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Angry 8 year old

2K views 4 replies 5 participants last post by  Letitia 
#1 ·
Hello.
I've only posted a couple of times on here and it's been a while, but I'm still having some problems/concerns, and just looking for other thoughts. So just a little bit of background I have an 8yo stepson who lives with us full time. He sees his mom every other weekend. This has been the situation for the last 2 years. Basically, he thinks that he hates living with his dad and I (and 3 sisters) because we are so mean. (we expect him to do a couple chores and help out around the house some.) Anyways, so I guess what I'm really looking for thoughts and advice on right now is his anger. He is such a great kid most of the time. But the minute we ask him to do something he doesn't want to do, he loses it and has meltdowns. I've got a couple examples. And I feel stupid even explaining them but I feel like these are perfect examples to describe what I mean. We have had him tested by a psychologist for ADHD and anything else, but the only thing they said was that he has mild anxiety. We all see a counselor twice a month to try to work on it, but it doesn't seem to help and I feel almost as if we are making a big deal out of nothing. But I don't think we are. His mom is manic depressive/bipolar. So I wonder if he could have gotten that from her but everytime we try to explain these episodes he has it just makes us feel like we are the ones in the wrong because he only acts this way at home. So anyways, the first example I have was about a week ago. So we had just finished dinner and his chore is to clean off the table. So he took the rest of the guacamole and emptied it into the trash can and continued to do his chore. afterwards he rushes upstairs to shower and watch 10 mins of tv before bedtime. I was upstairs getting the baby to bed, and I go downstairs to start on the dishes and notice that there is guacamole all over the floor by the trashcan. At first I think o well, I'll just wipe it up. But just about every day we have to ask him to clean up after himself. its usually cereal that he spilled on the floor at breakfast and didn't clean up. or milk on the table. or whatever. usually along those lines. and we've been trying to work with him to pay attention to these things and clean up after himself. So I decide to ask him to please clean it up. I go up to him while hes watching tv and ask him to please go clean up the guacamole off the floor because it was a lot, and it should have been pretty noticeable to him that he dropped it on the floor. He goes down and cleans it up. When I go back down a few mins later, one spot is cleaned up, but there are still 4 big spots on the floor. (all right next to each other) I got back up and very nicely ask him to come downstairs. I ask him to look on the floor right there. He looks, and says "what!? I cleaned up the guacamole!" I point to them and say "Ok, do you see those?" He instantly gets mad and starts to get a bit of an attitude. "Yea, but that's not guacamole. You told me to clean up the guacamole, and I did!" I asked him what he thought that was. He tell me "I don't know. Chicken?" So, You know that that is food on the floor? "Yea! But it's not guacamole and that's what you told me to clean up!" By now he is really mad. I was doing my best to not show him how irritated I was by this. I kept my voice very calm and tried to explain to him that regardless of what he thought it was, he knew it was food, so why didn't he clean it up when he was already cleaning something else up right there? He just keeps getting more mad and repeating that it's not what I told him to clean up. Now, first. Am I crazy for expecting an 8 year old to figure that one out!? I don't think I should have to play word games with him. I expect him to clean it up if he knew it was food. (it was guacamole! lol) Anyways, so he gets a paper towel, cleans up the rest of it, and hurries back upstairs to watch tv again. In my mind I'm arguing with myself about whether or not to tell him no more tv for the night, or to just let him go back to what he wants. By the time I get back up, I've decided I don't think he needs to watch anymore tv for the night because I know that the whole reason he didn't clean up what he knew was food on the floor was because he was in such a hurry to back to the tv. I very calmly tell him that it's almost his bedtime anyways, to go ahead and turn the tv off and head to bed. (His dad is sitting right there.) Instantly he loses his shit. He starts crying and yelling that he cleaned up the guacamole and that's what I told him to clean up and he didn't know the other food was guacamole and on and on. I asked him to stop yelling, and to tell me why he is so mad. He yells that "you're so mean you're not even letting me watch the last couple minutes of tv." I tried to explain to him very calmly that we expect him to help out around this house because it is his also. And that he saw the food on the floor, knew it was food, and he should have just wiped it up instead of being in such a hurry to get back to the tv. But when he gets mad like this, there is no calming him down. We've tried hugging him. talking very calmly. sending him to another room to calm down. making him do jumping jacks (I read that somewhere). It doesn't work. At this point he's crying and throwing the tv remote ("trying" to clean it up but he's so mad that he just ends up throwing it) He's trying to hurt himself (he bends his fingers really far back to hurt himself, which we always tell him to stop doing). Just, acting ridiculous. Over something so small! he doesn't watch much tv, and if he does, its usually maybe 10-20 minutes before he goes to bed. If this were a one time ordeal, it wouldn't have been that big a deal. I would have cleaned the food up and went on with my day. But this is just about every day/evening. Another example (sorry this is so long) was this past weekend. He has to clean his room each weekend. It's not hard at all because his room is never really messy. He might just have a toy or two, some trash on the floor, and a couple shirts that have fallen off the hangers in his closet. That's usually the worst that it gets. He knows every weekend what we will look at when we check his room. His closet to make sure all his clean clothes are put away, and we will make sure there's no dirty clothes or trash on his floor. So I walk in there Sat morning before he had cleaned his room and there was a clean shirt on his closet floor. Cool. No big deal. He hasn't cleaned yet. So later on after he says he's done with his room, I go to check it out. Usually he goes through with me, but this time he was downstairs playing. So I go in the closet and see that the shirt is no longer on the floor. Cool. Well, I move his bookbag from off the ground, and see that he has moved the shirt and another clean one behind it so we don't see it when we go in there. So I go downstairs and tell him that I want him to think really hard about if he did his room right. And I told him to go take one more quick look and take care of anything that he needed to before I looked again. He thinks for a minute, then goes up there and comes back down a minute later and says its done. when I go up there with him this time to look it over, I notice that both the shirts are hung up now. I tell him that his room looks good, and that the reason I told him to come double check it was because I had noticed that he hid some clothes under his bookbag so we wouldn't see them, and that I was glad that he came back up and put them away right. that right there started it. He instantly got mad and started crying and said "I didn't hide them!" So I asked him why they were on the floor under his bookbag, and why he had moved them from the middle of the floor, where they were to begin with. He said "because I didn't feel like hanging them up!" So I tried to explain to him that it would have taken him less time to hang them up in the first place than it would have to hid them, then come back up a few minutes later and ultimately have to hang them up. But he just keeps crying and yelling about how he didn't hide them. By this point he's trying to bang his head on the wall and yelling and crying about how I'm so mean because I'm saying that he hid them and he didn't and so on. To me, this overreaction is absolutely uncalled for. It's very obvious to me that he doesn't know how to control his emotions. But I feel that he is 8 years old, and I should be able to calmly explain to him what we expect in certain situations without him throwing a tantrum. In both these situations, I tried to explain to him why he was losing his tv privilege (the first incident) and that him hiding the shirts was not the point of our conversation (the second). The point was that I was glad he made the choice to do it right without us having to point it out. But he can't even hear it when he gets this angry. And we've tried it situations like this to wait until later when he is finally calmed down (this can usually take up to an hour) but then it just gets him worked up again. Sometimes I don't do the best at staying calm and just talking with him. We don't usually yell, but we talk more stern with him a lot of times in these situations, but we are working on getting better at keeping a very calm, just conversation tone with him to try to explain things to him more. But it doesn't seem to help. These are just 2 of the examples I could think of recently, but these kind of episodes happen almost every or every other day. Its always such simple stuff. yesterday it was because I told him I wanted him to read another chapter in his book (for homework) because the one he just read was only 3 pages. Anyways, I'm sorry this is so long, and it seems like I am only talking about the negative. Believe me, I see the good in him all the time. And I try my best to make it a point to point it out to him. But when we're having issues like this so frequently, it's exhausting. and really irritating. and it definitely makes it harder to point out the good. Any thoughts or advice would be welcome!
 
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#2 ·
I only have a minute, but I wanted to say that from the two examples you gave, it sounds like he is a kid who really can't stand to lose face. I have two who were like that and yes, they'd be so mortified that they would throw major hissy fits. They grew out of it without me taking any hard line.

I would humour him a bit, give him a way to save face in order to reduce conflict and give him low-key practice at fixing things he has done wrong. I'd say "Oops, it looks like there are some clothes under your backpack that got missed" rather than accusing him of hiding them.

The worse he feels about himself the worse he'll tend to behave. Give him ways of saving face a bit, he'll feel better about himself and he'll start to be more reasonable and helpful.

Miranda
 
#3 ·
I think In both those examples you are setting him up a bit to have a tantrum. In the first incident he had to leave his program 2-3 times to come back and do the job properly. He did that and then he *still* got punished (TV off early). I would have let it go once he'd cleaned up to your satisfaction. The lesson is that he had to leave his program several times and go back to the job. He will eventually learn that if he wants uninterrupted TV time that he had to do it right the first time. That lesson is likely to take longer has he's only with you part time.

The second instance is essentially the same except he improved. You gave him the opportunity to complete the task and he did it. He knew you were onto him or you wouldn't have asked him to check his room again. I don't think he needed the extra lecture as well.

I certainly get that it's frustrating but it seems like a reasonably age-appropriate testing of how much (or little) he can get away with :)


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#4 ·
hard to read your text

From the little I gleaned, I agree, he's 8. 8 may seem like a big kid, he should be capable right? But he is in truth, still a little kid. I don't know what to say as I've got a kid who will do stuff (does do stuff) like that and he is getting better, but it took a while, and we are STILL working on it. You may have to go over everything as to you it may be obvious but to him, it may not be something he gives one single thought to (like how to clear a table). And doing it poorly may be a way of getting out of the responsibility (and getting back to the stuff he wants to do). My son appears to feel that "chores" are a punishment (I think he's getting better with this), instead of a contribution to the family. I remember reading a book about parenting kids who entrench themselves in difficult behaviour, and one thing that stuck out for me was celebrating the small steps forward. So for some kids, a week of good behaviour might be an OK goal, but for others it might just be one afternoon, one day.
 
#5 ·
I also have an 8yo son, and he's been a really difficult kid so I do know where you are coming from. My son is very sensitive, very controlling, and has been very prone to tantrums. With him, it felt like he had some sort of developmental delay in his ability to handle frustration. He has in the past had a diagnosis of ODD, although I think he may not meet criteria for that anymore. We've worked really hard on how best to parent him.

Three things:

First, I agree with Miranda. I know these are only 2 examples, but I see a commonality. You don't have to do anything to make sure the "lesson" sinks in. The lesson is just the lesson.

That he picked up the shirts with a gentle reminder sounds great to me, and I would have let it go after that. He already knows he did something half-a**ed the first time around; he learns a good job is expected. If he doesn't clean something on the floor adequately, I'd just tell him to come back and do a better job. If you ask him what he sees, you put him in the position of choosing between admitted trying to do something half-a**ed or making up a lie, and who wants to choose the former? If you tell him to came back and do a better job and he says "I already did it," then you can point out to him where else he needs to clean, but if you think he already knows, he probably does. Just give him the chance to correct the mistake. If he corrects the mistake, he's done.

The above paragraph is coming from the better-mother part of myself - I am very guilty of saying too much to pound in a lesson. It inevitably turns out badly. They always get mad, and I can feel it that I've gone too far. It's hard for me to let go of this, but I'm working on it. I find I'm more prone to it when the offense was something that particularly pushed one of my buttons.

The second thing is to "catch him being good." Example: if he ever, ever cleans up something on his own, notice it and praise him. Not effusively that might feel fake or emphasize that it's a surprise he did it, but just enough he knows you noticed. This has helped a lot in our house.

Third, if you don't feel the therapist is helpful, look for another one. The first one we saw obviously just didn't "get" our kid and was giving us generic parenting advice. The second was awesome, but she was astute enough to see that he would do better with a male therapist. The third is OK, and I feel like with the basis we got from the second one we're all doing fairly well.
 
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