son in tears this morning

emsywoo123

DD is 8 and she is *seriously* emotional at the moment.

It is hard work. I never dreamed we'd be at this point now, but we are, and we must plough on. I have to really think about every word I say to her (particularly mornings) as honestly, she is draining me!!

julie8314dave

sorry to McKneff if it upsets you, i can assure you it hurts me more, i do not need to be made to feel worse by your comment, i suppose we cant all be perfect all the time, thanks to everybody else for your encouragement xx

shop-to-drop

I have three boys. Pretty much all like that on and off (mostly on!) so it's pretty normal. They are worse though when they are later to bed. What's his bedtime?

Savvy_Sue

If this doesn't happen every morning, I wouldn't worry about it, although I would get him to apologise to his sister, and I'd apologise to him for losing it, but explain WHY I lost it! DS3 - much older now - is like this, and I asked him what I was supposed to do: if I asked him to do something once, he'd ignore me, and if I asked more than once I was 'nagging'. He said that was about it, and I couldn't win. :mad:

the other thing is to let things ride: he hasn't had his breakfast? OK, that's fine, go to school hungry. Bag not packed? OK, go without, see what happens when you don't have your PE kit / book bag / homework. Teeth not cleaned? OK, not ideal, but they won't fall out this once. The only thing I feel can't be left is the cat, but if I had to do it I'd make sure son knew how unfair it was TO THE CAT, sometimes they care more about pets than us, don't they?

But then I'm the one who took her son to school in his pyjamas one day, and with no trousers on the next. He learned, after that ... :rotfl:

SingleSue

My youngest is like a bear with a sore head every school day morning, it is not lack of sleep (although he can sleep for England when he is inclined to) but the fact he does not like school....they 'force' him (his words), to talk to people when he would much rather be in a room on his own with no interaction with others at all (he is complex autistic)

Think I am going to have to take extra advice soon as his socialisation is becoming more of a problem of late and my previous strategies are no longer working very well, he just wants to be on his own.

Edit - I have to raise my voice a little as middle son is partially deaf and can't hear me otherwise through the fog of sleep...goodness knows what the neighbours think!

julie8314dave

My son is in bed at 8.30 pm every night, with a story, ten min chat about his day, eats healthy, drinks plenty, lots of freinds, gets up at 7.30 am on his own. as is a very happy chappie but it drives me mad in the morning,

we have everything ready the night before, but then he just walks out without his coat , bag, lunchbox. tried not saying anything about the morning things to do and nothing gets done, he wants to do things in his own time which means we would be leaving for school at 10.30 am in the morning. xx

BJV

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 thought it was just me. Happy, healthy and close family . But my nine year old son is just the same. I rack my brain all the time thinking what we are doing wrong. It must be something we are doing some subliminal message we are sending out. Nothing seams to work. The only difference is for him it is bed time.

He is a strong healthy little boy and can get a little well lets call it nasty. As soon as he has gone to bed under a cloud he seems to reflect on what he has done then comes back down to say sorry.

I am actually really pleased that you have posted this as it is at least a little comforting to know we are not alone. I think I have just come to the conclusion that it is fingers crossed a phase that he will grow out of.

samsil

awww OP I feel sorry for you Ive got very frustrated and shouted at my 5 year old one morning and I felt terrible afterwards I know you feel like you want to rewind the clock. probably not great parenting advice from me...BUT what works for us is I tell him if he has cereal, gets dressed, brushes teeth when asked, we will be ahead of schedule and he will be allowed 10 mins on his nintendo DS (only when in school uniform, shoes on right feet, ready to go)...it has the bonus of making the last ten minutes calm while I get the baby in her buggy HTH

milliemonster

You know, i have a 9yr old boy and a 13yr old girl and to me this is perfectly normal behaviour, i don't think kids on the whole have any concept of time as we do and just don't develop the same organisational skills at that kind of age. I do think you are maybe expecting a little too much from him (which is not a criticism of you by the way!, I have been there!!!)

Personally I think you should try to relax a little and not expect too much, I send my boy to bed at 8.30 every night but even without his PSP etc he still is awake even when I go to bed at 11! so I have a horrendous job getting him up in the morning, but my priority really is just to get him up, washed dressed and ready for school with breakfast if he feels like it (he doesn't always and I don't stress about it if he doesn't want any), sometimes we do this with minutes to spare, but then I look at my husband who is 46 and still completely disorganised in a morning, it may just be his personality!

You're not a bad parent at all, I have had plenty of mornings where i must have had steam coming out of my ears, but I have learned the hard way about things I should get angry with my kids about and which things I should just try to relax over, and this is one of them

tyllwyd

I think all parents will have had times when its all too much and we've shouted in a way that with hindsight we are not proud of.

When I've found myself doing it, I've tried to take a step back and recognise that there is a bad atmosphere, and my bad temper is feeding into it and making it worse, so the first thing is to try to chill out more myself and stop shouting. Then try to work out what the problem is in the morning. Would it help to get everyone up half an hour earlier to make more time?

I'd sit down with him this afternoon when you are both calm, apologise for shouting but explain that he needs to do his part to make mornings work better as well, and ask him what he thinks you both could do to make the routine easier.