I’d like some advice on this in a general sense, and also advice on a response to a particular incident.
In a general sense, my son is a kind, sweet boy who can go from normality to rage in nothing flat. Usually it happens with his sister, of course, but he also gets frustrated easily. It could be homework, or a button that won’t button, any little thing, and suddenly he is gritting his teeth or screaming or hitting. I don’t like it, but it also seems kind of normal. When we were kids, my brother was the same way, and I’ve always assumed it was just the way boys are. (When I type that, it looks pretty stupid. Sorry.)
The particular incident is that my son kicked another kid in the balls at school yesterday afternoon. I just got a call from his teacher telling me about it and informing me that [del]my son[/del] Paul will not be allowed to go on the upcoming field trip. According to the teacher, Paul shared his password to a kid’s chatroom with another boy, who did something causing them to be banned. Paul said nothing about this to me yesterday, but should be bringing home his referral slip this afternoon.
My impulse is to take away video games and computer privileges for a while, although that really has little connection to the actual problem. I’m open to better ideas.
My son had somewhat similar issues when he was younger; he never hurt anyone, but as soon as he was forced to socialize with other kids in school (around 4-5 years old) he would have episodic meltdowns which involved shoving other children and ranting to himself.
Oh, did we get an EARFUL from his zero-tolerance school. I’m still bitter about the school counseling service/administration, neither of which seemed to help our son much, but both of which managed to make me feel like a terrible parent of a freakish kid.
Anyway, jumping forward to 3rd grade, our son is now totally fine. Sometimes, not always, he seems a bit immature when he doesn’t get his way – but his behavior is certainly within normal range.
If your son is between KG and 2nd grade, let me know and I can explain what the factors may be behind our son’s improvement. But if your son is older, I’m not sure our experience is relevant. You have all my sympathy, whatever your son’s age is, however. It ain’t easy being a parent.
Depending on his age and ability to understand abstraction, helping him to understand his emotions intellectually might help (emotional IQ stuff.)
I was very prone to rage as a kid, and it was only after my father sat me down (probably while I was acting like a tasmanian devil on PCP) and gave me the “your feelings are important, but they aren’t THE TRUTH” speech that I stopped acting out all the time.
Once I understood that my *feeling * angry <> someone else deserving having me *act * angry at them, I was on my way to zen-like serenity.
He does take a “Self-Defense” class after school once a week. It’s held at the school, but it’s run by the people from the karate place. Why would karate help?
Also, something of possible relevance: When Paul was seven, he witnessed his father attacking me. Very ugly scene, police came, Dad tasered, yada yada. Both kids had some counseling that summer. Paul now only sees his dad for a couple of hours a week under supervision, but seems to think he’s a great guy. I’m always worried about what effect that whole mess has had on the kid.
The martial arts suggestion is excellent and one of the things that has helped our son (I can’t speak to the particulars of karate, but the philosophy of taekwondo is very suitable as it stresses self-discipline and self-control). I would, however, try hard to find a class with a really good instructor that your son can look up to, and once a week doesn’t seem like enough exposure to me (our son gets two 2-hour classes per week). CairoSon worships his instructor and in fact asking him “what would Captain M. say if he knew you did that?” is an excellent means of developing our son’s insight and understanding about right and wrong.
A psychologist can be great or horrible. You might want to have an evaluation done before committing to therapy. The drawback is that he could be labeled as a result – this is potentially good if you want him to receive services; bad if you are afraid the label will follow him around and have an affect on the way future teachers/schools view him.
If he does end up in therapy, you need to be sure you find someone who works successfully with you as a parent and anyone from the school who becomes involved.
If done properly, it gives the kid some discipline (not that you can’t give it to him - this is just different) and at the same time offers him a way to channel that anger into an activity and it provides for goals (belts). Other sports can sort of do this but something like baseball isn’t year-round and it doesn’t give you the same sense of self-accomplishment that martial arts does.
I go to a school where 90% of the students are kids. Half of those kids are little hellions and total pains in the ass. The instructor has sort of lost interest in discipline (he says it’s because parents get mad when you discipline their kids these days) and the kids aren’t really “shaping up.” This is not the type of school I would suggest for your kid. I am guessing the “self defense” class is similar to this.
You would have to shop around, but you can find a school that can teach him how to respect others, stand still and be quiet, take direction, give him direct punishment for bad behavior (push ups or something else - it’s never going to be anything horrible), and teach him humility (such as not crying when you do something wrong in front of the class). At the same time it can give him exercise, let him channel his energy in to his work (even something as simple as a kata, which is pretty much a cool-looking dance, takes a lot of energy), teach him concentration, give him a sense of accomplishment and flat out teach him that hitting is wrong.
Also, if it’s a good school with good students, he will be exposed to a group of disciplined kids who won’t take any of his crap. His instructors won’t take any of his crap. And hopefully it’ll be something he’ll enjoy.
I used to ‘fly into incomprehensible rages’ when I was about that age.
The thing is, they were completely sensible to me. I was, and to a degree still am, the type that nothing seemed to bother me but then, over some little thing, I would blow up. I would take something of mine and break it up with a hammer. Or I would suddenly throw down with some kid at school over an insult. Actually it would be the 1000th time I heard that insult and this time, instead of ‘just ignoring them’ I would break their nose. In short, it was a straw that broke the camel’s back that set me off but nobody seemed to notice or care about the huge load I already had.
I wish, someone had taught me how to deal with stress on the small scale. Maybe Karate does that. I don’t know.
A good martial arts class (as opposed to a mediocre or bad one) will spend a lot of time explaining how to avoid confrontation, and then train you in how to, as a last resort, make confrontation minimal and fast (and relatively safe).
Call it “zen”, call it “centeredness”, call it “concentration”, whatever - a good martial arts class took my son from a cryer (tears of frustration, mostly) to a calm cool and collected young man. I was especially pleased at one lecture during a Kids II class about WHY the “Ready stance” is best done with open hands, not closed fists, and why that’s so important - because closed fists means you’re not open to things ending peacefully. Closed fists means you’ve decided on physical action. Open hands indicates (through unconscious body language) that you’re still “open” to the possibility of peaceful resolution. It’s saying, “Woah, take it easy”, not “Oh yeah? Come and get it!” Try it and see how it feels each way - he was totally right. And this came as an impromptu speech from an 18 year old instructor. There were lots of little bits of wisdom like that which made probably more of an impact than learning to punch or kick.
Often cryers and aggressive kids have one thing in common - they’re anxious. Helping him increase both his verbal skills, to ease his communication frustrations AND teaching him how to use his body, so he’s not physically intimidated*, can help lessen that anxiety.
I’d be very surprised if he worked out all his feelings over that forever in a summer. I think some more current counseling, especially if you can find a cognitive behaviorist in your area, would be very helpful.
*Most often it’s the little scared guy who swings first. The confident guy will wait, knowing that he doesn’t need to start anything, and he’s totally capable of finishing it if the other guy starts.
Well, I talked to Paul on the phone this afternoon. According to him, he was just standing next to the kid who got kicked in the nuts. No one saw who did the actual kicking, so they just blamed it on him.
I had expected that Paul would have his own side of this tale to tell, but the sheer inventiveness of the Invisible Foot just overwhelmed me. I had to cut the phone call short so I could try to get the giggles out of my system before I go home and speak sternly.
I second this. My professor has a son in 5th grade who has a very bad temper. He put him in a karate class to teach him discipline (pretty much) and it has worked wonders from what I know.
Karate class is probably a very good idea. I think most people outgrow their childish temper tantrums and learn to control their tempers as an adult, but it wouldn’t hurt to have him in an environment where he can start learning these skills already. He needs to extrapolate the consequences to him when he loses his temper to other people and other situations, which is part of kids getting older and realizing that there’s a whole world of other people with feelings out there. He wouldn’t want a kick in the nuts; he needs to figure out that his friend didn’t particularly like it, either.
