This makes me frustrated and sad

[Lady Mayapple]

Yesterday we made homemade pizzas for dinner. I use flatbread and have the kids put whatever they want on the pizzas. DH says to DS1 "Isn't this fun? It's like our own pizza shop!" DS throws a fit and yells "No it isn't This is my house!"

Fast forward a few hours to bedtime...DS2 wants to read a bedtime story. He's currently obsessed with raccoons and asks for a "raccoon story". I don't have any books with raccoons, but I did think of one that I could adapt, and that was Mouse Soup. DS2 was excited about the idea...DS1 was furious. "NO! It's MOUSE Soup!" I tried to explain to him that I was just changing the story for tonight since his little brother wanted to read a story about raccoons. DS1 wouldn't have any of it and proceeded to interrupt and yell "mouse" every time I replaced it with "raccoon". Then he started sulking and giving me dirty looks, then he started interrupting again and asking for a glass of water, a snack, etc etc...

It isn't uncommon for him to do this kind of stuff and it's really getting on my nerves. I have very little tolerance for being interrupted and it feels like any time I try to do something with the kids as a group or do something with DS1's siblings he ruins it. I feel like all of his behaviors and problems are overtaking our family life. We still don't have an appt yet with the developmental pediatrician. I'm really hoping we get one soon because I'm running out of patience with all of this. Sorry to rant

[Zan&Zav]

it's hard, feel free to rant . My youngest Zavier can be the same way, very rigid. Everything is literal, if I was to say my house was a pizza shop it could send him on a twister, because it's not a pizza shop, it is a house, and he can't understand that its a joke. How old is your son?

[Lady Mayapple]

He is almost 5. We had him evaluated for autism at 3 because he still wasn't talking. They did not give a diagnosis and said he just had a speech delay. He did start talking but there are other problems now. We're hoping to get him into a developmental ped very soon. I'm so sick of him yelling and demanding everything. The stress and tension is ridiculous in my house. It's even more frustrating because I don't know how to react to him to get him to act better or help him understand that his tone of voice and his behavior is inappropriate and unacceptable.

[RiverTam]

OMG, that's incredibly wearing.

I've got a kid with a speech delay that demonstrated rigid thinking like this. He's much better at age 7 than he was at 3-5. His speech language delay is specific to his expressive/receptive language and his pragmatic use of language, which is similar to the deficits kids with ASDs have.

A lot of the emotional juice in my son for these types of situations was coming from his frustration with being unable to say something that he knew. To use a situation like yours as an example, he understood that the house wasn't a pizza shop and wanted to talk about why it's a silly idea, but couldn't get it out. That's frustrating. Then I would continue to insist on my point and he'd be completely overwhelmed by the flow of words coming from me and his own ability to get what he wanted to say out. And to him, I'm sure the flow of words from other people feels like a river, compared to what he was able to produce. He had to feel like he wasn't being given a chance to get a work in edgewise. In a way, it's like an adult stroke victim, who knows they want to say something, but can't put what they want to say into words.

Speech/language therapy helped him with this because he and his therapist did a lot of work with differences and similarities and inferences. (Ie. "Tell me how our house is like a pizza shop." "Tell me how our house is different from a pizza shop.") When he could articulate his thinking, it got a bit better.

We also did a lot of work with modeling the correct way to ask for things or raise a topic or argue. If I could figure out what his problem was, I'd tell him EXACTLY how to say what he needed to say and then have him repeat it, and then I would give an appropriate response. Modeling and practice helped some.

If none of that worked, we sent him to his room until he quit yelling. He could yell as much as he liked in his room.

[khaoskat]

May not be a long term solution, but how about trying to get him into some Counseling. It may help him learn to deal with getting upset and how to better handle those feelings...and better strategies to cope when he doesn't get his way.

DS1 has sleep apnea and used to be a handful. We are doing counseling, and we remind him we understand he is tired, but just because he is tired it is not an excuse and he knows better ways of handling things.

It also may help you in the long the run, as they may be able to give you some ideas on how to cope with the outbursts so things are not as stressful.

[BetsyNY]

That sounds a LOT like my son who was just dx'd ADHD. Demanding, inflexible, and could suck the fun out of just about every situation.

We've had incidents very similar to the ones you describe--where the opposition would be comical if it weren't so upsetting.

[APToddlerMama]

That sounds rough. Have you looked at his diet at all? We saw huge behavioral changes in my son when we finally caved and took out several foods...dairy in particular. I never would have believed it would make such a difference.

[Lady Mayapple]

Originally Posted by APToddlerMama

That sounds rough. Have you looked at his diet at all? We saw huge behavioral changes in my son when we finally caved and took out several foods...dairy in particular. I never would have believed it would make such a difference.

Another thing I've TOTALLY fallen off the wagon with-nutrition. His diet is, in my opinion, too limited. He will eat some fresh things like grapes, strawberries, bananas, and recently cantaloupe. Vegetables are limited to carrots, green beans, and corn. He will eat pasta with tomato sauce, but I wasn't able to can enough of my homemade for weekly use so I use store-bought sauce which is loaded with sugar. Thankfully he does not drink milk very often. Every once and a blue moon he'll ask for a glass but seriously that's like every six months. Not a cheese-eater either. But there's still too much going out to eat, too much processed stuff, and I used to be SO strict. This economy is tough on everyone and with five people in my household buying all natural or organic is totally out of the question now. I HAVE to stop the junk food from getting into this house. Even I've gained about 15-20lbs over the past year from our bad habits...I'm so ashamed

Today was another rough day. He's overall a really good kid, don't get me wrong. But it is so hard because he has two younger siblings that are so close in age and he gets so upset by all their craziness and he gets jealous. My daughter got a stupid little toy in her kids' meal and didn't want it so she gave it to my youngest boy and DS1 sulked about it ALL EVENING. We were just about to go to bed and he's sitting in bed crying and saying "I feel sad today". So I ask him "What's wrong?" "He has the baby toy." "Well you're a big boy-your brother still likes to think he's a baby. Isn't that silly? Wait a minute..." So I think really fast and try to find something special to give DS1. I had some of those porcelain figures you get in Red Rose tea boxes and gave him a little polar bear. He said thank you and went to sleep (finally).

Sometimes I feel like my son is 14 instead of 4. His emotions are like a teenaged girl sometimes-it's unreal! It is hard for me to witness all of this because I am a very emotional person myself and I see so much of myself in him and I know how much he is hurting. I almost have this mountain of paperwork done and this week I hope to send it in to the specialist and get an appointment.

The stress is just too much. Parenting+work+everything else has sent me over the edge sometimes. My doctor put me on Lexapro a few months back but I couldn't stand the drowsiness and could barely get out of bed in the morning. The alternative isn't much better, unfortunately. I've been self-medicating in the evenings with a few glasses of wine and I NEVER thought I would do anything like that. But it's the only thing that is keeping me out of the looney bin. Ugh....Thank you so much for your understanding. I'm sorry to ramble on and on like this.

[TzippityDoulah]

I have a 5 yr old and a 1 yr old like that. some days are worse than others... but int he bad days... it's BAD. I HATE having people demand things of me! it literally makes me furious! I have to really really really try to bite my tongue and not get nasty back. (which I often fail at). my 5 yr has to have things the EXACT way she feels they need to be or she will make it very surely known you are wrong. there are no substitutions. she's often very rigid in her ideals.

it seriously rubs me the wrong way so you have my sympathy totally!