I am desperate for help. My 5.5 year old DS is out of control!
A little history first...DS has been battling a brain tumour most of his life. He was very sick for the first 3 years of his life and doctors couldn't figure out what was wrong with him. I attachment parented him. He rarely left my arms as an infant. He was exclusively breast fed as well and comfort nursed every 1.5 hours during the day. At age 3.5 DS was doing very poorly and doctors finally discovered a slow growing brain tumour. He underwent surgery which removed half of the tumour and then endured 16 months of chemo to halt the growth of the remaining tumour. Chemo ended 9 months ago in January. Since January he was doing pretty good until June when some old tumour related symptoms started to return. We had to wait 1 month for an MRI which showed a small amount of new growth. His oncologist decided to be passive and do a repeat MRI in 2 months to be 120% sure that chemo was the right route to go. He had the MRI 2 weeks ago and miraculously the growth that was showing was gone.
We don't know what happened in those 2 months between MRIs. What we do know is that suddenly in July DS stopped acting like himself. He has become very angry and sensitive. The littlest things set him off. We thought it was the tumour causing this, but our oncologist tells us that his tumour (in the brainstem) is not in the right location to cause these behavioural changes. The oncologist thinks it is more likely related to everything DS has been through, though why it is surfacing now we aren't sure. DS was not informed of the results of his July MRI so he had no reason to be anxious or upset suddenly. DH and I tried our best to act like everything was fine. I will admit that we were stressed out and probably yelling more than we should have, but we have NEVER hit our children. Our oncologist is going to refer DS to a child psychologist at the children's hospital, but it will be some time before that starts. In the meantime we are on our own and at a loss as to how to handle DS.
So, for an example of DS's behaviour, here is what happened this morning. DS was playing nicely with his 3 year old brother. DS2 had a toy that DS1 wanted so he took it. DS2 cried, so DS1 threw the toy at him hitting him in the face with it. I calmly told DS1 to go to his room and when he was ready to apologize and play nicely and share he could come back out. DS1 then got right in my face screaming "I hate you" and then proceeded to slap me as hard as he could. I still have a red mark on my cheek from it. At the moment I have told DS1 that he can stay in his room till I come get him. I don't want him near us if he is going to be so violent over nothing.
DS is in Senior Kindergarten. I am nervous to send him to school and every time the phone rings during the day my heart stops thinking it is the school calling to inform me of some violent thing that DS has done. I am a stay at home mom. I quit my job 2 years ago when DS was first diagnosed. He has had no big changes recently. Problems started in the middle of the summer. He was excited to go back to school (it is part time only), but now seems to not like it whereas he LOVED it last year. We think it is because he is not getting along well with the other children. Whenever he doesn't get his way he has a fit of anger over it. This means whenever another child has something he wants or when they are playing a different game at recess than what he wants to play he gets angry over it. He is going to lose all his friends acting like this and we are worried for him.
I should also mention that right now when he is having a fit/angry we tell him calmly to go to his room until he calms down and then he may come out. He generally willing does this and calms himself down usually within a minute or two. Then he comes out and willingly apologizes for what he did. He seems ligitimately sorry for his behaviour. If we talk about it he admits he was out of control and doesn't know why he got so upset. In the heat of the moment though he cannot be spoken too and needs that cool down time.
Sorry this is so long. I am so desperate for help and will welcome any and all suggestions. I just don't know what to do with him....
A little history first...DS has been battling a brain tumour most of his life. He was very sick for the first 3 years of his life and doctors couldn't figure out what was wrong with him. I attachment parented him. He rarely left my arms as an infant. He was exclusively breast fed as well and comfort nursed every 1.5 hours during the day. At age 3.5 DS was doing very poorly and doctors finally discovered a slow growing brain tumour. He underwent surgery which removed half of the tumour and then endured 16 months of chemo to halt the growth of the remaining tumour. Chemo ended 9 months ago in January. Since January he was doing pretty good until June when some old tumour related symptoms started to return. We had to wait 1 month for an MRI which showed a small amount of new growth. His oncologist decided to be passive and do a repeat MRI in 2 months to be 120% sure that chemo was the right route to go. He had the MRI 2 weeks ago and miraculously the growth that was showing was gone.
We don't know what happened in those 2 months between MRIs. What we do know is that suddenly in July DS stopped acting like himself. He has become very angry and sensitive. The littlest things set him off. We thought it was the tumour causing this, but our oncologist tells us that his tumour (in the brainstem) is not in the right location to cause these behavioural changes. The oncologist thinks it is more likely related to everything DS has been through, though why it is surfacing now we aren't sure. DS was not informed of the results of his July MRI so he had no reason to be anxious or upset suddenly. DH and I tried our best to act like everything was fine. I will admit that we were stressed out and probably yelling more than we should have, but we have NEVER hit our children. Our oncologist is going to refer DS to a child psychologist at the children's hospital, but it will be some time before that starts. In the meantime we are on our own and at a loss as to how to handle DS.
So, for an example of DS's behaviour, here is what happened this morning. DS was playing nicely with his 3 year old brother. DS2 had a toy that DS1 wanted so he took it. DS2 cried, so DS1 threw the toy at him hitting him in the face with it. I calmly told DS1 to go to his room and when he was ready to apologize and play nicely and share he could come back out. DS1 then got right in my face screaming "I hate you" and then proceeded to slap me as hard as he could. I still have a red mark on my cheek from it. At the moment I have told DS1 that he can stay in his room till I come get him. I don't want him near us if he is going to be so violent over nothing.
DS is in Senior Kindergarten. I am nervous to send him to school and every time the phone rings during the day my heart stops thinking it is the school calling to inform me of some violent thing that DS has done. I am a stay at home mom. I quit my job 2 years ago when DS was first diagnosed. He has had no big changes recently. Problems started in the middle of the summer. He was excited to go back to school (it is part time only), but now seems to not like it whereas he LOVED it last year. We think it is because he is not getting along well with the other children. Whenever he doesn't get his way he has a fit of anger over it. This means whenever another child has something he wants or when they are playing a different game at recess than what he wants to play he gets angry over it. He is going to lose all his friends acting like this and we are worried for him.
I should also mention that right now when he is having a fit/angry we tell him calmly to go to his room until he calms down and then he may come out. He generally willing does this and calms himself down usually within a minute or two. Then he comes out and willingly apologizes for what he did. He seems ligitimately sorry for his behaviour. If we talk about it he admits he was out of control and doesn't know why he got so upset. In the heat of the moment though he cannot be spoken too and needs that cool down time.
Sorry this is so long. I am so desperate for help and will welcome any and all suggestions. I just don't know what to do with him....
