Question
My youngest son is 9 years old. He has an older brother who is 11 years old. My 9 year has always had a temper/anger problem when things don't go his way. He reacts by having a tantrum. He has been in fights (yelling and physical) with neighborhood kids, been in the principals office for fights at school or disrespecting the teachers. He will burst out in full on tears and run away and cry at the top of his lungs and yell at anyone who dares ask what the matter is. He doesn't like when anyone is looking at him yet he is acting a fool by screaming and yelling and then draws the attention to himself. My husband and I have disciplined him by taking his iPod away for two weeks at a time, taking tv viewing away, going to bed early, not allowing him to attend special events, etc. Nothing seems to work with him. Whenever the period of punishment is up he seems to fall right back in the way of his behavior.
Just this morning, he was getting ready for school and is in a rough mood because he refuses to get ready in a timely fashion. He waits until his brother and I are having to tell him over twenty times to do things. He wanted to ride his bike to school today and asked his brother if they could ride their bikes and his brother said I can't because I have music and I can't ride carrying my trumpet. This upset him and he ran upstairs to slam his door only his door to his bedroom broke and is now off the hinges completely broken. Of course this is from years of him slamming his door. He immediately got under his covers and wouldn't come out saying over and over he isn't going to be grounded for something he didn't do. He said he didn't slam the door that he just tried to close the door. I didn't get into any punishment with him and said he would have to talk to his dad when he got home from work. I didn't want to have to deal with his complete meltdown before trying to get him to school.
In talking with my husband we are trying to figure out what the best punishment for him should be and have come up with him going to bed at 7:0pm every day for 30 consecutive days. His normal bed time is in bed at 8:00 and he can read for 20 minutes and lights out at 8:20pm. We also are going to make him go to work on Saturdays with my husband pulling weeds to earn money to fix the door that he broke.
Are we on track with this? Or should we be doing something different. He continues to be disrespectful to us and his teachers and peers and has anger issues such as throwing his baseball bat or slamming his head on the couch over and over if something goes wrong. When playing minecraft on his iPod if something doesn't go as planned he will throw or slam his phone and scream and yell. I want to get this addressed now before he gets completely out of control which I fear has already happened.
I am dreading even punishing him because he causes the family so much turmoil. We are at our wits end. Please advise. Thanks so much.
