This is a more serious post than some. It’s about a child who’s nearly perfect outside the home, and just as imperfect inside our home. It’s about a parent (me) who doesn’t know what to do about it, and can’t stand it anymore. Here’s where things stand.
Preschool Meltdowns Seemed Extreme But Explicable
Since preschool, my son has had afterschool meltdowns. It made sense back then. He’s naturally a loud child, and used to being in charge. He’s a natural leader, with tons of creativity and ideas for play.
He turned off those characteristics in preschool. For the first year or so, nobody there even knew he could talk, even though he didn’t stop talking at home. He told me and my parents that he “turned off his voice” at school.
Being in school for hours must have been a lot of effort for him. Though unpleasant for me, the daily meltdowns after preschool seemed appropriate for the situation and his age. And, he usually got over them after minutes or hours.
A Balance of Angelic Student and Devilish Son
But the afterschool trouble has continued. In a Jekyll and Hyde-like situation, my son remains something of a model student and even community member. He has perfect attendance for the last two years. He’s never missed an assignment. Teachers, family friends, and other parents tell me that he’s helpful and polite. “Easygoing” is another description that I commonly hear.
After school can be a totally different story. While I do get to enjoy my son’s delightful company for weeks or even months at a time, there are many more multi-month periods when I am the object of aggression, anger, and frustration.
Understandable Outbursts Have Turned Excessive
I understand that my son needs an outlet for everything that he’s holding in during the school day. He’s an active, loud child. School demands the opposite from him, so he must need to balance it out somehow.
I understand that it’s natural for children to give their parents their worst behavior. It’s probably a positive sign; he feels safe letting it out to me. Since I’m a single parent, he has nobody else to blame, yell at, or hit.
But now my son is 8. He’s in third grade. Isn’t it time to stop hitting, pushing, and knocking chairs over at the slightest provocation, or even unprovoked? Today, he accidentally dropped his crayons on the floor of his room and started yelling at me for being annoying. Then he threw them away. He does things like that; it scares me because it feels like it could be a path to self-harm.
When I joined him in his room to make his bed and help with the crayons, he pushed me into the wall (as bad luck would have it, it was a corner that was sticking out and I can feel my back and shoulder developing into injuries that may take weeks or months to heal), yelled at me for being annoying, and slammed the door as he left his room.
Side note: I called 988 crisis help line. It was my second time. They’ve been very pleasant people both times, but haven’t been able to offer relevant resources. Still, it is nice to at least have someone to call.
When an Older Child’s Tantrums Turn Aggressive and Disruptive
When an older child is violent, it can lead to injury and property damage. My son is strong. He always has been. Though he only weighs about 60 pounds, for example, he can carry paving stones that I (a middle-aged, basically in-shape woman) can’t. He has the ability to hurt me, and he does.
When he gets worked up, it can take hours of hands-on effort to not get hurt or let things get damaged. That time is time that I can never get back. It comes from work time, family time, or leisure time.
Chronic Anger Punctuated by Tantrums
It’s not just tantrums that get me down, though they’re the most dramatic. It’s the days, weeks, and even months at a time that can pass without anything but negativity from him. There’s anger and rudeness. It’s not even that bad, except that there are no breaks. There can be months in which he doesn’t say or do one nice thing to me, from answering when I say good-night to acknowledging a plate of food in front of him (yes, I set the bar low).
Though the anger isn’t as painful as injuries, it’s still exhausting. It does get me down.
He says everything is going great at school; the first day was “the best day ever,” and he loves his teacher.
Home Behavior in Children: What’s Normal, What’s Not
If I tell other parents about my troubles, they first nod and say it’s normal; their children also have outbursts or attitudes. But if I get to specifics – say, throwing a chair against a wall, giving me a mild concussion last summer from a door incident, or a back injury from early July due to needing to get him out of my parents’ house, the tone of the conversation changes. It doesn’t sound normal anymore.
Something Needs to Change
8 year old tantrums at home may be okay, but violence and constant rudeness are not. I’ve hesitated to seek professional help so far because I don’t want to get my child labeled as a problem child. Also, I don’t want to interrupt his school trajectory – he’s doing great and loves school, and isn’t that supposed to be important?
I know my son has some degree of deliberate, conscious decision-making. He sometimes loses control during his older child tantrums, but he often does have the ability to stop if he hears about a reward. Between that and the fact that he acts right around other people, I know that he can control himself if he chooses.
But is it time to get help for child aggression? Why are older child tantrums happening? I’m at a loss. I don’t know how to help him without risking changing his angelic school behavior, but I can’t keep living in pain and fear.
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