Parenting question - I'm stuck

Right, I hate to admit defeat, but wife and I are defeated. We need some of the fabulous GC collective wisdom

As the regulars will know, we have two lads. One is 5, one is 8 months.

The 5 year old lad, CL1.1, has always been a good kid, but changed around the time I resigned from my last job, a month before the new lad, CL1.2 was born. He went a bit mad just after I quit my job, suddenly fearful of everything (I think I solved that, he secretly thought that when I said 'I'll just have to find a job somewhere else', he thought I meant I was going away). But, although he's no longer fearful of everything, he's become ignorant and naughty.

If we tell him no to anything, he simply ignores us and continues until we get wound up and shout at him. He ran off from school one day, requiring wife to actually chase him, and he is too rough when playing with CL1.2, and will often wake him when he's sleeping, or interrupt him being fed, despite the fact that he must realise by now that this is only going to result in CL1.2 kicking off and then pandemonium follows as wife and/or I have to try to calm down 1.2 while at the same time trying to stop 1.1 from tormenting him.

The thing is, I don't think he is simply naughty, as the outcome is always that CL1.1 looks depressed (and a 5 year old kid should, in my opinion, never look depressed), so he's not getting any enjoyment out of being naughty.

I briefly considered that ADHD thing or hyperactivity disorder, but I think we can rule that out because when he puts his mind to something, he'll stick at it with a surprising degree of focus and patience for a kid of his age.

So, any ideas? I don't think 'discipline' is the answer, as he's not misbehaving for some form of gratification. Its actually more like he is lost. Its not lack of attention from us, as we make sure he gets loads of attention all the time and is actively encouraged and supported in having harmless fun. Sibling rivalry crossed my mind, but CL1.2 doesn't even have to be present for him to misbehave and be ignorant.

 

From the age of 5 to around 7, boys tend to want to push the limits, test the waters so to speak and see what they can get away with, so some "constructive" discipline may be required to set the boundaries now.

Another contributing factor may well be that he resents the younger sibling simply because he no longer has 100% of mom and dads attention.
Even though you still give him loads of attention and encouragement, he may still feel left out, kids look at the world very differently to us.
Why not involve him in taking care of the little one by getting him to help out at feeding times, bath time, changing clothes and so on?
It will give him a sense of responsibility and make him feel more like the big brother.

 

I agree with what Dave has said. There's also the possibility that something may have changed at school. Even at his age, has he recently got mixed up with another child that has shall we say, bad habits. Or perhaps another child is making his life a misery and he's taking it out on your family.

To me, having reared three of my own and now grandmother to an 8 and 3 year old, I believe your lad is at an age where he's thinking more independently and testing the ground to see what he can get away with. Of course it is just another stage of growing up, but being naughty has to be punished in whichever way you see fit. Like all of us as we've grown to adulthood we needed to be taught right from wrong. On the other hand when he is in a better frame of mind try taking him off somewhere quiet and asking him why he's being so awkward, in a subtle way if possible.

I don't think what your lad is going through now has anything to do with the changes you've made to your life Clueless. Children get over hurdles very quickly, forget about them and move on to the next one, it's part of their growing up and a nightmare for us parents! Believe me, my eldest is nearly 38 and I'm still parenting when any of my three hit a crisis, I'm also still learning!

 

That's an excellent point. So far we've been deliberately not getting him that involved, with us thinking that doing so would put the focus more on 1.2 and less on 1.1, but now you've sowed the seed of thought, you're right I think. I remember when I became big brother to my new little sister, with roughly the same age gap, and how proud I was to be involved and help out. Maybe our efforts so far to not ask him to help, so as not to shift focus away from him, are backfiring and making him feel more excluded.

He absolutely loves school. He doesn't seem to see it as 'school' in the way that most of us did, he sees it more as a sort of kiddy social club. Even when he's full of lurgy, he gets upset at the suggestion that he might not be able to go in that day. All the kids in his class get on like one big gang, and whenever one of them has a birthday party, they all attend.

The fact that I've quoted on these two points by the way doesn't mean I've only picked up on these two bits. All good advice and much appreciated.

It did cross my mind that he might just be developing his own attitude and 'finding himself' so to speak. My worry is not so much for how things are now, but for the longer term if I and wife fail to handle this correctly. The thing that scares me most of all is that my older sister went through all this, handled it totally badly (through no fault of her own, she too was learning on the job), and her now grown up lad is constantly in and out of jail.

 

@clueless1

Give it a try, just don't get discouraged if at first he shows no interest or rebels against it as it may take him sometime to overcome his anger/resentment.

Also, let him choose the "help activities" that he enjoys.

A very good way to get children to "tell" you what is upsetting them is to get them to draw.
Sit him down, play a few games with him then after a while say to him something like:
"Let's play a game where we draw things that we like and dislike".
You go first, make some simple drawings of something that you like then another that you dislike then show him and explain what they are.
Make it fun and lighthearted then ask him to have a go.

You will be surprised what kids can convey in their drawings.

 

You know when you're not even thinking about something and then someone or something happens or says something that makes the penny drop?

I now remember when I was little, there was a kid that joined our class, who was not from the UK (can't remember where he was from, and being 5 or 6 probably wouldn't have cared even if I had known). Whenever we were asked to draw pictures, he would always draw to the same theme. All his pictures depicted outright war. They always featured planes and tanks and the characteristic kiddy representation of gunfire, being dashed lines from the aircraft/tank. Makes me sad now thinking about it. I have no idea who will have been fighting at that time, but history tells us that there'll have been a war somewhere in the world at that time, so now I'm thinking either he was a refugee fleeing from it, or his dad was in it somewhere. He was only in our class for about one or two terms then I never saw him, or thought about him again since.

 

Terrible thing war, it's always the kids who get affected the most, very sad.

It's important to get kids to draw, not only does it improve their fine motor skills, gets their creativity going, but also let's them express themselves and thus helps them to get things off their chest as they can't yet express themselves too well verbally.

Keep an eye on his drawings, especially when he draws family members.
Look for things like who is present, which of the figures represents him, who is next to him, that kind of thing.
After a while you will get to know his drawings and any changes or deviations from the "norm" you will be able to detect.