struggling with 5 year old. looooooong

[motherofboys]

i am at my wits end with my 5 year old son.
his always been more of a handful, and i thought i found him more difficult when he was smaller due to PND, we had no real bond till he was 2 years old and so when he was a toddler i didnt trust my judgement of whether he was worse than my elder son. although others have told me that he is in general a handful from observations they have made.
i have always been told he will grow out of it and its his age and you know what his getting worse as he gets older. i was hoping starting school would help but it hasnt yet.
he used to have a short period towards the end of the day when he would be at his worst, and it was usually as he was tired. but now almost as soon as his eyes open in the morning his misbehaving. right up to the school gates by which time i feel like pulling my hair out. he walks through that gate and someone flips a switch and his an angel, right up until 3:30 when he leaves school and by the time we are halfway home his starting again.
since starting school he has learnt to spit, has learnt the words piss and arse and loves to shout them really loudly.

when ever i have spoken to people about his behaviour in the past they have always given me the same 4 answers, middle child syndrome, which seeing as his been like it and just grown worse since before i was even pregnant with his little brother i highly doubt it. attention seeking, he gets much more GOOD attention than his brothers do in a bid to keep him under control, i have a very upset 6 year old who thinks that daddy doesnt love him as much as his brother because he is glued to his side and hardly has time to devote to the eldest. he even helps make dinner every night and wipes down the table and washes up after. he doesnt mind if anyone else joins in though so it doesnt seem to be about attention, and he will be in the middle of a lovely activity with one of us and suddenly just ruin it. he was in bed reading with daddy when he turned to him and said "look at me daddy" and spat in his face!!!! another one is over active mind. i dont even know how that can be an excuse but they say keep him busy, well we do his not got a chance to get bored and he will as i said just snap in the middle of something.
and the last one is disapline, (or the fact they are implying there is a lack of it) but he gets disaplined. over the years i have tried every trick in every book. i dont give up after a few days either i have given them good tries for months of being consistant with the same punishment before admitting defeat. at the moment we have been using time ins and taking away things, stopping him from doing stuff, and we have been doing this for 2 years. he gets his set amount of warnings and explainations why and then loses something.
his willfully distructive and has actually started being violent. yesterday he pulled my hair and kicked me and today he picked his little brother up off the seatee and threw him off! we have been ttc but his behaviour has gotten so much worse since october that i dont think i can go through another pregnancy and have actually said to DH that it might be best to stop ttc either until we sort him out or maybe forever.
i really feel like he hates us because he can be so so good for everyone else, teachers, friends mums etc but anyone who has seen him in this house will know what his really like. he used to say that his body made him do things. now he just says because he likes doing them when asked why. he says he thinks its funny. and half the time the next morning if you talk to him about it he says he doesnt remember.
i am beginning to think he would be happier else where and i hate myself for thinking that because i love him so much but it seems he doesnt want to be here.
i dont know what to do now. DH has suggested the docs but i dont see what good that will do. they doc will only suggest one of the above reasons as he doesnt have any of the main symptoms of any behaviour disorders other than his in ability to control himself at home.
i am quite a patient person usually, but his really wearing my patience thin and its effecting other areas of my life now as i just dont feel i have the energy for anything else, even when his not here i am storing up energy ready to try to keep him occupied when he gets home. and my other children are suffering for it, my eldest feels left out of everything and my youngest wants me to play with him during the day when his brothers are not here but all i want to do is curl up.


thanks so much to anyone who managed to get through this. as you can see its been building for a while. i used to just think of him as spirited with lots of energy, now i think of him as naughty and i am worried what he could turn into but i am trying so hard and am doing everything i can think of and its just not working.

 

[marley2580]

Hugs hun, I don't have loads of advice I'm afraid, but have you read the book Parenting your defiant child? It might have some ideas that may help you?

 

[motherofboys]

no i havent read that. thanks i will look for it

 

[fordy]

Omgosh i could have wrote this!!!!! My 8 yr old son is exactly like this hes also a middle child hes slowly getting better but other than that i cant get any help coz the teachers say hes an angel

 

[suzib76]

Go seerily the doctor and keep going back until.you get a paediatric referral

It sounds very much like there could be something there, I'm not qualified to suggest but I do think a trip to your GPS or repeat trips if needed is the way to go

Even if they find nothing they may be able to refer you to an organisation that can help support various methods of discapline

 

[motherofboys]

every time i try to research to see what it could be, everything i find tells me he would be behind either physically, socially or intellectually and would not be able to control himself at school. he is actually very ahead in most ways and bang on target in others.

 

[marley2580]

Have you considered that giving him the extra attention and occupation may be making things worse? In that maybe he's getting over stimulated? Maybe what he needs is a bit of time alone to unwind before interacting again? Not saying this is the case, but it's worth a thought. I have 3 kids as well and my middle one's quite challenging at times. It is totally second child syndrome with her lol.

 

[motherofboys]

its always been a case in the past that if left to his own devices he would cause trouble. i guess things can change but mostly involving him in everything began as a distraction technique.

 

[RachA]

Have you looked into his diet?


I have a son who sounds fairly similar to yours. He's always been very defiant and difficult to discipline. I actually took him to a homeopathic doctor who diagnosed food allergies. He was taken off the offending foods and given some natural tablets to take and his behaviour was a lot better. My niece saw the same doctor and she had even worse food allergies. Until a little persons body is detoxed they can actually be allergic to tap water!! It's definitely worth considering doing. If it doesn't help then you have haven't lost anything. It doesn't matter if your other two boys are eating the same foods and aren't being affected - it's like any allergy.

I would also echo what Marley said and wonder if he's getting too much stimulation. Going back to my son - he was awful his first year at school, getting him home was a major trial and just totally horrendous. I had to learn that when he finished school he didn't actually want to talk and that he really needed some down time in order to process the day. Once he'd done that he was fine. We do still have occasions when the walk home is a nightmare (or easily could of been one) - today was one in fact. He got in into his head that a car was parked right where he needed to play on his scooter and he was't happy about it. I was able to say to him 'as you are in one of those moods today you can go to bed as soon as we get home'. His reply was 'oh okay' and was a happy as anything the rest of the way home. We only go to this point because on a number of occasions i've told him he's going to have to go to bed, with or without dinner depending on the seriousness of the issue, and i've followed it through.