sweet and destructive

[crazytownmama]

Hello,

I am completely at my wits end with my 5 year old.  He can be the sweetest, most helpful child...but he has this drive to destroy things.  He got a table top game thing from my mom for christmas...he punched holes in the cardboard box with the screwdriver that my husband was going to use to install the batteries...with the toy still INSIDE the box.  Then, a day later when he got to try playing with it again, he deliberately punched through the felt of one of the puck things...  I put him in a junk art class, where they take apart broken electronics and then use the pieces to make sculpture - and he lOVES it...but instead of curbing his destructive tendencies...they make it worse!  I'm out of ideas... please help.

(He KNOWS he is breaking things...he just doesnt care... and we have plenty of toys... I have 4 kids... and they're the only grandkids with lots of aunts/uncles...so when questioned, he just says he's done with that toy...whether its his or his siblings...) 

thanks!!

[HappyHappyMommy]

Welcome to Mothering! I see your post was missed. I thought I'd bump it up to give it some attention and see if anyone has suggestions to share. Have you noticed a pattern of when your son breaks things? Is it when he's tired or bored or lonely? If there is a pattern, there may be something else that's challenging him and helping him with that challenge might help stop the pattern of breaking things. I'm sending good wishes to you!
 

[crazytownmama]

Thanks... :)

If there's a pattern, I cannot find it.  I've racked my brain... and I just don't know.  I had my father build the boys a little work bench for christmas, and I've started to let him take apart stuff as I come across things that don't work/we would've thrown away anyway) ... and we made him a crude electronics type kit thing that he can do whatever he wants to...  I can't let him keep that stuff out, since his 1 year old sister would LOVE to get her hands on it, but its there for the asking... 

The destruction is not limited to toys -- he likes to tear apart paper, he ripped up the advent calendar (the one with the windows that open), magazines, etc...  (I dont care as much about the paper stuff though, since we get lots of junk mail and he KNOWS it... i STILL find a book ripped apart every now and then...  Maybe its a tactile/sensory thing?  Maybe I just need to offer him more outlets to get his hands messy/dirty/into things...  (where do you draw the line between it being about ME finding outlets for him, and him respecting things enough to know what he can/cannot destroy?)  He's 5, 2 months away from 6...

I'm about to jinx myself here... but its been a few and he hasn't destroyed anything...  maybe the workbench is working?