Ds, 10 has always been quite headstrong, although he’s caring and very loving and funny and smart. He and his sister haven’t always been best buddies (she’s 4 yrs older) they have their moments but they’ll have each other’s backs if need be. On the whole, we’re a ‘normal’ family, we have our ups and downs, laughs and tears, tantrums.
DS, over the last couple of months has proved to be a real handful though. He really does shout & get angry, usually at bedtimes and just before school. He speaks to me and his dad like shit sometimes and does get disciplined (like phone taken off him etc) but he still does it. He’ll be sent to his room he’ll be shouting & screaming.
It’s become a constant pattern, nearly every morning, every night we (more me as his dad works nights sometimes) get this huge shouting show or a full meltdown or just a tirade of insults.
He has had a really shit year at school in the previous year, a teacher that should never have been a teacher, who really disliked my son made it a nightmare for him. His teacher now is obviously better. But he also gets ‘picked’ on a bit for a trait he has (can’t say what it is because it’s could be outing - he obviously can’t help it and he gets really upset by it, the school knows about past bullying regarding this but my son says it still happens & he knows now the teachers don’t do anything - so there have been times where my son has had to just stick up for himself, resulting in him getting into trouble, he feels like this is unfair as the bullies get away with it. He has told us something has been happening recently with another boy targeting ds so we’ve informed his teacher & deputy head but ds says nothing’s changed. Ds feels quite angry towards this boy (who lies quite a lot) & frustrated that he just can’t punch him.
He also becomes agitated when it comes to doing his homework, he gets defensive & tonight it took 3 hrs of me telling him to get it done, for him to say, you sit on the floor & do it. I’ve noticed he’s struggling a lot with it. I’ve spoken to him about how he’s finding work in class & he says maths is harder now & teacher always asks him for the answer when he doesn’t know it so he looks stupid in front of everyone. Parents evening his teacher said ds was doing ok, no concerns.
He really hates school & takes forever to get ready in the morning. I know kids generally don’t like school but he used to ‘not mind’ going & had a good group of friends. Now he feels like he doesn’t really have any it appears he’s finding the work hard, he’ll say it’s boring?!
Tonight he really flipped out at me, over the homework he shouted got angry & when I told him it was bedtime he became worse. I usually just tell him in a firm voice that his behaviour is wrong & unacceptable, but tonight i’d had enough & shouted back. No it didn’t really resolve anything because he just shouted louder. I took his phone & other things off him.
I’m just exhausted with it all. He’s like my best buddy, we’re very close, he’ll always want to snuggle up & watch a movie with me. Is it just his age? I don’t want to be arguing with him, but I want him to know there are boundaries & respect goes both ways, he is certainly not respecting us right now.