the stage where they want to be left alone and not talked to for a while.
My strategy is to just dial back the demands and focus on food/toilet/rest, until they are regulated again. At that age, that was not until the weekend being honest, the whole weekend was recovery