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Why is my 10yr old so angry all the time?

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Read the whole thread... to catch up.

Very normal boy behaviour.. I had two and they're adults now. :wtf:

Not sure how to help him if he's not even going to try to settle himself down so we can have a discussion.
Not sure if this is even normal behaviour for his age. A boy thing?
I don't remember my older daughter acting this ... i dunno, dysregulated?.. ever!

^You've done the right thing. You're calm and trying to guide him to recalibrate. It's a skill that he will, eventually, get the hang of I hope.

Completely normal. Everything they think or feel is far more important than anything else. Till it isn't.

Daughters are completely different. Mature differently and at a different rate.

Try not to compare.

Anyone elses kids go through this nasty rage type of stage- where everything is urgent right now and the normal speaking tone seems to be snarky and volume is at screech level almost constantly?

^Yes. Mine did. Attitude like crap. And all of the rest. It's a phase.

and everything ive googled says 10 almost 11 is puberty age so... maybe hormones?

^Yes - and definitely a stage in development.

This kid is normally really caring and kind. the amount of empathy he has for people is crazy. i cant even kill spiders. he looks for healthy food to eat, has a ton of interests, plays team sports, has a bunch of buddies... no best friend though, which is apparently a "thing"

^Mine were the same. Or the best friend periodically got tossed for another best friend.... and then there were too many and then they were lonely. ...shrug... roll with the punches bc everything was different. I woke up to different attitudes and priorities from them every day.

just wtf do i do with/for him in the meantime?

^Stay grounded. Stay calm. All of what @Friday said. You cannot reason with a lot of their stuff. So keep your own counsel. It's okay to be confused bc they are too. A lot of what they say and do is actually confusing.

will try and remember this is a phase and he'll get over it fast each time...

^Yes. It will seem agonising for a while. But hang in there and try not to take his erratic child like behaviour to heart.

I don't want to hear you say you're a bad Dad anymore. A bad Dad wouldn't even care to try to figure it out. Let alone ask people for ideas or read a parenting book. You are a great Dad.

^ Yes!! This. He's very lucky he has a dad that is listening and caring and noticing.

You will come through this Innordinate and he will grow up so fast from here on it. Don't blink. He's looking to you to be his rock. The man and he will echo and mirror much of what you say and do. But he will also be entirely different too! Does that make sense? lol.... It will be okay. One day at a time. Hugs are still important.
 
My son has adhd, but also I think more the inattentive type
frik yeh, mine too... in the process of getting an official dx but his stuff pretty much matches up with my adhd crap

So, we talked and talked and talked about seeing things from the other person's perspective, or a third person's perspective looking at the situation like how would a good friend react in the same situation, or what if you were the parent, etc.
Gonna try and remember this. we (ex and I) use to read the bucket filling book to them all the time.
about how being nice fills others buckets, which fills your buckets, but being mean empties buckets, which empties your own... but its been awhile and he's kind of outgrown magical bucket thinking.

and ill check out those books...


He had a little mini melt down today. i told him i would discuss it with him when he was able to talk nicer and calmed down.... then i went out and had a smoke to calm myself down and he came outside and said he was ready to discuss stuff.

then he cried for about 15 minutes about his great grandma dying a couple years ago.... then explained how he keeps his anger behind a door in his head but has to turn the keyhole so some leaks out on purpose and how he's fighting with another part of himself and stuffs all his anger into his heart....

:eek: wtaf?

anyways... so we talked about anger is a feeling and ways to let anger out without hurting others and ourselves...

then he explained that yugioh makes his life happy and so does some tech so we made a deal that if he gets things he 'needs' done he can choose whatever he wants to do afterwards if theres time before bed, or sports etc.
limited to his already decided upon hour of computer games and only one show one night during school nights and its rules only for my house.
told him id run it by his mom but her rules are hers and might be different than mine....

he agreed. i wrote out expected tasks he may/may not 'need' to complete... so i remember and have a reference to show him stuff...
put some stuff in there that he acknowledges its a big responsibility he's being trusted with because he's working hard at being respectful

i dunno... we'll see how this works.
 
he agreed. i wrote out expected tasks he may/may not 'need' to complete... so i remember and have a reference to show him stuff...
put some stuff in there that he acknowledges its a big responsibility he's being trusted with because he's working hard at being respectful i dunno... we'll see how this works.

^Really, very pleased you were able to walk away and he felt loved enough to go to you and talk about himself. That's awesome good stuff happening right there @Innoridate. Talking about emotions are good for you both and gives you insights into how he's dealing with things.

^Yes, I wrote tasks for my sons or lists for stuff that had to be done by 'someone' and bonus privileges to whomever did it. I encouraged doing stuff together to get the dam tasks done and it was amazing some of the topics of conversations that would happen when doing things together. Good opportunities for checking out what's going on at school etc

^It's all so fluid and yeah you do have to see what works and what doesn't.

Just because something doesn't work for you and your son, try not to despair... lots of things don't work but perhaps it's a combination of trying all of those things or finally hitting on something that does work well or maybe he passes through that phase and you don't have to worry too much about specific behaviours anymore. ie they grow up and out of it.

Before you know... well I knew.... I was flabbergasted by their latest thing.

but i do think i cause it, or messed him up.

^No. I don't believe that is true. I mean all parents mess up all of their kids, me too. That's true simply because children are the product of their parents and nobody is perfect..

I mean I'm excluding the seriously messed up kids out. Your boy isn't in that category.

But whilst they, our children, might be a messed up bit here and there...that we can see in our children if we are honest.. it all does seem to balance out and, amazingly, along with all of their other life experiences they, in the majority, turn out really well.

This forum is not the place to look for well balanced adults generally... :sorry: But, evenso those that are parents here are kind, loving and doing their best most days to care for their children. That's all that your boy needs - you to care.... and that means hugs and discipline too..

Children are amazingly resilient and robust. Thanks to mother nature! So even if you consider you have been not the best dad - you are quite sufficient for your son. He will be fine and in not very long from now you will see exactly what I mean.
 
I have two sons, one ADHD and ADD. Your son is at the age where crazy hormones come along and play with the inner chemistry and hormones. My sons are sensitive boys and held a lot of emotions in.
So if you add that to ADHD and being over simulated BAM!!!!
One thing that did help was having an emotional chart. It’s a picture chart with the emotions connected to it.
So they could see and identify the emotion and the words would tell them what there feeling. Sometimes it can be more then one emotion at a time. Once you identified the emotion you can talk about it and come up with one or two way to process and deal with the emotion. My sons also have dysgraphia , which is a ADHD Trait and can be very frustrating for them. Don’t know if this helped, just wanted to share.

I also wanted to say, don’t be afraid to share some of your struggle in an age appropriate way. I have always shared my ADHD ( dysgraphia ) and dyslexia bit by bit with my kids as they grow. I alway kept the door open if they need to talk about their struggles. I didn’t have that as a kid and carried a lot of fear and shame. I feel by doing that you embrace it with strength and acceptance. I understand the feelings of pasting on a learning disability it sucks. But it has made me who I am today. It’s also made my children who they are today, fighters, winners with no shame.
 
So after a long lull of seemingly semi normal kid behaviour and emotional control....

my, now 11 year old son, held a knife against his throat this evening and threatened to kill himself.

he was mad because he was in trouble for being cruel to his sister. he screamed a long line of profanities at me when i sent him to his room and he walked out of the house, walked into his grandparents space, came out to where id gone to have a smoke and held a big f*cking sharp knife to his throat!!!!

i'm failing this kid.
i dont know how to teach him how to cope with his emotions.
i dont know how to get him to understand that being mean to his sister and forcing her to do what he wants her to is wrong.

he was suppose to bring up the garbage can from the end of the drive, his sister was taking a bag of garbage out, decided to walk down with him and he grabbed the garbage can and wouldnt let her put the garbage in, making her walk all the way back with the bag of garbage too. he did it because he knew she would put the garbage in and then run up and leave him on his own to bring up the garbage can.

trying to get him to see that he cant force his sister to do what he wants, that he could have asked (she would have left him anyway) and that if she chose not to stay and walk with him anyways is not something he can control- nor can he force her!
he cant see that at least he got to have company on the way down the road

and his reaction is to kill himself !?!?!

i dont know how to help him.
 
@Innordinate - getting a knife and holding it to ones own throat is quite dramatic but it's not really trying to kill himself. I mean I get where you're coming from... he shouldn't have got the knife & held it to his own throat. What do you think he was trying to tell you? I'm thinking it wasn't that he's truly going to kill himself.

More likely, he's probably incredibly frustrated with himself and more than likely trying to take the emphasis away from the garbage drama to what he 'might' do to himself.

I think - staying calm is key here. Not sure how such a trifling garbage can issue has blown up so loudly that you even knew about it?

Let it go and don't buy into these transactions btwn your daughter and son. Not unless it gets truly out of hand and neither of them are managing the situation. It seems that they worked it out?

If you intervene every time he learns a lesson the hard way then the lesson is lost. He will try to make his sister do stuff to his liking... all kids do this to their siblings at some point. Eventually they wise up and get sick of it.

In this circumstance it's less about what you do and more about what you don't do. I know you want to react but hold on and wait till everything is calm and tell him that knives are for cutting food and are not to be used for dramatic effect. Talk to him how frustration leads to stupid things happening but not about the great garbage can battle bc neither of them used much sense working that one out imo.
 
I agree with what @blackemerald1 has said.

The situation itself sounds kinda bizarre. Not the kind of situation that warrants that reaction.

I'd be more concerned that it's a) an expression of underlying issues and b) a quite impulsive, random expression of those issues. No doubt in part just due to teenage hormones going bonkers. We were all nuts when hormones were adjusting at that time. It really takes a toll on the brain.

My immediate thought is also that I hope he doesn't learn that this behaviour has great dramatic effect and is a way of getting people to listen to you.

Yes, the underlying issues should be addressed.

But at the same time, I think it's important to be careful about how we reinforce/ encourage ppl's suicide "gestures" (cos it was only a gesture).

I can see a situation where a kid goes "Oh, that worked well" and repeats it constantly, even escalating it.
 
i dont know how to teach him how to cope with his emotions.
This. Because, you're not failing as a dad if you acknowledge the parts of fatherhood you need help with.

You have a mental illness, he has a mental illness - it's totally reasonable to get an injection of assistance with this. You don't need to white knuckle it and prove you can do it all by yourself, right?

While I agree that freaking out isn't gonna help, I'm not sure about the advice been given. I don't have kids, but it seems to me if your son is trying to tell you that 2020 has become more than he can take, emotionally? That's a pretty clear way of telling you.

Maybe it was just dramatics. But, it was still incredibly dangerous. You don't want to put him in the situation where he needs to keep upping the ante to get your attention. You can't really afford for him to try something even more dramatic at this point.

Doesn't mean giving him what he wants. But asking for professional help? Seems pretty smart. 2020 is wrecking the best of us. Get as much help for the 2 of you as you possibly can - how far does it have to get before you're like, "okay, more help is probably needed now"...??
 
if your son is trying to tell you that 2020 has become more than he can take, emotionally? That's a pretty clear way of telling you.

^That's a lot to read from a dispute with his sister over a garbage can!!

Siblings fight, say and do dumb stuff to each other and the absolute last thing a switched on parent does is step in when they're sorting it out themselves. As a parent, if you do that, you'll not have time to do anything else and honestly kids and their gripes have no boundary.

So picking your battles, as a parent, is really important.

You don't want to put him in the situation where he needs to keep upping the ante to get your attention.

Innordiate isn't 'putting his son' in any situation. Innordiate isn't the problem, mental illness or otherwise. This child doesn't have a mental illness that manifests itself in that manner.

Getting attention comes in lots of flavours and colours. It's not always about running to somebody 'professional' to 'talk it through'.

First it's about waiting till the child is calm and talking with him about options to demonstrate displeasure and frustration. That is appropriate attention. Obviously if innordinates son divulges information which is beyond a parents scope - yes - professional help is something to be considered. But imo it's not the first step - it's the absolute last.

You can't really afford for him to try something even more dramatic at this point.

^That's why discussing behaviour is important. However, parenting with fear is not a great option and rarely leads to positive outcomes.

Like I suggested, this probably isn't so much about the garbage or it might have been idk... But whatever, holding a parent hostage with putting a big knife to his own throat and responding with professional help... ugh... nope.
 
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