My husband and I are at our witsend and don't know where to turn for advice and help. Our youngest son of 3 children who most of the time is loving, helpful and kind looses his temper for the silliest of things and lashes out at his brother and sister and is now doing the same to their friends when they visit the house.
He is well behaved at school, accept twice where he had got emotionally stressed with a situation and ran out of school - he hasn't hit anyone at school. The first time he ran out of the classroom to the toilets because the teacher was too busy to come to him when he had his hand up, and the second time he ran out of the school gates because of a disagreement with his friends over a game of football - now the school has to lock the gates in case he tries to escape again.
The thing that is really getting us down is how he just explodes and hits out at his sister and brother -everynight there is an upset and I now loose sleep worrying that he is going to seriously hurt someone. We have tried removing privledges and sending him to his room for time out and explain why we have done it, he always comes and says sorry. I don't know if it is early puberty or what and I don't/we don't know where to turn to for advice in helping him.
I don't believe in smacking because I have always thought this would encourage violence - so I can't understand why he just lashes out.
I say, don't take out privileges or do time out. Instead, try to understand why he is driven to aggression and help him. There is ALWAYS a valid reason for a child does. If you can find what it is, you can solve the problem.
So it is not about stopping him, but about listening to him and removing the CAUSE of his aggression.
The book, Raising Our Children, Raising Ourselves, can help you a lot with this. Also, you can take phone advice from the author by signing up on the site www.authenticparent.com
