son in tears this morning

julie8314dave

Hi

pLEASE BE KIND TO ME, and please do not judge me as a bad parent.

This morning my son of 9 years old left for school in tears, i had enough of telling him, get up, eat your breakfast, brush your teeth, is your bag ready, etc etc. his one other job in the morning is to feed his cat. he was very rude to his adult sister also. i shouted and screamed at him like a woman possesed which i am not proud of.

But he does not seem to get it, he has to be told at least 20 times to do anything before he gets bawled out. we take stuff off him, stop him playing out, stop his freinds coming in, take away his lego, nintendo. we spend a lot of time with him and are generally a very happy close family. i do feel very sad now that this has come to this and probably will happen again, i would just like any views on this am i missing something, or do others have the same problem.

alwaysonthego_2

I have an eight year old dd who is slow in the morning. She has no chores though in a morning, all I expect her to do is get ready etc and remember her things she needs to take to school, perhaps getting him to do things at a weekend or after school so he isn't rushing. I think we can all get grumpy, as you did with your son, so as long as he is made to apologise, obviously if it is a long term thing then you need to tackle it. It just seems that you are focussing on negative reinforcement such as removing things, but have you thought about treating him for getting ready quickly which may offer him an incentive to improve rather than his behaviour escalating because he has nothing to look forward to.

delain

Yep, my 9 year old can be really nasty and shouty too. I do my best to ignore it TBH, like this morning when we were walking to school everything was my fault, I'm the reason she's unhappy, she's shouting at me because I'm stupid (:eek:) and then when I asked her why she said I don't care about her, then she called me a fat blob :mad: at which point I just switched off, ignored her and spoke to the other two. Within ten minutes, which was how long it took her to realise I wasn't going to be whinged at she was chatting away fairly normally.

She can be awful in the mornings, it's slowly getting better. She used to hide her school shoes because she wanted to wear her trainers, glad that stopped it was a nightmare!

She has sex ed next week, I am absolutely dreading it

TheConways

I was a bit like this as a kid. I remember my mother shouting and screaming at me if she was tired, harrassed and I didn't do as I was told. In truth, this wasn't malicious - I was just a bit scatty, didn't always clean up my toys, left my shoes in the "wrong" place. We lived in a small house, and there was never enough room for everything to go. I hated it when she shouted at me - she is very impatient (still is! I'm the opposite.)

I think we all make routines a lot more stressful than they need to be. Is your son clear on the expectations you have of him? Is he generally a good kid?

Take him to the park, away from the house with you. Have a mother-son chat. Explain that mornings are tough for you because of all the things that need to get done before you get out of the door. Ask him for one thing he would change to make it easier for everyone - he might surprise you with his wisdom.

You could maybe improve the situation by having a bedtime routine that involves laying the breakfast table, and ensuring everyone has a packed bag for school with all the things needed for the next day in it so there is no scrambling in the morning.

julie8314dave

yes i have done star charts, rewards, stopwatches, a special game to play together. letting him stay up an extra half an hour. we always tell him we love him so much but do not like his behaviour, but it is water of a ducks back with him.

warehouse

I have a 10 year old Daughter. When she hasn't had enough sleep she is exactly like this, when she HAS had enough sleep she is a little angel.

I bet he's hard work to get to bed at night. Try a few earlier nights and make sure he doesn't go to bed with the DS.

Otherwise we've all been there OP, don't fret about it.

delain

Also, from next week we have agreed to give THIS a go with all 3 of mine and see if it helps with the morning chaos. I know my 8 year olds are keen to try it, they love anything they can get stickers on!

HeadAboveWater

You're not a bad parent. You're just stressed to the hilt! :P

I agree with alwaysonthego. Instead of banning stuff when things aren't done, reward/praise him for when they are. Doesn't have to cost money. A hug, a big cheery 'thank you' or 'well done', extra 10 mins play time before bed...
Or make it like a game. Say there's 5 things he needs to do before school - wash, dress, tidy room, feed cat, etc, a wee incentive for remembering (and doing) all 5 without prompting

And YOU gotta chill a bit more He's 9, so there will be instructions needed, probably more often than not. But when you accept that things either won't be done first time or won't be done right, it does actually make it much easier!!

gingin_2

julie8314dave wrote: »

Hi

pLEASE BE KIND TO ME, and please do not judge me as a bad parent.

This morning my son of 9 years old left for school in tears, i had enough of telling him, get up, eat your breakfast, brush your teeth, is your bag ready, etc etc. his one other job in the morning is to feed his cat. he was very rude to his adult sister also. i shouted and screamed at him like a woman possesed which i am not proud of.

But he does not seem to get it, he has to be told at least 20 times to do anything before he gets bawled out. we take stuff off him, stop him playing out, stop his freinds coming in, take away his lego, nintendo. we spend a lot of time with him and are generally a very happy close family. i do feel very sad now that this has come to this and probably will happen again, i would just like any views on this am i missing something, or do others have the same problem.

I have a son aged 12 and a daughter aged 8 and the differences are huge. My son sounds like yours, he is disorganised, leaves everything until the last minute, or doesn't do it at all ( I think I wrote a post on it a while ago too). I think you will have a fair few mums telling you it's typical behaviour too.

It's obvious that you know that losing it with him is not good. I would have a calm heart to heart with him tonight, tell him you apologise for really losing your temper but that he must make more of an effort to get the things done that he needs to get done. He also needs to apologise to his sister for being rude.

Would it help if you wrote him a list of the things you expect him to do, so he can visualise them, rather than have to remember them? My children both also have an alarm clock and a set routine that at 8am it's upstairs to get ready for school and no distractions until that is done. I'd also go for the positive reward for getting it right, rather than the negative consequence for getting it wrong.

Good luck.

sassyblue

I can be like this is the morning, l just want to be left alone to wake up quietly. Is it possible to wake him up earlier and let him stew until he 'comes to'?

My five year old can be like it in the morning, it's like they're in a daydream isn't it, and there's never enough time in the mornings, it can be stressful.

Look at the positive, it's probably made him think and tomorrow will be better, only tomorrow mind you, you'll have to retrain him the next day.

You're not a bad mum because you lost your temper once or twice. X

fluffnutter

julie8314dave wrote: »

Hi

pLEASE BE KIND TO ME, and please do not judge me as a bad parent.

This morning my son of 9 years old left for school in tears, i had enough of telling him, get up, eat your breakfast, brush your teeth, is your bag ready, etc etc. his one other job in the morning is to feed his cat. he was very rude to his adult sister also. i shouted and screamed at him like a woman possesed which i am not proud of.

But he does not seem to get it, he has to be told at least 20 times to do anything before he gets bawled out. we take stuff off him, stop him playing out, stop his freinds coming in, take away his lego, nintendo. we spend a lot of time with him and are generally a very happy close family. i do feel very sad now that this has come to this and probably will happen again, i would just like any views on this am i missing something, or do others have the same problem.

Have you tried simply not cajoling him? It might get worse before it gets better, but I always think it's worth giving it a go. Just stop. Stop telling him to get up, stop telling him to eat his breakfast, stop telling him to brush his teeth. See what happens. He'll soon start sorting himself out if he gets into trouble for being late at school.

Sometimes these things just escalate. You nag, he ignores you, you nag even more, he ignores you even more, you end up shouting, he ends up in tears. Just break the cycle. It's about time he starting learning some responsibility for intrinsic reasons and not just because his mum's shouting at him.

And you're not a bad parent.