helping my 8 year old manage his temper

[JAGK]

Hi I am looking for any advice/literature that can help me to help my son manage his own temper.
We have recently been on a course advised by a parent support charity called 123 magic. this is a mixture of rewaerds and consiquences, with the rewards resulting in earned poket money at the end of the week. Are there any alternative methods I could try.
We like Steve biddulph approach but this does not seem to be helping my son now as heis unable to sit and think/reflect on his behaviour.

My son will engeneer any arguement and gets into loud agrressive power struggles with us.
Today he did not want to wear shorts on a hot day, ok you wear truosers but you will get hot. He couldn't find a vest, when he did it was the wrong colour, he then said he did not want to get dressed at this point I said i would be downstairs getting myself ready to leave and it would be hisresponsibility to to his teaher why he was late . he came downstairs and tried to put his catterpillars into a net butterfly house too soon. I explained if he did this he could kill them and they would not turn into butterflies. He then shook the container and shouted that he wanted them to stay catterpillars and not turn to butterflies. I ingnored this and went out to hangout washing he physically tried to stop me then followd me into the garden screaming that he wanted me to come upstairs to get him dressed, I refused and said if he brought his clothes downstairs i would help him.his temper and anger continued for a while then finaly he came down with clothes we got him dressed together then he cried and said how sorry he was .

It has been suggested that he may have some traits of Aspergers but we do not want to have an assessment to label him.but we want to find a positive strategy to help him.Mabe the eward / consiquences is he riht way for his difficulties i don't know, it just doesn't sit well with me at the moment. Any advice links /literature would be truely appreciated.

[Greenmama2AJ]

I think that rewards and consequences for anger management might be a little tough for your young guy to manage. Anger is an emotion - its reactive. Its hard for adults to think about consequences - even trickier for kids and teenagers.

I like some of the Aware parenting techniques when dealing with anger and tantrums. It acknowledges the childs frustration at the moment, but provides the child with skills to deal with their disappointment and anger in the future.

If he is demonstrating aspects of Aspergers he may benefit from the strategies in "Raising your Spirited Child" by Mary Sheedy Kurcinka. Both DH and I loved this book. Its all about removing labels from kids and embracing their unique traits. It gives some great techniques for the sensitive and resistant-to-change child.

Hope that helps a little

[Greenmama2AJ]

Here's the link to Mary's website.
This link goes directly to her book on power struggles. I love her stuff.

[JAK]

I wouldn't do rewards/consequences for anger or emotions. If he's showing ASD traits I would read up about it to gain more understanding of it and how that affects your son, that doesn't mean diagnosis either. One thing that is common in ASD is rigidity in thinking - therefore he might decide to wear a particular outfit (regardless of weather or its suitability) and have great difficulty in changing that idea. Resistance from an adult will often mean a loss of emotional control for the child. This rigidity in thinking tends to help the child organise their life, without it it seems chaotic and with little meaning.

Master 9 is autistic and I deal with ALOT of emotional outbursts. It's been a long battle to help him learn other techniques to deal with frustration and anger, but he's very slowly getting there. For things at home, he has many charts which outline what to do (these are his organisers and work much better than me telling him what to do). For inappropriate clothes choices, you can use things like charts for seasonal clothes, outing clothes etc or just let him deal with the consequences of wearing warm clothes on a hot day.

For emotions, we've done alot of work on recognising each emotion - both on his and other peoples faces and internal symptoms (eg. when you're angry you tense up your face/clench your fists etc). This was done before really giving any strategies for dealing with anger/frustration. Then ds has a few 'anger tools' that he uses, consistent across all situations. He has for the playground - walk away, find a teacher, go to the principals office. He also has calming toys (squishy balls), photo album of current obsession, keyring with picures on it and a special book. He uses these to stop him from having the outbursts, but they are always followed up with discussions on what the problem was and solutions to that problem.

One thing is that the emotions overwhelm them, paralyse them so that they can't actually think through the issue. That's why learning to calm down first is so important. It has been stressed to me to not engage in the outburst, which can be a challenge in itself. Emotions is a really hard area I have found.

The book 'Raising your Spirited Child' is excellent.

[Bronnie]

it could be food related - have you heard of failsafe? www.fedup.com.au

[Susan]

I am currently reading The Explosive Child by Ross W. Greene and finding it very useful in understanding my seven year old. I too love the Aware Parenting strategies but have found that there is something missing when trying to address my son's constant explosions and absolutely inflexibility. For me, strategies of reward and punishment don't work and I think there needs to be a recognition of the need to release feelings and support and acknowledge our children in this process. I also think there needs to be another step of teaching the skills and strategies to help our children cope with these huge emotions.

This book advocates a collaborative problem solving process in which the needs and experiences of both parents / carer and child are acknowledged and worked with. It helps with anticipating situations in which my child is most likely to explode and aims to develop healthy problem solving skills.

My son has an extraordinary creative and intellectual capacity however lacks the emotional skills to sustain his endeavours. Enormous frustration results. Depending on my ability to hold these outbursts can lead to some major outburst. I find these extremely depleting and totally disruptive to family life.

One thing is that the emotions overwhelm them, paralyse them so that they can't actually think through the issue. That's why learning to calm down first is so important. It has been stressed to me to not engage in the outburst, which can be a challenge in itself.

I agree JAK. When I watch my son, it is almost like his brain "switches off" and the emotion just overwhelms him. He has loads of regret after an event but seems unable to hold these strong emotions at the time.

Thanks for asking this question. I too would enjoy some further discussion on this topic.

[sallyn]

I second the idea of reading up on aspergers and autism. You dont need to label him, but if it is caused by something like this early intervention can help a lot.

I also believe strongly that diet has a lot to do with childrens behaviour problems. This may not be the case with your child, but check out information on preservatives and colours and remove all preservatives and artificaial colours from your childs diet, make sure he is eating a well balanced diet.