my son just argues

[motherofboys]

my eldest will be 7on the 5th of February. his an intelligent boy, above average at school with the reading age of 10and a half back in July, and has always been much older than his age. he does judo and karate and has excelled, taking them so seriously and dedicating himself. he could be a bit mouthy now and then but on the whole has been a good boy.
now the whole time he is home, from waking up to falling asleep he is either trying to wind up his 5and almost 3year old brothers, thinks it's funny to make them cry. or telling them to do naughty things so they get into trouble. and if he isn't doing that his arguing. with them, with us. his become rude and has started lying. over the simplest things too, like he will tell me that something happened and when I ask about it he says he never told me that. he hides things from his brothers just so they can't have them and will not cooperate on any thing at all. when ever we try to talk to him he just gets angry and shouts at us.
he has also now started to get told off at school and even at judo and karate which is a first.
I don't know what's going on because he won't tell us, even if we have some one to one time with him and try to do something nice he won't talk about it and because he lies so often I don't know whether to believe him anyway. his even started being rude to his friends in front of their parents and I'm worried so he will have no friends. and if his like this now how will he be when his older.
but more than that I just want my happy boy back.
is this a normal stage too go through that will soon be over or is there something more going on? I know he had a problem with bullies a while back but that had been sorted out and he says it's nothing like that.
I didn't think I would be getting this till he was a teen.

 

[seoj]

It does seem like something more is going on hun... obviously I don't know the entire situation, but typically, when childrens behavior changes up quickly or pretty drastically- there is more to it. He's still so young though, it may be something he isn't fully aware of ya know? If that makes sense. OR- maybe it is a stage... IDK. My oldest would argue over EVERYTHING when she was younger. It was hard for her to control her anxiety of things, so she would try to control everything she could- or argue her point. It became so frustrating. In time, it got so much better- especially the older she got as she was more capable of understanding and self control. But at 9-10yrs- ugh. It could be very draining. And we tried several things to keep it under control- the best thing, was immediate consequeces (for her at least). If she started to argue- I'd tell her this was not a debate, and if she continued to argue then <<insert consequence>> would happen. If she argued one more time- then I would follow through. It was never anything much- when she was old enough I would take her cell phone away... and eventually, all I had to do was hold out my hand the moment she started to argue and that cut it off right away. It just took lots of trial and error finding out what worked for her and us.

I would maybe just sit your kiddo down- alone, and just talk. Not even specifically about what he's doing "wrong" or what is going on- but maybe just about how school is going and in general... and maybe it will lead to some understanding. Then keep encouraging and re-enforcing the good behavior and following through with consequences or time outs or "resets" on the "bad behavior".

Sorry I've no great advise... I'm sure it will pass in time or you'll figure out the cause. Sometimes kids do have residual feelings/reactions to things that happened a while back. It's not always easy to determine. Just keep at it hun. Best of luck!

 

[motherofboys]

thanks, it's so hard to know what to do for the best, especially not knowing what's causing it. I don't want to make him feel worse but don't want him to think it's acceptable to lie and shoot and argue with me all the time. he gets angry at the drop of a hat.

 

[seoj]

He may not understand why doing what you need to do hun- but he'll thank you for it in the long run. Trust me, my SD was not always happen with our reponse- but she craved our boundaries and rules- and needed them, even if she didn't like them at the time. I am empressed all the time at what a wonderul young woman she's grown into. She is honestly so much easier now (as a teenager) than she was at 10yrs! LOL.

I'm sure you'll figure it out and make the best decision for him.

 

[AimeeM]

Could he be being picked on at school? I agree with above, a sudden drastic change can be a clue to an underlying issue. Thing is though that they can be reluctant to speak about it. Could you ask the school if they have noticed anything or to keep an eye out? It could happen again and bullies ut him off teloing again. Has anything happened at home?
I find teasing behaviour tend to be learned so the fact he has just started teasing his younger sibling suggests he may be learning it at school.
Another thing I have found is they tend to get to an age and notice behaviour of other children they class as cool. We don't think it is cool but they can imitate that behaviour in order to fit in or appear how the so called cool kids do.